News

The “Gar Wood” brand will be familiar to customers and friends of Gents Barn by now – but the coach builder and designer Raymond “Ray” Dietrich probably not yet. However, in the 1930s the name Dietrich stood for pure luxury – and adorned the special bodies of the most expensive American luxury companions. The famous “Dietrich-Convertible Top” was part of the most beautiful cars – and occasionally also luxury boats like those from the premium brand Gar Wood. So it came about that in rare cases a Gar Wood boat also received a convertible top from Dietrich – like our original Gar Wood Runabout from 1937. Once delivered new to its first owner, the Gladd Brothers at Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, NY, this beautiful boat still resides in the States – but we are extremely happy that it will be soon here at the Baltic coast, so one can see a Dietrich-Top in Europe likely for the first time ever.

It is probably one of the rarest – and heaviest – trailer teams in the world! Our 1950 Chrysler Town and Country 2-door Coupé “Black Beast” and our 1936 Gar Wood Speedster “Miss Persia” – combined for the first time since the restoration of the classic sports boat, which was only built 14 times. Seeing our Chrysler Woody, which has only been built 698 times, is rare – but as a beautiful team it is an absolute highlight. This 4-ton trailer team made of steel, wood and a lot of love for detail – above all our Gar Wood Speedster – will soon serve as a promotional vehicle for Gents Barn and be seen at various classic car meetings! Enjoy the view!

Sometimes here at Gents Barn, we have to drive the cars that you rarely see in today’s traffic – such as our beautiful Mercedes Coupe from 1970. It’s the time of the year, so it’s time for summer, sun and – coupes!

It’s not often that you can still find a completely original Packard Marine 1M-245 engine, but Gents Barn was able to buy one of these rare Packard six-cylinder in-line engines through its good contacts in the States. Now it is here in Germany and will be cleaned-up shortly – in due course, we are pleased to be able to offer another highlight.

As most of the visitors to our Instagram account and the busy readers of our news page know, we are quite big Packard fans here at Gents Barn! Cars, engines, history – we are fascinated by the entire spectrum of this glorious, old luxury brand. As part of our portfolio, we already have a perfectly restored, inline six-cylinder 1M-245 Packard Marine engine in our inventory. We also own the only surviving and completely restored 1M-245 R racing engine from 1947, once ordered by the Shah of Persia. And now the next 1M-245 follows – still unrestored, but 98% complete and therefore important for a possible new build or as a possible spare parts supplier – we are very happy that of the only 1,865 engines built (plus approx. 10 racing versions) now three “survivors” have already found their way to us – and thus, to our knowledge, 1/3 of all Packard 1M-245 models still in existence that were built almost 75 years ago.

It is with great pleasure that we can confirm today that in a few weeks – after five years of hard restoration and reconstruction work one can probably say “finally” with a big smile – our first test drive of the legendary “Miss Persia”, our 1936 Gar Wood Speedster, is getting close. At the end of September / beginning of October there may even be up to three tests – the first in the water basin of our trusted restoration shipyard, the second trial possibly in the middle of Dortmund city (we will also report on this if we get the okay from the city council) and the third test on the Datteln-Hamm-channel north of Dortmund to extensively test all functions under real conditions. We have already received an exemption from the Münster district government in order to document this event by aerial drone. Many thanks to the super friendly colleagues there and the employees of the WSA Rheine, who made this exception possible. We are incredibly happy because it will be the first time in about 70 years that Miss Persia can be admired on the water again. And almost 85 years after its presentation at the Chicago Boat Show in 1936. Be curious and keep your fingers crossed that everything will go smoothly!

Our wonderful, unique Tarz Speedster “Smitty” is now also known in the USA – today we received the spring issue of ACBS’ (Antique & Classic Boat Society) magazine “Rudder” – and were pleased to receive a wonderful article about our little GDR star . Who would have thought that the Eastern Bloc would still conquer the West? 😉 We are definitely happy, send a big thank you to our Woody friends in the States and wish you all a great time despite Corona – to read, slow down and dream of having fun on the water soon with a smal,l but wonderful mahogany Boat. 🙂