1961 Best of Show Winner
April 29, 2020
1930 Packard 740 Roadster shown by Scott Newhall
Three decades into its existence, this Packard was lying in shambles in a San Francisco garage. Then Scott Newhall, executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, paid one hundred dollars to rescue it. With his wife, Ruth, Newhall restored the car and exhibited it at the 11th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, ultimately taking the show’s top award.
That concours was held in the spring of 1961, having been delayed when bad weather forced its cancellation the prior November.
Tragically, the car’s engine caught fire on the way home. The car was later re-restored, and Ruth drove it on tours—with much aplomb, according to those she flew past.
Thereafter the car was owned by Willett H. Tryon, Chris Bock, Tommy Crock, and then Paul Bonin and his son Fred. The Bonins toured the car extensively throughout the West and they showed it again at Pebble Beach in 2000 before putting the car up for auction this past year.
“What do I like about it? Well, I’m a bulldozer man,” said Paul Bonin. “This car is a big thing and it goes.
“It’s solid and it’s reliable. It has stalled a couple of times, but it has never had to be towed home.”
