Obviously your overdrive is out of order. The cable switch simply puts it mechanically into "free wheeling"

If it were working, you'd feel a "clunk" as the selonoid engaged the reduction gears in the over-drive unit that would take it out of direct drive, and give you about a 70% over-drive.

Suggest you get hold of a shop manual and an ohmmeter so you can trace out the failure.

who remembers the "bath-tub" on the dam-scene at the end of the movie DR ZCHIVAGO...that was supposed to have taken place just after the war....oh well...picky picky....!

not sure WHAT that thing is. Looks like '54 bumpers, but the front windshield trim puzzles me. Photo isnt clear enough to be certain, but that MAY be a '51-52 upper shell.

One possibility is someone put the bumpers and front clip from a later Packard ('54 ? ) on a '51-52'.

I rebuilt a couple of wrecked '51 - '52 Packards by using front clips from other cars - if anyone has what they THINK is a 200 convertible...could be one of my old ones...! (no such thing as a 200 convertible, far as I know 'cept for the ones I repaired with 250-300-400 front clips....!)

I dont know about other states - I spent most of my driving age years in Calif.

I owned a bit more than a few Packards down thru the years -to get "pink" slips ( Calif. Certificate Of Ownership ) DMV always in those pre "VIN" years, always insisted on the ENGINE number.

As a side note, when I brought my V-12 American La France fire engine into Calif., (this was in the mid-1980's - long after all states had adopted the Fed. law creating the VIN system - think that was in the late 60's) they at first refused to register it because it did not have a VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION number. Of course it did have a very similar "builder's patent plate" like Packard had, even stamped with a "Vehicle Number".

The DMV clerk was very insistant that I go back outside and look on the upper dash for the VIN. I explained it was a 1936 fire engine - open cab., so there WAS NO UPPER DASH!

Then she said I would have to write the manufacturer "and get a statement from them that they had violated Federal law for their failure to install a VIN, and then Calif. could, with that letter for their legal authority, stamp a new VIN on the vehicle's upper dash" (she STILL didn't "get it that there IS no "upper dash" on an open-cab 1938 American La France fire engine....!).

I explained that the American La France Co. of Elmira, New York, closed its doors nearly 50 years ago, and the factory had long since been torn down. And of course I explained to her the law creating the VIN system didnt come into existence until some forty years after my fire engine was built.....!

Can you believe this..? Her response was.."THAT'S NO EXCUSE"...

Bottom line - finally got them to accept the "Vehicle Number" on the brass mfg's "build plate"...!

Yah - in answer to your question, Bud Ekins had a motorcycle shop on Ventura Blvd, somewhere out near Sepulveda. Damn - that was MANY years ago. Wasn't my thing, as he was primarily a dealer in Brit. bikes. But I was in that store from time to time. I dont know when he closed down his operation there.

Turbo said that Canada is backward technologically.

Hmmm..wonder what planet that Canada was on, or when Turbo last visited it.

The Canada I just visited ( the one here on Planet Earth ) is pretty damn advanced with some pretty nice folk.

I sure hope our fellow Americans are as hospitible to visiting Canadians, as the Canadians I meet are to me when I am a guest in their country.

The problem is one of terminology. The term "VEHICLE IDENTIFICATON NUMBER" was the result of a federal law about 35 years ago. Cars built after that had to have a "VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER", which had to be visible from outside the car, on the dash-board.

Prior to that, there was no such thing as a "VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER". Cars had "serial numbers", with each manufacturer having its own idea on how to identify cars for licensing and law-enforcement issues.

Packard used the ENGINE number from day one. That is the number that should appear on the car's legal documents.

RE COLOR
The very pretty Young & Rubican advertisements of "senior" Packards during the classic era showed some pretty fantastic colors and color combinations.

Factory photographs of the production line tell a far different story. With VERY few exceptions, "senior" Packards went out the door solid colors, typically VERY dark blue, or green, when they werent solid black. And VERY few were delivered with white-wall tires.

It is hard to explain to people today just what "conservative" meant in those years. White-walls and flamboyant color combinations were rarely seen on the big "super cars" of the very rich, that we now call "classics". My recollection is wasn't till '41, (after Packard "down-sized" its big cars & no longer built car bodies), did they start offering two-tone colors.

Now, in answer to your comments & questions, I got bored with my car's original solid black ( it was getting shaggy anyway) so I took it apart (that's the way the cars were painted in production - apart) so there'd be no masking tape lines, and "shot" it with silver fenders, VERY light blue body, and got a WHITE top. (skilled hunters know how to track down the elusive Great California Naugha, kill em, skin em, dye their hides white...)

After about 15 years, got bored with that. Tired of being told that was MOST inappropriate for a Formal Sedan.

About that time, then new (late 70's) Cadillacs had what was called an "Elk Grain" option which was and remains the closest simulation to the REAL leather Packard "senior div." Formal Sedans and Town Cars had on their tops. So I had the top re-done in that material, color silver to match the fenders.

But I got tired of that after a while, and re-painted the silver top with black fabric coloring. The fenders are now DARK ("Packard Blue") blue, the body is a medium blue.

A couple of weeks into shooting the second "Salvage" show, I happened to have to leave the set for a major trial - Griffith gave me assurances he would not let anyone drive my car, so I took off for the day. It was supposed to be a "statinory" shot. But the production people decided they wanted my car turned around. Griffith "got into it" with some union reps about him driving my car. He wasnt about to give up my keys! Griffth is a pretty big guy, so he got to win the argument, ( with the help of a tire iron he had in his hands, which, fortunately, he didnt have to use!).

