Honored Collector

It’s a fair argument that the first luxury car ever produced was the car itself. In the earliest days, though, the wealthy who owned them probably did so more for the novelty, not the comfort. Bouncing along on a dusty, rutted 19th century road with an unforgiving suspension was more adventurous than elegant. Unless you could afford a Packard.

In 1906, Packard introduced the Model S—a 4-cylinder, 24-horsepower, brass-ordained beauty with black diamondtufted leather seats, a polished wood steering wheel, an innovative folding top to keep the rain away and even a windup clock on the ash dashboard. It was the car of kings. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller owned these gems, priced at $5,225, which is approximately $143,000 in today’s dollars. It was the car of heroes. Ticker tape showered Charles Lindbergh as he rode down Fifth Avenue seated high on the back of a ’27 Packard. And it was the car of presidents. The first chief executive to be chauffeured to his inauguration—Ohio’s own Warren G. Harding—took the trip down Pennsylvania Avenue in a 1920 Packard.

The company went on to produce the Packard Six, Twin Six, Twelve, and Super 8 before World War II stopped all auto production. By then, Packard was well-known as America’s luxury carmaker, and no one dreamed its days were numbered.

That’s not to slight the Duesenberg. The Roaring ’20s were good to the Duesy, which brought speed as well as luxury to its owners. The earliest Duesenbergs were winning auto races like the Indianapolis 500 and the French Grand Prix. They sported innovative brakes and handmade straight 8 engines. The Model A cost $6,500 while down the street, a Model T was going for $360.

By the late ’20s, the Duesy Model J debuted with a 236-horsepower engine that could top out at 119 miles per hour. Fast but not fast enough for Hollywood icons Clark Gable and Gary Cooper who ordered “special” 400 hp models. When Gable hit the gas, he was gone with the wind.

But the Depression was not kind to the high-end automobile market. Bankruptcy, either personal or business—and to some degree, a recognition that if you still “had it” you shouldn’t overtly “flaunt it”—cooled sales considerably.

Joining the Duesy in the luxury automotive graveyard was the beautiful Pierce Arrow, with its flowing lines, front fender headlights, and bold colors. Gone, too, was the Peerless, Cord, Franklin, and lightning-fast Stutz. But Cadillac and Lincoln survived—largely because their parents, General Motors and Ford, had the size and scope to weather the storm.

decades.

Rick Grant decides to drive his Maserati to work. He might return home in his ’35 Bugatti or his ’31 Cadillac. If it’s a warm spring day, maybe he’ll drive the MG. He has a lot of choices. More than 50 classic cars shine in Grant’s collection, housed in two large warehouses and his garage at home. And they’re all ready to go.

While American luxury cars went for the larger engines and big bold designs, Europe’s titans rode in wellengineered and more conservatively styled models. Mercedes, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Porsche, BMW—cars that screamed money in Edwardian England and Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany— only began to meaningfully penetrate the U.S. market after World War II. Today, they are joined by many others, including Lexus, Audi, and newcomers Genesis and the spacecraft on wheels, the Tesla.

And how about those fins? Ah yes, Cadillac is still here. It has survived war, depression, and even regrettable redesign. Its name was a synonym for the best of anything. Who doesn’t love the ’59 Eldorado Biarritz (while perhaps suppressing a chuckle?). Nearly 19 feet long with a wheelbase of 103 inches, this 390 cubic inch V-8 weighed more than 5,000 pounds. It had whitewall tires partly eclipsed by the broad molded side body, a bejeweled grill, power steering, seats, and windows, and those aggressive fins that held protruding taillights. It turned heads, especially the model in Seminole red.

Luxury cars are a part of American culture and legend. The Great Gatsby’s “omnibus” was a 1922 cream yellow Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. Bad Bad LeRoy Brown had his custom Continental and an Eldorado, too. Al Capone ruled Chicago from his bulletproof, armor-plated ’28 Cadillac, but one of the last cars he bought before heading off to prison was a ’31 Duesenberg Model J. James Bond saved the world (many times) in an Aston Martin DB5. Queen Elizabeth II motors to her castles in a Bentley. President Biden’s “Beast” is a modified Cadillac. It was a Lincoln Continental that President Kennedy rode in on that fateful day in Dallas. Bill Gates drives a Porsche 959, Warren Buffet a Cadillac XTS, and of course, Elon Musk charges around town in a Tesla. See what you can find on the lawn at Concours. You’ll be richer for it.