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G'day Hans,
to PackardInfo.
And for including your '54 Clipper Deluxe Touring Sedan in the Packard Owner's Registry. Really like the pic with your Registry entry, something different.

Hans,

Welcome to the website. Nice to see my car has found it's long lost twin. Amazing that the desert heat bakes the paint in the exact same way every time.

Hopefully your car was spared the rust issues that mine has.

What is the gizmo on the rear package shelf off your car?

Luckily there are no major rust problems, just a spot at the rear of the left sill, just before the rear wheel arch. Nothing to be worried about, I'm just gonna leave it that way, with a good preservation of course. The shiny thing is a traditional American lunchbox ,like you used to see in the Flintstones.

I must say, the car is a giant to drive in Dutch traffic, finding a fitting parking space is not so simple. The driving experience is fantastic, a five year old child can do it. My daily driver is a Volvo 144 from 1968 without power steering and non-automatic gearbox. I can manoeuver the Packard into my garage in the wink of an eye, where it takes ages to do the same with the Volvo. By the way, speaking of automatic gearboxes: my wife drives a DAF 55, a Dutch factory that produced passenger cars with a belt driven automatic transmission. Here is picture of the Packards engine bay.

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i think i'm in love with this car. wow....so cool. that engine bay has me drooling for some reason.

cheers!

Hank

It's nice you have power steering and brakes. My steering is a workout at very low speed.

What are those valves or gizmos on the heater hoses?

Hank, those straight eights (S8) sure do draw attention. So much different that the standard V8 configurations most people are used to seeing in cars.

What a nice car and a great story! I'll just ask the obvious question, (which everyone else may know):

What the heck does the B/A 11 stand for?

Straight from the drag strip? B/A = B Altered class car.

Glad to read that you guys like the car. I immediately fell in love with it too, just made me desparately want to own it...

Thanks for the info on the B/A writing, didn't know the exact meaning of it either, just that it had to do with some kind of a race classification.

By the way, these racing numbers are not original, they are an addition of the owner before me. He is a painter, so he knows his way with paint and brushes and in my opnion did a great job on 'ageing' the numbers. Blends nicely in with the atmoshere of the car, as do the slightly widened rims and beefier (215/70-15) tires. Still in doubt whether I should paint those rims deep burgundy red in stead of black. Could be a good match with the blue and brown tones of the body, what do you think?

Part of my deal with the former owner was that he would paint a logo on both sides of the car. I will explain the meaning of that later and also post a drawing of that logo.

Kev, I guess you mean the two mystery parts in the heater hose on the left side of the picture? One is a bleeding valve at the highest point of the coling system and the other is the heater valve. Both non original, I know, but useful. The inline heater valve replaces the broken original valve. The cable runs to a separate pull and push knob underneath the dash, but in the future I will connect it to the original sliding knob in the dash. Shouldn't be that big of a job.

Here's for the story about the logo. It's lunchtime now here in Holland, so I can spare a few minutes to tell you guys. The last USA owner was a Mr. Russell T. Wolfram from California. I found his obituary last week on the internet, he died last September in his eighties. The Wolf theme in his name reminded me of the famous disc jockey Wolfman Jack (Da Wolfman), so I decided to commemorate both of them in a logo on the car. Also the wolf is very common in blues music, that my wife and me like very much. So that is the story. You don't see the logo on the pictures, as they are from a earlier date. It looks as if it were there for the last decades...

Another reason why I fell for the car is that it first hit the American roads September 1954, my date of birth is September 22, 1954. Coincidence? Yes, but when I went to take a first look at the car it was parked in an industrial building with my last name on it, put there by the company that used to own the building. That can't be coincidence, I call that fate..... The car must be my long lost brother.

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