Troy Ladd and his team at Hollywood Hot Rods are magicians. There’s no other explanation.
How else would you explain a 1936 Packard built today using a design that previously never existed?
Regardless of whether Troy or any of his staff have a propensity for magic, that’s exactly what they did — build a 1936 Packard from drawings without using any known design.
The result was truly a piece of art. Prior to The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering in 2017, it had won every show it entered, including the 2017 Hot August Nights.
The list of famous cars Hollywood Hot Rods has built is just as impressive as it is extensive. It includes, among others, the “Long Beach Legend” (a 1936 Ford Roadster), the “Brooklyn’s Special” (a right-hand drive 1932 Roadster), the “Respect Tradition” roadster (a 1932 Roadster), the “Black Widow” (a one-to-one re-creation of the monogram model from the 1960s) and the “Ruby Deluxe” (a 1935 Ford).
Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that Troy, who has been building cars since he was 16 and has owned Hollywood Hot Rods since 2002, and his team were able to accomplish this amazing feat.
“We worked on it for six years. We created it. It’s not a real car,” Troy told My Classic Garage. “That Packard design never existed in real life. We worked with a friend of mine, Eric Black, who is a designer. He drew pictures, designed the concept of the car on paper based on myself, the owner and him.”
Once Troy, Eric and the owner, Bruce Wanta, were satisfied with the design on paper they built the car in real life. Basically, the car, which most closely resembles a 1936 Packard, is a one-off prototype because there is not another like it in existence.
What makes the car a 1936 Packard versus any other car is that it’s titled as a ’36 Packard. The car, which is nicknamed “The Mulholland Speedster,” has a lot of real Packard parts on it and Troy and his team started with pieces taken from a real Packard.
“We originally thought we would be customizing a car, but we ended up hand-making it,” Troy stated. “So it resembles it. It’s got parts; it’s titled, so that’s why it’s a ’36 Packard.”
The design was based on a Packard grille. Bruce, who bought the Black Widow at auction and sought out Troy to build a new car for him, thought the Packard grille was one of the most beautiful grilles ever made so he wanted to build a car around the Packard grille.
During the building process, there were several challenges. The first large challenge was to build a whole steel body only from drawings, which requires a high level of coach building and only a few people in the world can really build complete cars from drawings.
“Most shops like ours, hot rod shops and custom shops, modify stuff, but this was literally creating stuff from nothing,” said Troy. “That was probably the biggest hurdle.”
Other hurdles were products of Troy’s and/or Bruce’s own crazy engineering ideas, like a suspension system that is automatically leveling and a hideaway roof that automatically opens, closes and stows away with a push of a button. The roof flips 180 degrees and the roadster body panels and upholstery panels flip into place with the roof to make it perfectly finished as a roadster. When you push the button and the actuator opens and the roof flips it’s perfectly finished as a hardtop as well so it never looks like it’s an afterthought.
The chassis is built in a figure-8 shape and all the frame rails and the structure has stamped beads and designs in them. The suspension looks like 30's-era suspension — elliptical springs in the front and rear with I-beam style axles in the front.
“Everything has a plausible design meaning you look at it and everything looks 30s-era correct, but we’ve built in ride-height adjustment and the independent features and a lot of things that didn’t exist so we dreamed it all up and designed it and fabricated it and engineered it,” Troy stated. “But, it still appears as if it could have been of the era. That’s a very delicate balance to do.”
Another cool feature are the hidden electric actuators built into the body that move the front and rear springs up and down in order to change the ride height. Additionally, every piece of the dashboard is a custom handmade piece of art.
It boasts a V12 Lincoln flathead engine with speed equipment on it like some rare aluminum heads from New Zealand. It has a rare Latham Axial Flow Super Charger that houses turbines stacked in a cylinder. The oil filter is called a “tattle tale” oil filter that is commonly used for race cars.
“We combined all of these pieces together to make an engine that’s vintage and that no one has ever seen before,” said Troy, who has won several Builder of the Year Awards over the years. “None of these pieces have ever existed together before.”
When Troy and his team went to work on building the ’36 Packard their primary focus was to get it ready in time for the 2017 Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, Calif., in January, and more specifically America’s Most Beautiful Roadster.
“America’s Most Beautiful Roadster was the first show that we did and that was what we built the Mulholland Speedster for,” Troy stated. “Bruce wanted America’s Most Beautiful Roadster.”
They left Pomona with the title and trophy in hand. From there the Packard went to Sacramento where it hauled in three awards — Custom d’Elegance, World’s Most Beautiful Custom and the Sam Barris Memorial Award. At Chicago, its next show, it took home top honors there in the form of the Legends Cup and a bunch of other awards like Best in Class. It then won the Street Rod d’Elegance at the Goodguys show in Delmar, Calif. At Benedict Castle it won Best of Show. Then at Hot August Nights it was overall Best of Show in Reno. It also won Best of Show at a concours in San Marino, Calif.
“At the The Quail, we just displayed our car,” said Troy. “I think there was an award there, but we really didn’t know. We were there just to be there. Me and Bruce go to Monterey Week every year without a car. This year we brought the Packard and displayed it.”
Apparently, the judges at all these shows recognize and appreciate the handiwork of the magicians at Hollywood Hot Rods.
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