I think something more constructive is needed than slap downs. Below is the general defintion of synthetic pertoleum from the junknet:
"Synthetic oil is a lubricant consisting of chemical compounds that are artificially made. Synthetic lubricants can be manufactured using chemically modified petroleum components rather than whole crude oil, but can also be synthesized from other raw materials. The base material, however, is still overwhelmingly crude oil that is distilled and then modified physically and chemically. The actual synthesis process and composition of additives is generally a commercial trade secret and will vary among producers."
Are synthetic oils of great benefit in normal use? They are claimed better in extreme cold and extreme hot, and supposedly less hygroscopic. That is, they absorb less moisture when sitting. The extreme heat property is beneficial under boundary conditions. That is, near metal to metal contact which generates extreme heat.
How about all those claims of less frequent oil change intervals? I don't know any petroleum engineers to ask and can't comment except to say: who knows if they simply have more detergents and such? I did know a MOBIL oil corporate guy who put synthetics in his Packards. Here is what the product sheet says:

"If your vehicle is covered by a warranty, follow the vehicle's oil life sensor or the oil change interval
recommended in your owner's manual. Proper maintenance practices, including frequently checking the
oil level to ensure that the appropriate amount of oil is present, are required to ensure effective performance"
And what do they say about the product itself?
"(Brand name) Synthetic oils are made with a proprietary blend of high performance synthetic basestocks."
Basestocks are from crude oils.

One thing about old car motors is they run dirty, and many use large capacity sumps. Using synthetics is, thus, probably of no great advantage because dirty motors exhaust the additive packages more rapidly than the base oil wears out. That is my case for using convetional oil in old car motors.
Here is a case history I found that is very interesting. I don't have any means to test its validity, but it does support my preference for lighter grades of oil.
"My daily driver had nothing used in it except Mobiloil #30 for the first 99,000 miles of its life. When I started driving it (1959)it was burning a quart of oil every 500 miles. The shop foreman at the GM dealership where I worked said to use lighter weight oil as it would scrape off the cylinder walls easier. I switched to 20 wt and after three oil changes the consumption was down to a quart in one thaousand miles. When I overhauled my engine at 200,00 odd miles I started out with the best rated "DG" oil # 5 weight. I used this weight oil for over 100,000 miles and then went to #10 wt that I still use. I have 18 lbs pressure at an idle and 30 lbs when driving. The pressure stays like this all day driving at 40 to 55 mph. I had the pan off around 450,000 miles because one of my new pistons developed slap. Everything was clean and the bearings showed no wear ( I plastiguaged all nine of them). I would use nothing but the best detergent oil at the lightest weight possible."

As well, the Packard manual recommended heavier grades only to curb excessive oil consumption due to engine wear.

Synthetic oils were discovered by accident in a lab attempting distill heavier basestocks into gasoline.

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From the article: "This Day in Labor History: June 6, 1943"

The biggest white racial job action was at Packard. There, on June 3, (1943) 25,000 white workers went on strike when the company promoted three black workers. Packard did this not out of a commitment to racial equality, but to destroy the union from within. Packard’s personnel director, C.E. Weiss, was a horrid racist who talked about his inability to promote blacks because they played dice on the job. Weiss also bragged about being the first executive to bring blacks north to bust unions, when he worked for Chrysler in 1917. Equally anti-union, Weiss decided to divide the UAW through promoting a few blacks. Racial division became a useful strategy in a post-NLRA world when overt union-busting was harder to pull off.
The Packard Hate Strike was just a foretaste of the racist feast to come that summer, when a mere two weeks later, the Detroit Race Riot of 1943 would break out, leading to 34 dead over three days after a fight, with all the white hatred over black incursions into their jobs and neighborhoods spilled over. It took federal troops to put this down. Japanese propagandists began to use the racism in Detroit to try and convince blacks to stop fighting.

They are now the proud owner of a cracked block the same way as Paul Lamb's car.

Those scientists must not be very bright given when I was a kid population control was a government funded program. My generation had the lowest birth rate since the depression, but the results have not been encouraging given what we ended up with was spoiled self centered brats. All this greenhouse gas stuff is more politically motivated garbage talk because the horse is already over the fence. When you look at the numbers either the "experts" are stupid or they are crazy. The only bright side is all that overpriced beach front real estate is going to be washed away. Shoot, global warming was already happening when the Titanic was surrounded by icebergs. I tell the youngsters today I feel I sorry for the mess they are being stuck with. I don't understand these billionaires. All the money in the world isn't going to get them a willing sexual partner. I don't have much interest in money because it attracts a lot of people I don't want to talk to. Why would I want to even be in the same neigborhood as, say, Trump. The thought makes me nauseous. And when I croak I want to make sure there is nothing left to be picked over.

