I have a 443 Runabout I acquired about 6 months ago, and compared to the average forum visitor am very new to the hobby. I hope that people will bear with me as I’m still very much learning my way around this car and vintage automobiles generally.

A couple of weeks back driving home from an event on a warm day, I got caught in traffic and the vehicle, which had been running pretty well up to that point, killed rather suddenly. (A scary situation as it was on a busy city street in the middle of a construction zone.) After letting it rest a half hour or so, it started again briefly but clearly running very off (hesitant and a bit jerky), and then killed again after maybe 20 seconds. Rested it again, same story, and so finally got a tow..

Since then, it won’t start - at best if I prime the carburetor it will fire very briefly and then kills again. Talking with a local club member who’s also a 443 owner he suspects a distributor issue. I will probably need to find a professional to help given my inexperience on these issues, but I’m hoping people might at least be able to help me get an idea about how to start thinking about the issue.

Thanks in advance for any input people can offer, and hoping I’m not in as far over my head with this car as I’m feeling at the moment. 😬

Guscha, what an interesting thread you’ve put together here, thanks so much for sharing all this, I really enjoyed reading it and seeing all these great old photos!

Hey just thought I’d let folks know, I did eventually figure out the answer to this question with help from a member here who reached out to me. The earlier discussion about body numbers (312 for Custom 8 Runabout vs 382 for the Eight Runabout) was correct. I eventually found the number (with the help of this member) under the rumble seat pictured below. As you’ll see it is in fact an Eight, not a Custom 8, and the number (382-118), along with a September 1928 original sales date, would make me believe it was probably very late in the run for the Fourth Series.

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The Kimes book, which I’ve also studied before coming here with this question, gives some additional information without actually answering how to differentiate between the two models. I’ll quote at length here as I think it includes clues but by my read no clear answers:

Quote:

Kimes also details lower prices for the standard models (with significant rolling discounts as the model year progressed).

While informative none of it really gets to the nub of my question of how to differentiate between the two models, if that is even possible.

* It’s unclear to me on this point whether Kimes is saying that the rear mounted spares were only optional, or standard, on the standard models. I think the more plausible read is that rear mounted spares were optional on standard 8 443s but unavailable on Custom 8s.

Well I’m not sure if any of these will be helpful for answering my original question but I don’t mind showing it off a little

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Thanks Big Kev, I put 312 as a guess because I believe it to be a custom 8 based on what the previous owner told me (and I had to enter something). But I don’t really know how or where to look on the car to confirm that. Looking at the model info page the 312 and 382 seem to share all basic specs.

Hey, I apologize if this is answered elsewhere on the site, but I spent a few hours searching here and elsewhere and haven’t been able to find an answer.

Anyway I was fortunate enough to recently acquire a beautiful 443 runabout (registered here:https://packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/registry/index.php?Action=view&ID=3842), and the seller said this was a Custom 8. For all my looking, though, I cannot figure how to verify whether it’s a Custom 8 443 or a Standard 8 443. My understanding is that the Custom 8 was finished in nicer trim and had some other more upscale details, but does anybody have a way I can identify for sure?

Thanks again. I will no doubt try your collective patience in the future with similarly dumb questions as I try to figure out how to take properly care of this beautiful piece of history.

Hey thanks for directing me to your saga of bringing your clipper back to life. I have a ‘54 convertible so not 100% the same but I’m enjoying reading through this and trying to educate myself as much as possible as I’m relative new to the hobby.

Great info, thank you Fish’n Jim!

Thank you, I really appreciate all of this information, it seems like a good starting point. The trunk is one of the last places that we haven’t gotten back to (near) original shape so I’m trying to gather info to get it started.