Beautiful automobile. If I recall, another Horch was selected as best of show recently. How did the Packards do this year?

The reason I enter my Packards in car shows is to share them with the public and to socialize with other exhibitors. It is nice to have the cars recognized and awarded a trophy, but this not a must for me. One of the clubs I belong to does not allow members' cars to win any awards. This policy is fine with me. Another reason I enter car shows is that it solves the parking problem.

Years ago, I was at a regional concours in California. The local TV station was covering the event and interviewing owners. One of the cars they chose to cover was a replica Cobra. The owner of a nearby real Cobra pointed this out to the interviewer, but the interviewer was not interested in covering the real thing. Sad.

Congratulations. You and your friends must have about cornered the market on Chaikas. Are there many left to find you haven't already got a lead on?

Thanks for the photo, that's a type of plate I've seen before in other languages but not in German.

My 1939 list gives only a single distributor in Germany, as follows (type a bit muddled and not easy to read):

Aschoff & Co.
Kurfueratendann(?) 197/8 (office & showroom)
Berlin W 15

See?enerstrasse 8-13 (service)
Berlin - Halensee

Not that familiar with torqueflite conversion but don't see the connection unless there is something electrical added in wrong place or something loosened or shorted during install. On the V8's, the two most likely suspects not already mentioned are the ignition switch and the ballast resistor. The Packard key start ignition switches can be flaky at times and is possible it is breaking contact and regaining it when you twist it to restart. Ballast resistor could be heating or vibrating open but would think that would be a persistent problem happening fairly frequently.

I don't know if your problem is fuel or electrical (probably the latter) but it does bring up the point that even among those who are fairly fastidious about lubrication needs, distributors are often quite neglected; it amazes me sometimes that they perform as long as they do w/o issues. In addition to the oiler or grease cup for the bushings, most require an occasional drop or two of oil on the felt beneath the rotor - this lubricates the slip joint between the drive shaft and the driven (cam & rotor) shaft which operates during centrifugal advance. And occasionally the base plate should be removed, the advance weights and springs cleaned and inspected, and a drop of oil put on the advance weight pivot pins and a bit of white grease or equivalent on the sliding joint of the weight. PM me with your email if you want a couple of typical pictures and some discussion on this.

On the radio, since it is lighting up, you should also hear a buzzing sound from the radio as soon as you turn it on assuming the stock vibrator is still there. If converted to solid state, may be polarity sensitive so make sure battery is connected properly with positive ground in 55. If OK, about the only things you can check are the antenna connection and the speaker connections.

The antenna is a round black wire connected to the antenna tube near the top just under fender edge, goes thru rubber piece in firewall and plugs into back of radio part in middle of dash. Make sure it is there & not damaged. If it looks OK, there are a couple of other checks that can be made but need a meter to do. The simplest check is get another antenna or a cheap universal one from radio shack & substitute to rule out a problem.

The speaker is on the unit with the tubes you can see and is the single wire running up the back plugged into a transformer. The socket is hard to see and for that reason, can be loosened and the wire might not be connected. If you have a rear seat speaker, there will be a wire from the speaker switch plugged in there instead and the speaker plugged into another wire coming from switch. Make sure a wire has not been pulled out as it's easy to do if someone has been feeling around back there.

If everything looks good so far, then most likely you will need to have it serviced.

Don't worry about it, Ken. If the guy in the Toyota truck needs to have a trophy, let him have it. Then, drive past him in the real best of show, which is worth more than those $5 trophies.

Something like this will do the job. Couple different styles out there but they're similar to this one.

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Check the UPPER distributor bushing for excessive wear.
Remove cap and rotor and grasp top of shaft and check for upper bushing wear.

Also check wire extending from points to side of distribrutor.