This car hobby stuff hasn't escaped. I saw a situation were some nut case bought a car from a high priced place like Hyman, stripped off the paint, tore out the interior, and threw the drivetrain into the trash to make a hot rod and get a trophy someplace. No thanks, I'll stick to banjo tunes.

But to get back to topic. I agree, those 6 volt Optimas can work really well in the 6 volt system. I handled a case where this Packard was burning out light bulbs because the generator was wired in full field mode. It had an Optima battery in it that handled the punishment and didn't break down. But rather than leaving them on chargers a better strategy might be to buy a voltmeter and check the voltage periodically. A heavy duty battery charger with AGM mode can be a great investment, but I haven't seen one with six volts so two Optimas in series would need to applied. Very often the engineering test cars come in with stone dead batteries because the programs are in development and draining batteries. I can revive lead acid batteries, but the AGMs are much more suseptible to failure. I haven't yet figured out why the test equipment is so rough on those deep cyclers. So proper charging methods are important.

When test vehicles come in that have been sitting, I put them on the charger automatically to simulate a full drive cycle. If I have a car sitting and due to go back out I check the voltage and put a charger on it.

That 34 Eight picture looks like some studio job. It doesn't even look like a running car. For one, the radiator is missing and in its place some painted wooden board.

I have a couple of those movie studio pictures where they air brushed the top of the radiator shell due to some glare problem and left the bottom plated.

I'm fast losing interest in this stuff as someone I know of cracked up some old piece of junk, got his teeth knocked out and impaled on the steering column. Meanwhile his daughter flew forward into the glove box door and ended up in two pieces. So as far as I'm concerned this collector car stuff is stupid. It's like paying sky high prices for cigarettes with high tar and nicotine.

Take off the cutout cover and disconnect the wire to the generator. Using an ohm meter connected between the armature lug and ground, manually close the points. If nothing changes on the meter you have an open circuit.

Could be a dirty commutator, brushes, open fields, a loose wire etc.. I fixed a V-12 once by gluing a loose brush wire back into the brush. I got a kick out of the stupid advertisement verbiage as it kicked around the old car auction circus. Then somewhere along the way it got all screwed up. I haven't seen it since.

There's a starting point.

Hmm, this picture indicates the same layout as the base Eight. I see chrome pushbuttons and chrome glove box handle. I also see uneven brake and clutch pedals. But who knows what all they were doing. There are lots of documented variations in those taxi models. That is one area where the photographic records hold up.

Of course this is a prototype. Perhaps even a clay model. Note the lack of a rear door.

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I remember those days when you could buy those V-12 limos cheap. People didn't want them.

As for the comment that excess money floating around is good for the economy, if there is no value added there is no economic gain. Where does money come from? I have some qualifications to address that matter. Bank assets are in the form of loans collateralized by hard assets. In the old days National Banks would issue their own currencies backed by such collateralized loans. These were called National Bank Notes. If they issued loans backed by junk assets like WorldCom stock their notes would quickly fall in value and depositors would run on the bank and shut it down. This restrained the Federal government's ability to spend because they had to rely on foreigners and the private sector to purchase government bonds. They also didn't like the instability of periodic panics where banks would have to pay for being sloppy. Who wants to see crooked bankers going to jail? Without a new source of funding the USA also could not get involved in stupid overseas affairs like World War I, so they created their own bank called the Federal Reserve which is a printing press. Now the government would sell bonds to the Federal Reserve which would then issue Federal Reserve Notes collateralized by US Government debt. Lately the Fed has started proping up the bond market by issuing notes to buy bonds that are falling in value in response to free market forces. What? Since when is price manipulation of financial assets good for the economy? If the crooks on Wall Street got caught doing that they would go to jail. If the price of old cars starts falling will the Fed start buying those as well to bail out the rich spending money on antiques that don't create jobs? The fact of the matter is that US monetary policy is Marxist. And that is hurting the poor the same way it did in the USSR, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Romania, East Germany, and so on.

Sorry for all the hot air, but I have been watching this situation my entire life.

I think the switches were plated as was the glove box handle. They obviously were groping for any sort of trim stratification given the cars were so generic. It probably cost more to paint the parts, but those things happen. However, for a taxi who would even care? I know some of them had painted grilles, but I wouldn't be surprised if they threw whatever they had at the dashboard.

At Chrysler the low line tire pressure monitoring system cost more than the deluxe system. And they were proud of it. They thought having all those systems for government mandated crap was something to be proud of.

I'm sure if you were buying from the Packard dealer you would get them. Even if you were getting them with after market parts there is no guarantee they are to correct specifications. I had some of those washers be completely different from the originals so I ended up matching the witness marks on the originals.

When you have such parts and they leak after being torqued to spec, that is not good when the originals don't leak.