A Classic ‘Boss of the Road’ : Santa Ana Business Restores Old Packards

Robert Escalante was only 4 years old when the last traditional Packard automobile rolled off the assembly line in 1956--back when America produced some of the best passenger cars in the world.

But every day, as he and his co-workers unlock the doors to their nondescript workplace in the heart of the city, Escalante takes a step back in time to that era to re-create what he believes cannot be matched by today’s auto makers--American or Japanese.

Packards are his business, hobby and passion.

“When was the last time you were in a back seat and you were able to have that much room?” he asks a passenger.

Escalante professes that he is not as good a salesman as he should be, so he hopes the 1940 Packard’s sleek lines with side mounts and smooth engine will do the talking.

“You think you are dealing with a temperamental car,” he says as he revs up the sedan’s engine. “But this thing will beat anything around.”

Except for a simple Packard logo mounted over the front door of his business, Custom Auto Service, a passerby might not detect that behind the Venetian blinds is a small showroom filled with classic cars and nostalgic mementos of bygone days. And beyond the showroom is a garage where specialized mechanics rebuild, restore and maintain mostly Packards for classic car collectors around the nation.

“We’re the best-kept secret in Orange County,” Escalante says with a smile.

Among classic car collectors--including wealthy businessmen and entertainers like developer William Lyon and television actor Ken Kercheval--Escalante is known as one of a few full-service dealers who specializes in Packards.

His first Packard, a 1941 model, was purchased when he was in high school. He could just as easily have bought a used Buick or some other car, he says, but he liked the looks of the Packard.

And then one day, when Escalante was 17 years old, he went to Custom Auto Service to buy a taillight for his car.

He never left.

Under the tutelage of the shop’s original owner, Bill Lauer, Escalante’s part-time job turned into a lifetime profession. Escalante assumed ownership when Lauer retired in 1983, and he continued working with his father, a master painter, and two brothers, Sandy and David. Cal Soest, a mechanical restoration expert who worked for Lauer when the shop opened 26 years ago, continues as a team member.

“I am fortunate to have found a person like Bill Lauer,” Escalante says. “I could have learned bad business from a bad businessman. I think I learned good business from a good businessman.”

And to Escalante, good business means turning adversity into positive returns.

Soon after assuming control of the shop, the city threatened to take over the property as part of a redevelopment effort. But Escalante and other local merchants joined forces to save the small businesses and revitalize the neighborhood that became Santa Ana’s Fiesta Marketplace.

And even during the recession, Escalante is optimistic that owners of “the soft-spoken boss of the road” will spend whatever it takes to keep their cars in mint condition. His shop usually works on about 125 Packards annually, he says, and a bumper-to-bumper restoration can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000.

“A car might sell for $30,000, but because a gentleman remembers riding in a back seat when he was a child, it has more of a special sentiment to him and he will wind up paying a few thousand dollars more for that,” Escalante said.

In pitching his product, Escalante mixes sentimentality with a “good investment” argument. Old cars appreciate in value, he says, because they would be too expensive to produce in today’s competitive market conditions.

The dominance by Japanese auto makers is very much on his mind as he reflects on today’s economy.

Yes, he concedes, there is some truth to criticism leveled by Japanese leaders that the American work force has become lazy.

But it is a problem that can be solved, he says, if Americans remember the old-fashioned work ethic of toiling long hours to provide quality service.

“If you go to each and every small business company that’s out there, you do see the owner of the company working 13, 14 hours a day,” Escalante says. “You see where he has always strained under that work ethic. He’s working six days a week to do everything he can to make things happen.”

And it is those principles, he says, that guide his family and friends each time they keep alive an American product.

“When we restore an automobile,” Escalante says, “we are actually putting back what America had built at one time, we are putting it back on the road.”