Roscoe Turner’s 1929 Packard

While the author was in Indianapolis for the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show, he saw that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum had placed a 1929 Packard Custom Eight 6-40 Dual-Cowl Phaeton on display at the Indianapolis International Airport to promote its special “From the Vault” exhibition, While it is a beautifully finished example of a spectacular era of automobile manufacturing, what is most fascinating about the Packard is its original owner - the famed aviator Colonel Roscoe Turner.  

Born in Corinth Mississippi in 1895, Turner worked at various jobs until he enlisted for World War One. Roscoe first served first in the balloon corps then later as a fighter pilot.  Upon his return to the United States, the mustachioed Turner used his wartime pay to buy and airplane and became a dashing barnstormer and stunt pilot.

A consummate self-promoter, Turner was a pioneer in what we today call “personal branding.”  In public, Roscoe always wore a custom uniform the consisted of a military-style tunic, jodhpurs, and highly polished riding boots. He accessorized the outfit with an officer’s cap embroidered with a winged insignia with the monogram "RT" and the matching logo on a pin on his chest and on his large brass belt buckle.

In 1928, young film maker Howard Hughes purchased Turner’s huge Sikorsky S-29-A twin-engine biplane airliner for air-to-air filming of his epic film Hell’s Angels. Roscoe flew the airliner and worked as a stunt pilot until towards the end of filming, in March 1929, when Hughes asked Turner to undertake a dangerous “spin” stunt in the Sikorsky which Roscoe thought too dangerous.

With Turner’s refusal, Hughes fired him and enlisted another crew to fly the stunt. The Sikorsky, disguised as a World War I German Gotha bomber, crashed and one member of the crew was killed. Turner continued to work in Hollywood for several years as a stunt pilot and appeared in several films as an actor.  

In early 1929, Turner and his first wife, Carline, used the proceeds from his Hughes movie work to purchase this Packard from Douglas M. Longyear’s dealership Hollywood Motors Inc.  The car is identified as a ‘6-40’ which identifies it as the sixth series of Packard production built on a 140-inch wheelbase chassis. The car is fitted with a catalog #341 dual-cowl phaeton five-passenger body which means the car features no side windows but has a second cowl and windshield for rear seat passengers that was built by the Holbrook Company of New York.   

The Turner’s Custom Eight Packard was the mid-range of the 1929 Packard automobile line - Packard offered the Standard Eight, the Custom Eight and the Deluxe Eight, as well as the ultra-rare two-seat Speedster. The heavily optioned 6-40 is equipped with the dual side-mounts (spare tires with covers) and wire wheels, powered by the Packard L-head straight eight engine that displaces 384 cubic inches and develops 105 horsepower.

One of the major selling points for the new-for-1929 Packard was the new Packard Shock Absorbing System that features double-acting hydraulic shock absorbers on all four wheels for a smoother ride to complement the smooth slow-revving Packard straight-eight engine that features a crankshaft with nine main bearings.  

This photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Center for Digital Scholarship

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection shows Roscoe Turner's Packard 6-40

parked in the IMS infield in 1934.

Roscoe Turner continued his aviation career by forming with partners Nevada Airlines that flew a fleet of new Lockheed Vega 5B airplanes between Los Angeles, Reno and Las Vegas, with Turner as the operations manager and chief pilot. In 1929, the Governors of the states of Mississippi, Nevada and California all bestowed Turner with the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel as a member of their personal staffs and thus for the rest of his life, he was known as “Colonel Roscoe Turner.”  

Nevada Airlines was promoted by Turner as “The Fastest Airline in the United States," and he used the Vegas as his springboard to enter the emerging sport of air racing and record-setting with moderate success. Turner later persuaded oil tycoon Earl Gilmore to purchase a pair of racing airplanes- a Wedell-Williams Model 44 and a Lockheed Model 3 Air Express which used a parasol wing design fitted with wheel pants for streamlining that was primarily used in cross-country events.   

This photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Center for Digital Scholarship

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection shows left to right

Roscoe Turner, Madonna Turner, Mary Fendrich Hulman

and Anton "Tony" Hulman gathered around the stuffed lion "Gilmore"

For several years, Turner toured the country in the Air Express flying with his pet lion cub, another promotional idea, as a stylized lion’s head was the symbol of his sponsor, the Gilmore Oil Company. Eventually the lion grew too large to handle and went to a private zoo, but after the lion “Gilmore” died in 1952, Roscoe had it stuffed and kept it in his home. 

