"Ask The Man Who Owns One" was the famous slogan that stood for one of the finest automobiles produced in America. The Packard, first produced in 1899 in Warren, Ohio, pioneered many American production vehicle innovations outlasting most of its early contemporaries. It is no wonder that when the need for a vehicle to transport scientists working on the Manhattan Project from the railway station in Lamy to Los Alamos and the Trinity base camp, a custom built Packard limo met those requirements. Of the 16,600 1941 Packard Clippers produced, the Fitzjohn Coach Company converted 100 into custom limos. The National Atomic Museum (NAM) has the opportunity to restore this limo used by the Manhattan Project and only one of three of these vehicles currently known to exist.
Discarded and left to rust and decay in a junkyard in Grants, NM, this piece of history's only future was to be dismantled and scrapped for parts and material until it was rescued by a collector of armored military vehicles. After being forgotten and allowed to deteriorate for decades in the harsh weather of western NM, its historical importance was realized and the vehicle has been given the opportunity to take an important role in telling the story and history of the Manhattan Project at the NAM. Though it is missing pieces and is only a shadow of the outstanding vehicle it was in the 1940's, this Packard will be returned to its original condition as when completed in 1941. An extensive 24-month restoration project is planned, using the skills and talents of an Albuquerque restoration business that specializes in Packard automobiles.
If you are interested in assisting with this project or know anyone who might have parts or an interest in donating to this vehicle, please contact
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at the NAM.
The Atomic Heritage Foundation
910 17th Street, NW
Suite 408
Washington, DC 20006
202-293-0045 info@atomicheritage.org
Atomic Story of the Week
I went to Chicago with another man, a chemist, and the two of us found our way to the University of Chicago and to the Metallurgical Laboratory, which everybody called the Met Lab. We showed our credentials and we got taken to an office where there was a Dupont representative named Dr. Walter Dew. And he sat the two of us down and he said, “Have you made any guesses as to what this is all about?” And of course we’d been doing a lot of guessing but we said “No.” He said “Well, it’s about atomic energy. We are going to use atomic energy to make a bomb.”
He opened a drawer and he pulled out a couple little cubes of metal and threw them on the table and said, “Do you know what this is?” I picked one of them up and it felt very heavy so I said “Oh, I don’t know. It’s very dense.” He said, “Well, that’s uranium. We’re going to make a pile with uranium and graphite, and in this pile we’re going to make a new element called plutonium, and with this plutonium we’re going to make a bomb. Our part of it is to make the plutonium and other people are going to make the bomb. One way to think of it is that you would have people like slices of an orange and all these orange slices would go together and make a bomb.”
HARRY KAMACK, HANFORD
Did You Know?
During World War II it was rumored that the Army Air Force had been seen dropping pumpkins instead of bombs. The rumor originated from someone who had learned or heard sensitive information from someone with the 509th Composite Group. During practice bombing missions, the 509th Composite Group dropped "test" bombs of approximate size and weight of the "Fat Man" bomb. These test bombs were mustard colored and were referred to as "pumpkins."
