The 1930 Packard Phaeton was a stunner when it was brand-new and driven on Victoria roads. Today — 85 years later — the immaculately restored luxury automobile is even more of a standout.
Others agree. It recently returned from the Forest Grove Concours d’Elegance car show in Oregon, where it won the Senior Judges Award and Best in Class.
This story is about the car. But it is just as much about family and a boy who made his dream come true.
When owner Chris Yarrow’s children, Ayana, six, and Kaito, three, climb into their father’s pale-yellow and chocolate-brown car, they relive family history.
The children are sitting — with shoes off and no bouncing allowed — in the car purchased new by their great-grandfather, Norman Yarrow, for $10,000, a huge sum at the start of the Depression. He headed Yarrows Ltd. shipbuilders, purchased by his own father, Sir Alfred Yarrow, founder of the renowned Yarrows Shipbuilders on the River Clyde in Scotland.
Marine engineer Norman Yarrow bought the Model 740 with its Super-8 engine at Plimley Motors on Yates Street in Victoria, after initially getting a brush-off.
“The story goes simply that he went in and asked what this big Packard might get for fuel economy. The salesman looked at my grandfather like he was from Mars and said: ‘I’m sorry sir, if you have to ask that question, you can’t afford it,’ ” Chris Yarrow said.
Norman Yarrow was so annoyed, he did not return for a few days. “But he went back and the car was still there and then he purchased it.”
It remained in the family for seven years before being replaced with another Packard.
Chris Yarrow has many photographs featuring the Packard, including a photo of his mother at 10 years old in the car, and another with the family in front of the Oak Bay Beach Hotel.
A highlight came in 1939, when its then-owners allowed it to be used to carry King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during a visit to Victoria.
Chris Yarrow’s connection with cars started at birth. He said he was born on the front seat of a 1957 Lincoln en route to Royal Jubilee Hospital.
Later, the thought of the former family car chauffeuring the Royal couple captured his teenage imagination, setting him on a quest to find the vehicle. “It was the right time. I was into cars.”
Carrying a photograph of the King and Queen in the car, 14-year-old Yarrow went to see Murray Gammon, the father of two of his friends, in 1971. Gammon owned the Classic Car Museum, then in downtown Victoria.
Gammon “took one look at [the picture] and 20 seconds later, he came out with the guy’s name and phone number.”
Yarrow promptly telephoned Art Fulawka, who had purchased the Packard in the mid-1950s, taking it into classic car shows before putting it in storage. Fulawka lived in Port Coquitlam at the time, later moving to Pender Island.
“He knew what he had and kept it for years and years,” Yarrow said.
For the next 14 years, Yarrow visited the car twice a year. The family still had the original fitted luggage for the car, so he gave it to Fulawka and shared old photos.
Right away, Yarrow had offered to buy it if it were ever for sale. Even so, “I was never really sure that I was going to end up with the car.”
In 1985, the phone call came, asking if he wanted the car.
With help from family, Yarrow came up with the $70,000 needed.
“This was an old car that was mostly original. It needed complete restoration … I was lucky to acquire it back.”
He spent more than 20 years away from Victoria, running an airline in the Northwest Territories until he sold the business in 2010, while the car waited here, watched over by friend Michael May.
Restoration work started while he was in the North. The car’s original black leather interior and fenders have been changed to chocolate brown, to make it less formal.
When it comes to restoration, “I do a lot of it myself. I do a lot of tinkering,” Yarrow said. If he can’t find a part, he will have one made. “It’s totally doable and it is just a lovely car.”
After it was restored, he took the car to visit the Fulawka family and take everyone for a ride.
Yarrow, who has more than one vintage car, takes the Packard to shows on occasion. Friend Bhagwan Mayer supplied the trailer needed to transport the Packard to the Oregon show.
As for the car’s value, Yarrow pegs it at about $250,000.
“It has a huge amount of sentimental value to me, and of course, a lot of history. Provenance is very important for a car like that.”
In any case, he’s not planning to sell it.
The Packard is once again serving as a Yarrow family car.
“I drive it downtown. I drive it all over the place,” he said.
He’s hoping his children will grow up to love it as much as he does.
