I offered my 51 for the wedding of my friend's daughter, thinking to make a nice gesture. The mother relayed the offer to the daughter who made a face and replied: "oh, but, its OLD". They arrived at the church in a Dodge minivan.

My buddy and I may have discovered the ultimate 55 Clipper. It appeals to everything in my contrarian nature. Sadly it was wrecked and rusted almost beyond recognition but still yielded some great parts and some arcane information.

Someone ordered a black 55 Clipper Deluxe with a blue interior. The car had only two options: oil filter and oil bath air filter. No Torsion Level. No radio. No heater. 3 spd, no overdrive, and no "Clipper Convenience Group" the only car I've ever seen without it, therefore no trunk light and no backup lights.

I'll include a pic of the dash--note no heater knobs, only vent knobs--and of the blanking plates.

This car would have weighed 3700 lbs according to the salesman's book, and would have been able to run circles around a Caribbean by dint of its light weight and 3.9 standard axle. What fun. Someone had about 122K miles of fun before it was rear ended. And the tree fell on it. She was 5522-8779, paint V interior 12. R.I.P.

Know of other strangely equipped cars?

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About that little die cast shift lever: it is a constant problem and I have personally never taken a tranny apart where it was not loose or damaged. I was taught in machine design class to never use a set screw to secure an oscillating load--which that is.

The best solution is to drill and tap the shaft and lever clean through to the other side and secure the whole shebang with a good bolt and lockwasher. The thread size is 5/16-24. For real belt and suspenders, you can even install a nut on the far side of the lever. To minimize slop where the link to the valve body attaches, use a similar approach and drill and tap through the lever and link for a 1/4-28 bolt instead of that split pin. Spin a full-thread bolt in til the head almost touches the link, spin a nut up near to touching on the other side, then jam another nut against that one. This makes a nice tight rotating joint kind of like the outer joints on your front suspension.

I do this on all the TUs with good success. It is especially helpful on the push button cars as slop in the linkage get the shifter "confused".

I have also experienced the one-kick-then-nothing phenomena many times--it is usually caused by a poor connection at the battery terminals. They LOOK fine, but are actually covered with non-conductive lead oxide. A good scrape with a pocketknive will cure it, or better yet use one of those nice terminal brush tools you can get for a couple of bucks--on the posts, and inside the cable ends.

Always, the key to 6 volt happiness is spotlessly clean connections everywhere. You don't have any extra volts to waste. The electricity makes a circle, so to speak, from the battery to the starter and back to the battery. Any connection along the way that impedes that circle is hurting you. Plus, 55% on the battery probably won't cut it.

Great job, Henry. You are boldly going where few have gone.

Packard used those self locking screws to prevent oil leaks in those locations as the tapped holes go through into ATF world. So take those lockwashers off, and in fact put a bit of sealer on the bolt shanks or you will have puddles. If the bolts are torqued, there is no significant danger of them loosening. Regards. Ross

Thanks for all the kind words about the Trevoux replica. The sectioning took a lot of time and head scratching but I am tickled to death with how John Reinhart's nice design responds to the removal of a little metal. Heaven knows it worked on the Panamericans. It is resting just now because I have allowed myself to get sucked into roadster fever. Right now that vehicle (Scrapula) has finished the mockup stage and has been torn apart to be made pretty. The body is smoothed and painted, the frame was just painted today, and the engine block is bored, ported, and relieved and hanging on the engine stand.

I am planning to have it at Gettysburg as an aid to keeping folk's skin loose. Friends from Packardinfo who make themselves known are welcome to take it for a (chaperoned) drive. It is wicked fun to drive.

Kev, the Trevoux car did have a lip around the rear wheel arches. I will try to post some other shots of the original car shortly. The B pillar will be quite slender and from stainless steel, to give a hardtop look. Ross

You can have a lot of fun with that car for that money. Just check the floors and structure on the back side of the rocker panels for gang rot--but in California how much rot can there be???

Most all the pieces necessary to put the brakes in good order are available cheap at the local auto parts store, and the engine is not a lot more complicated than two Ford 8N tractor engines mounted in a line. If the tranny is automatic, best check it in all positions to see if it grabs a gear. Stick shifts are no problem.

If you want to make it pretty, the chrome will kill you if its bad.

All that said, they are GREAT driving cars and you can have something that will stand out from the crowd. My long experience as a "bottom feeder" shows me you can get one for way less than the price guide says, and have a junior Packard sedan for a fraction of what a Ford or Chevy in equal condition would cost. Keep us posted.

Here's someplace else to cut for a very cool look. Check out this Packard that was raced by Jean Trevoux in the Carrera Panamericana in 53 and 54. Although it was custom bodied, it looks mostly like a sectioned 53. No one seems to know what happened to that car so I am trying to make a near copy starting with a 51 four door like yours plus the roof from a 53. Both were nasty parts cars representing a combined purchase price of $250. The sedan had 10 inches taken out of the wheelbase and was sectioned 4 3/4 inches. Fun with sheet metal. The drivetrain is done--I just need to finish the door uppers so it looks like a hardtop and paint the thing.

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I have a delightfully sneaky trick for that problem. Use double sided molding tape, available at a good auto parts store. Clean the paint and the molding well, apply the tape and stick that puppy on. The tape is rather thick, resiliant, and tenacious. If the molding is hollow and the tape does not protrude. then put on a couple of layers of tape. Or, fill the back of the molding with bondo or epoxy, then put on the tape and stick it on. After a day of setting, it will be on tighter than with a molding clip.