Packard Twelve takes Pebble Beach Best of Show

1934 Packard 1108 Twelve Convertible Victoria by Dietrich. Photo by Matt Litwin.

After selling their 1938 Horch 853A Erdmann & Rossi Sport Cabriolet at RM’s Monterey auction last year, Judge Joseph and Margie Cassini of West Orange, New Jersey, apparently needed another Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Best of Show car in their stable. They nearly replaced it right away last year with their class-winning 1931 Duesenberg Model J Tourster Derham, but finally succeeded this year with their 1934 Packard 1108 Twelve Convertible Victoria by Dietrich.

The Cassinis are certainly no strangers to the center stage at most concours events, with class and Best of Show wins at pretty much every major concours in the country – Meadow Brook (now the Concours of America), Ault Park, Glenmoor, Greenwich – and many of them with the aforementioned Horch, which won Best of Show at Pebble beach in 2004 and last year sold for $5.17 million. The Duesenberg, which a Mercedes-Benz beat out for Best of Show last year, has since gone on to take Best in Show – American at this year’s Concours of America, but that near-miss at Pebble last year didn’t stop the Cassinis from trying again this year with their Packard, fitted with a 160hp 445-cu.in. V-12. Reportedly Dietrich only bodied four or five Packard 1108 Twelves with Convertible Victoria bodies, which featured four-place seating and blind quarters in the convertible top. Interestingly, while three of the Convertible Victorias are known to exist today, the Cassinis at one point owned another one, an example which has since done well on the show field and auction block, selling for $2.2 million at last year’s RM Amelia Island auction.

The win marks the first for an American marque at Pebble Beach since 2007, when the Duesenberg-based Mormon Meteor took top honors. Full results from the 2013 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance will appear shortly at PebbleBeachConcours.net.