If it wasn't for PBS I would have quit watching TV long ago.

Wow! The cruise nights up here never have cars of this caibre. Mostly 70's Corvettes and 60's Muscle cars and two Model A Fords. You are very lucky to have genuine Classics show up.

I attended a Packard event at the Gilmore in the early 1990's and it was a very memorable experience to say he least. It is a marvellous museum and I highly recommend it if you haven't already been to it even without a Packard specialty event.

I would agree with Mark that the defroster function is very important if you plan to drive the car in cooler temperatures. My '47 had both the defroster/ heater under dash unit and the under seat heat. Living along the shores of Lake Superior I used both units even in the summer in occasion. I found that the defroster unit worked best when the foot warmer door was closed and the defroster fan was in high. It was not very effective at lower speeds but worked quite well at clearing the windshield of moisture at the highest setting. The passenger floor received enough heat from the exhaust pipe in any event. My car was purchased in Winipeg Manitoba and has spent its entire live in northwestern Ontario. I often wonder how effective these heaters would have been at -40 which is not unusual for these parts. I doubt that they provided much heat to that vast interior space.

I'll always remember how Crawford would spin the wheels of the old Buicks on the gravel shoulder and when the wheels hit the pavement they would chirp. Probably the only way to "burn rubber" with the Dynaflow transmission.

What a lovely story and great pictures. Welcome to the site and enjoy the many articles and features.

Personally I would chance it. It's no big deal to change gasket on the old flathead if you find that you have a leak although I would keep a lookout for any fluid seepage and retorque the head nuts after running the engine.

Gerd, I was curious about Mr. Hurban since Czechoslovakia was under Nazi occupation in 1939. It appears he defied the Nazis and held onto the Washington Embassy as part of a government in exile.

HMM! In North America I would guess that the Cadillac-LaSalle, Lincoln Zephyr, Nash Ambassador, Studebaker President, Chrysler Windsor would qualify as lower end luxury cars....I am sure others with more knowledge than I will chime in with ideas. Several British, French and German cars come to mind off hand also.

John, What a lovely photo. Thanks for posting.