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My First Car: '38<b> </b>Packard Convertible, Bill Bodine, 91, Treasure Island

 
Published June 18, 2015

'38 Packard Convertible

My father bought this beauty in 1941 for $800. I was a senior at Roselle Park (N.J.) High School. He let me take the Packard to school many times, including a graduation party in June. That's my father in the driver's seat, I'm on the passenger side and my two best friends, Pete Zoeller and Don Pierce, are in the rumble seat. The girls loved this car, so I always parked it in front of the high school. In 1945, when I returned from Europe and World War II where I had been a P-47 fighter pilot, my father gave me the Packard! I drove it for five more years and sold it for $200 in 1950. Since then, I have owned six other convertibles, the latest being a 2007 Volkswagen Eos hardtop convertible. But the '38 Packard was my favorite.