PreWarCar will have a very strong attendance in the section Well Preserved at the coming Concours d'Elegance Paleis Het Loo, but boy! this eighty year long untouched 1915 Packard Pace Car would have been a grand extra! Allen, if you have the time and money to fly in, the two of you are more than welcome!
Allen Strong reports:
A couple of years ago The AACA magazine did a feature about the 1915 Indy 500 Pace ( a Packard Six, Model 5-48) car owned and driven by Carl Graham Fisher, the builder and owner of the Indy 500 Speedway. This car was Carl's personal car which he used to pace several races. He was the person who solved the problem of pushing through the impenetrable smoke of 33 race cars at the starting line by doing a "rolling start" by using a pace car to bring cars up to speed, then pulling off to allow the race to begin. He was also the father and founder of the Lincoln Highway, America's first coast to coast rock highway. He also used this car to survey portions of this highway. This car had been hidden away and not run in at least 80 years by our reckoning. This past February we set about the project of awakening the car from it's long rest to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Indy 500. We were able to accomplish this and take it to Indy for the Pace Car Reunion on May 21st."
Be sure when you see this video (link is ok now) it is an absolute must(!) to stay with the video untill Allan Strong explaines the starting procedure of this amazing car! Plus some more footage if you got the taste of it.
