The photographic record shows those cars sitting at a variety of ride heights when new. I am surprised they all haven't sagged over the years which shows Packard was using some pretty good metallurgy at the time. As well, the convertible chassis is subject to sag especially with the top down.

In the lab they load vehicles all the time. They put thermocouples on them and study how fast the springs are destroyed. The old Chevy station wagons were notorious for sagging springs. One guy I knew put engines in the back of one and when he unloaded it the springs had lost temper and were permanently collapsed.

The bottom line is the old timers were right in storing cars on jack stands, if only to prevent flat spots on the tires.

Use a fill primer and block sanding. For the bolt areas place dummy bolts with washers on the contact areas to prevent tearing of the finish as evident on the water jacket.

As well, a light color primer will give a lighter tint to the green if that is preferred.

Finally, the water jacket bolts should be a heavy head which are hard to find but would make for a nice reproduction parts project. I would do it myself, but when work starts up again I will be buried in work.

The two Victoria's were owned at one time by a dentist named Hoeschbaker in New Jersey. One of them is in Turnquist's book in original condition. Somewhere else around here I have a picture of a clean original phaeton that sold at a yard sale for $250.

Bob was an avid photographer so maybe there are more pictures of the victorias in the materials he gave to museums. I can't imagine him throwing anything away.

I am the only one who noticed Kanter's 734 went onto the block? Back when the prices were ridiculous he told me he would never sell. When those cars were selling for more than Duesenbergs I was shaking my head. What really killed me was when they painted the radiator shell on one of them and now go around calling it original.

Those dealers write ad copy the same way as hucksters in forged artwork. Yuk!

It was nice seeing that car in strong hands. Now it will no doubt become part of the old car three ring circus.

As demonstrated by today's automatic dry clutch transmissions, on a theoretical basis the unit should lead to longer clutch life due to the calibrated throttle engagement equivalence relationship. However, somewhere in the documentation I recall seeing early clutch wear problems.

When the units were new they appeared to work as witnessed by Tom McCahill not ripping the unit. The linkage mechanisms seem subject to excessive slop, although the ones I dealt with did work well enough for demonstration purposes.

I agree Ross. The 51 chassis was more robust. They also improved the linkage. On the earlier cars the detent spring inside the column was poor quality and causes problems. I knew people who bought those cars new and they said the need to manually detent the 1-2 shift wasn't necessary when the cars were new.

However, one trip around the block in a Cadillac with column shift revealed a lot of deficiencies in the Packard system, the first gear rattle in the Cadillac notwithstanding.

Unless you built a junkrod I wouldn't throw away that gas tank. Today's gasohol garbage is murder on those old tanks.

At 60 mph Ultramatic is spinning around 2510 rpm which is a high wear index. Given the final drive in the differential, conversion to manual will reduce that to around 1810 rpm versus 2098 rpm for factory stick O/D. This will result in a wear index closer to modern cars. Even when pulling the Caribbean sled the conversion results in very good performance. However, you will need the steering column, brake and clutch pedal assemblies, linkages, mounts, cables, relays, kickdown, etc, etc. Or in other words - a complete parts car.

Another drawback is that I'm not a big fan of Packard column shift transmissions. The engineering wasn't very good and they did nothing to improve the situation.

So there is the option of those aftermarket floor shift transmissions which require a hole in the floor which isn't very nice either.

Personally, given the car has no safety features, in fact my old high school safety text featured a 50's Packard as an example of decapitation by the steering wheel, I would hesitate to change the car given today's higher speeds and stick to secondary roads to avoid high speed accidents.

As well, the health care situation in this country is a shambles with rural hospitals disappearing so if you do get in a crash in a rural area you may die at the scene. My modern car has a rotten final drive (2550 at 60 mph) and I don't care if people are running me off the road at 65-70 mph in the slow lanes because air bags aren't effective over 65 mph anyway. That's why you read about celebrity millionaires dying in car wrecks.

I find the green paint interesting because it is a dead ringer for Billy Hirsch's 745 that was original paint.

Here's one that popped up on a TV show spot about Georgia Tann who was a professional baby snatcher in Tennessee.

This deviant behavior in chimps was observed by Jane Goodall as well. Tann also had a girl friend (Ann Hollinsworth) who she "adopted" as a state sanctioned method for such "couples" to will estates.

I suppose this sicko was motivated by both money and psychotic jealousy about motherhood.

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