Amelia Earhart’s Car…?

No pictures yesterday, so this is from the ‘archives’.
I grew up in an isolated mill town. The longest possible drive was 31 km. Cars were for practical purposes: doing errands, going to church and getting to work. As a consequence, there were no luxury kinds of cars anywhere, and impossible to have cars of any kind passing through. I had never, ever seen a Packard.

That all changed when we checked into a classic motel in Blenheim, NZ. There were two vintage cars parked under cover. The owner of the motel casually informed us that the ‘blue one’ had once belonged to Amelia Earhart.

Both cars were works of art. This car was found in pieces in a hanger in Texas, bought and shipped to Australia, and lovingly put back together. The other was a late ‘40’s ‘woody’, that had originally been a sedan. I talked to the owner and he had personally converted the sedan using the original Packard blue prints, which he showed me!

Turns out there were over 30 vintage Packards scattered throughout the town (see extra photos for some others), driving in procession to go on display at the Wanaka Air Show.

I have no reason to question the history of this car, but have not been able to find a picture of Amelia Earhart with this model of car.