Roscoe with the Packard 6-40 and the three major US aviation trophies

 that he won in his career. On the left the Thompson Trophy,

the center is the Harmon Trophy and at right is the Bendix Trophy

             

Turner won the 1933 cross-country Vincent Bendix Trophy race from New York to Los Angeles with the time of 11 hours and thirty minutes in the Gilmore Wedell-Williams. In 1934, Turner won his first Charles Thompson Trophy race, known as the “Indianapolis of the Sky,” and he covered the 150 miles on the ten-mile closed course above Cleveland at an average speed of 248 miles per hour (MPH) in Wedell-Williams.

In 1935, Turner lost the cross-country Burbank-to-Cleveland Bendix Trophy race by a mere 23 ½ seconds. Turner won the Thompson Trophy race again in 1938 and 1939 as he piloted the ‘Meteor,’ a plane of his own design. Roscoe won the 1939 300-mile race with an average speed of 282 MPH and became the only racer to win the Thompson Trophy three times.

During his career, Turner also was awarded the Clifford Harmon Trophy for the United States twice in 1932 and 1938 as the outstanding aviator in the United States. Roscoe also won the Clifford Henderson Award of Merit three times in 1933, 1938 and 1939 as the United States’ fastest air racing pilot. In 1939 and 1940, Turner also starred in the CBS Network weekly radio drama Sky Blazers that was supported by a mail-order model plane and comic book series.

The Gilmore-sponsored Lockheed Air Express powered by a Pratt & Whitney Hornet 525 horsepower nine-cylinder radial engine was capable of 175 MPH, but it did not have the same racing success as the Wedell-Williams plane. Turner bought the Lockheed Air Express from Gilmore in 1932 and flew it until 1938. During his ownership of the Air Express, Roscoe commissioned a custom-made hood ornament for the Packard that was a detailed miniature of the plane complete down to a working propeller that spun in the wind.       

Turner was involved with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for many years beginning with when the facility was owned by his friend the World War I ace and four-time “500’ starter Eddie Rickebacker. Roscoe served as the starter for the 1933 Indianapolis 500-mile race, which was the last year the starter’s role was ceremonial. Turner served as the race’s honorary referee in 1940, and he greeted the 1939 and 1940 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Wilbur Shaw in Victory Lane as the Champion Spark Plug representative.   

Turner moved to Indianapolis in 1940 and formed the Roscoe Turner Aeronautical Corporation based at the Indianapolis Weir Cook Municipal Airport to teach students the skills of aircraft mechanics and provided flight training. Roscoe and his wife bought a three-story 5,500 square foot four-bedroom four-bathroom home located at 6800 West 10th Street in Indianapolis. The 1929 Packard was kept in a special enclosed section of the large detached Turner garage.

Turner attempted to enlist for service in World War 2, but was rejected due to his age, and he spent the war touring war materiel plants and giving speeches. In 1945 Turner was divorced by Carline, from whom he had been separated since 1938, and in late 1946 he married a Hoosier woman 20 years his junior. With the dawning of the jet age, air racing and the name Roscoe Turner faded from the headlines and he stopped wearing his military-style uniform.

This photo courtesy of the Ray Satterlee collection at the Ball State University

Library Digital Media Repository shows an interview in 1961

conducted prior to the start of the Indianapolis 500-mile race.

At left Earl Cooper, announcer Jim Phillippi, Roscoe Turner,

Eddie Rickebacker and Ray Harroun on the right.

Roscoe forged a strong friendship with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s new owner, Anton “Tony” Hulman who was an aviation enthusiast. Turner was included in a group of “old timers” along with Ray Harroun, Earl Cooper and Rickenbacker. that piloted antique race cars around the oval before the start of the Golden Anniversary 1961 Indianapolis ‘500.

Given his friendship with Hulman, it is not a surprise that the 1929 Packard 6-40 was donated to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum several years after Roscoe’s death in June 1970 by his widow Madonna, while the rest of Roscoe’s trophies, airplanes (including the Wedell-Williams and the “Meteor”) and memorabilia (included the stuffed pet lion) were donated to the Smithsonian Institute.

At the time of the donation, the car was painted two-tone silver and gray and even though it had accumulated many miles, it was in excellent condition. The author recalls seeing the Turner Packard 6-40 on display in the “new” Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum around 1976, and since that time, the Packard 6-40 has been beautifully restored by the Museum staff in its two-tone brown livery.

All color photos by the author