Wow!  Looks like a really nice car.  Maybe the "unclaimed" could be better
explained if they said from where it was towed.  Many years ago when I lived
in Hawaii I used to frequent a nearby junkyard for parts for my '53
Commander K (five of them in this yard).  One day I noticed a really sharp
red and white '55 Packard Clipper hardtop in the yard.  I asked the owner
about it and he told me that it was abandoned at the Honolulu airport.  He
had the contract to remove cars that had been in the lot over a certain
number of days.  He would sell it to me for the towing and storage costs
(something over $100).  The registration was in the car so I tried to
contact the owner at his Honolulu address.  He had moved back to the
mainland with no forwarding address.  Apparently he drove the Packard to the
airport and just left it.  I opened the trunk and found an unused jack and
tire tool plus a bunch of NOS parts from Frost and French.  I remember that
the load leveling worked.  Since I couldn't reach the owner I passed on the
car.  Eventually when I went back to the yard the Packard was on the bottom
of a stack of cars waiting to be crushed and sent to Japan.as scrap.
Paul Johnson

Probably a lowrider guy who went to jail...

<Bob Palma wrote..

Unpaid storage fees somewhere perhaps?  I don't know about California, but
in Alberta, unpaid parking/car storage comes under the 'Garageman's Lein
Act' whereby the owner of the parking/storage facility can legally seize the
car for non payment  (90 days, I believe).   I'm inclined to believe the
Packard was owned by an elderly person who may have let his monthly storage
payments slip, thereby losing the car.

Craig.

While stationed in OKC, I went to a lot of impoun auctions.

Cars were generally there because of
1. breakdowns - usually it was a POS car
2. Police arresting the driver and the car gets towed away
3. Divorce / conflict
4. Mechanic's liens

or some combination of the above.

MD