I should explain - most production company's union contracts & rules required ONLY Teamsters member to drive cars on screen. Griffith was a SAG (Screen Actor's Guild) member, not Teamsters. No love lost between them.

Anyway, as a result of the big argument, my car and I was gone. Part of that was because a guy in production had a buddy with a really beat up '39 Packard 12 sedan (not a formal). He painted his car to LOOK like mine, & he got the rest of the job. I recall in the rest of the series it was pretty obvious it wasnt my car. "Quickie" paint job. Dont know what happend to that 12 - never saw it again. Werent too many 5 passenger '39 Twelves around, then or now.

CLosing comments on colors on classic era big Packards. Fact is there were some TWO and even THREE tone orders accepted by Packard up thru the end of '34 production

But they were pretty conservative colors. From '35 on to the end of "senior" production in June '39 , to my knowledge, the factory never again accepted two-tone color orders. Best they would do is offer different colors on the stripes and wheels. With this qualification - obviously, if a guy wanted his new "big" Packard painted like a pink zebra, and the dealership knew that is what it would take to make the sale, you can BET that somewhere out there are some pretty wild '35 - '39 "senior" Packards that went out the doors of the dealerships in less-than-conservative paint schemes.

actualy, I do have a pan shot of the "bail out" scene that was shot and re-shot, then after all that expense, never used in HARLEM NIGHTS. Will try and find it and post it.

Have some shots I personally took while shooting SALVAGE. Will look for those, too.

Normally, private cameras are absolutely FORBIDDEN on movie shoots, so I dont have anything else.

I would hardly call the stuff I did with my V-12 a movie career - just fun stuff we old car buffs did; more often than not just to get together with other car guys. Drove the "transportation captains" nuts because we were more often than not more interested in gabbing about cars than to listen to them. Of course the money was pretty good; typically $200 - 500. a day for big classics.

Hi Clipper:

I stopped doing movie jobs in the late 80's. Too boring. And my employer at that time started to get "uppity" about me taking time off.

List of jobs was of course part of my tax reports, but I only keep records going back 7 years.

Best I can do to re-construct - would be..let's see. The Andy Griffth job was for a TV series called "SALVAGE" We did the "pilot" for that with my Twelve - series only lasted a season. Griffth played a junk yard dealer who was building a rocket to the moon - my car was supposedly his in that show. Had lots of final screen time in that one.

I saw a movie the other day that I was involved in; came in on the middle - involved two colored guys in what was supposed to be New York. Ah..just rememberd. HARLEM NIGHTS. That was mostly shot in the old industrial section of down-town Los Angeles. Only Packard that got really good screen time in the final cut was a late 30's "120" with a town-car body, owned by a now dead friend of mine.

Did a couple of major features in which Alec Baldwin was one of the stars - got the "front clip" of my Twelve in that for about three seconds, literally! Wish I could have had the 'out-takes' on that - shot some great scenes of me tearing up deserted highways north of Los Angeles - think I got two weeks work out of that one.

Ah..I remember, a Henry Fonda movie called THE MARETH LINE (not sure of the spelling ) - the plot involved some military officers who were friends, from all the combatants - movie takes them from the thirites, thru World War II, to post-war. Lots of great shots of my car & high speed driving in that - saw it on late night TV many years ago - as usual, my shots cut to hell - you only see flashes of my car in some background scenes, and you have to be quick to see em. Some of my scenes were shot on some side-streets in Beverly Hills. Damn - wish I had the out-takes on those high-speed cornering scenes. I remember that Henry Fonda was a damn good sport about being bounced around in the back seat on some of those goofy high speed curve scenes, and was VERY cooperative when I told him, on those scenes involving him getting out and closing my back door, not to slam it.

BOTTM LINE - Movie jobs are fun for a while, but it gets "old" when you have a "call" for 5 am and they dont get to you before, say 4:00 pm, then they start screaming the light is going bad, and you guessed it..another 5:00 or 6:00 am "call". Then you run around telling all your buddies to see this or that movie and the great scene you had in it..only to find all those expensive "location" shots were cut out.

HARMLEM NIGHTS - yeah, that's the one where they called Red Foxx back into the studio to shoot a one minute scene where he EXPLAINS how they had all these expensive cars to pick up "the girls" (prostitutes) from the jail after they arranged bail. That scene with Red Foxx EXPLAINING what happened, was how they got "continuity" without including that fantastic scene that was SHOT, that he DESCRIBES, but wound up on the cuttin-room floor.

Damn..really wanted to see that scene - the "prostitute" assigned to my car was a particularly pretty college girl, whose "part" was to walk from the "jail" (actually an old warehouse in down-town Los Angeles's old industrial district) to my car. WOW ! All she was wearing was a way-too-short (did I say SHORT) baby-doll mini-dress, that had practically no top. And BE ASSURED that was ALL she was wearing, and all she had on underneath that...was her high heeled shoes !

Not sure how many commercials for various products I did over the years; recall a beer commercial with a real cute girl who sat on my front fender (no, they didnt give me any beer).

Yeah, that Packard in the EMPIRE OF THE SUN wasnt mine. Have no clue what that was.