We had spent the previous evening at Justin Marshall and his wife Shirley’s spectacular hilltop home overlooking their winery in Paso Robles, California. It was a warm beautiful summer night. We sipped a bit of Marshall’s award-winning wine, took in the incomparable view with the Pacific Ocean in the distance, while baroque chamber music was piped over a vast speaker system to encourage the grapes to grow.
After a bottle or two of the Marshall’s superb wine, we negotiated the acquisition of his 1939 Packard 120 convertible. Included in my entourage were Robert Escalante, owner of Custom Auto Service in Santa Ana, California, and his chief mechanic and foremost Packard authority, Cal Soest. After we concluded the deal, we retired to our individual en suites for the night.
