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If I remembered correctly I bought him a case of Polish beer (and that is all he wanted) but I also bought him a few $50 dinner gift cards.

He also did 32 wheel lugs, running board trim screws and he is still working on the luggage rack bumper that screws into the bumper bowtie for me. There are some other odds and ends parts he did for me too.

At the end of my Antique Automobile column in the July issue I declared, after having four cars sitting on jack stands at the same time, that I was going to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin to show either my son's Mazda RX-7 or my 1940 Packard ... "come hell or high water." I was fed up with all my other tasks taking precedence over doing even the simplest maintenance or repairs on the household's daily drivers, let alone a pair of antiques that had been gathering cobwebs. AACA Past President and current Director Tom Cox and I had made plans to drive together for a 1,000-mile road trip in the Packard. It was getting down to the wire, and all I needed to do was either complete the installation of a replacement axle in the RX-7 or finish installing a multitude of parts on the Packard ... preferably both.

After a whirlwind of effort, both cars were lowered off of their perches in time. "The road trip is on," I matter-of-factly told Tom as he was already halfway to my house. We literally threw together whatever we could see that we thought we might need on the off chance an emergency repair was needed. No replacement parts, but we had a good selection of tools.

Our goal was to get off of the freeway as soon as we could so we could enjoy a semi-casual drive through America's heartland while avoiding the pain of having to drive through Chicago. A nice thing about the Packard ... equipped with the most powerful production engine available in 1940 and mated to a perfectly working Borg-Warner overdrive, it can cruise effortlessly well above posted freeway speed limits.

After almost four hours of being on the road and with roughly 238 miles behind us, we finally found a two-lane route that didn't look like it was too far out of the way. Illinois SR47 went straight north and skirted the west side of Chicago. Perfect ... except that Chicago spreads out a little further than I had calculated.

Some 80 miles later and after crossing the Illinois River, stop-and-go stoplight traffic had quickly gotten the best of us so we decided to follow the GPS thinking it would take us west to I-39, which also went straight north toward cheese country. Evidently I still had the GPS programmed for the shortest route, because while Tom and I were busy discussing world events, the next thing we knew we were on the Tri-State Tollway going around Chicago. Naturally we were heading out of town, on a Friday afternoon, during rush hour. Having driven through Chicago a multitude of times in my lifetime, it was exactly what I was trying to avoid. Driving like the true taxi driver that I surely must have been in a previous life, and having total confidence in the Packard, I wasn't the least bit concerned. I think Tom was.

It would not seem at all odd that, since it was the middle of summer and we were in a car that rarely gets driven in the winter, the heater valve at the cylinder head was turned off. It is a nice option, but surely not needed ... unless one is driving through a true frog-strangling thunderstorm ... which we were. The ingenious engineering of the heater in my car is that it also doubles as a windshield defogger. The fan just spins the opposite direction. Fat lot of good it does without any boiling hot water running through the core.

While Tom is nervously wiping off the inside of the windshield, I'm squinting to navigate the SS Packard through the I-294 canal that we apparently had slipped into. That's when the sound of rain pounding on the roof of our vessel began to reach decibel levels akin to a rock concert. Now what? [b]Hail?[/b] I immediately thought of my final decree in my July column. God must think of me as a true southerner, because when I said "come hell or high water, I'm going to Oconomowoc," he thought I said "hail or high water," and provided both. Ironically, Oconomowoc is Potawatomi for waterfall!

We made the trip there and back unharmed. On the way home, we realized that we could get on Route 66 for a short while, discovering a couple of restored gas stations and a wonderful Pontiac museum in Pontiac, Illinois. The only mechanical incidents were a Shrader valve in a back tire coming loose on the way to Wisconsin, and the generator failing on the return trip.

We were on a mission from God.

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As mentioned, one of the luggage rack nobs was also lost en route.

The generator was rebuilt. The voltage regulator was adjusted by 39SixSedanMan (Pat), who also did a major carburetor idle adjustment for me, and he got it back up and running perfectly so I could take it to Hershey.

Before I left, I found a replacement luggage rack nob that needs replating, plus I bought another pair at Hershey that need replating. I found a local machine shop that will be making me a set of new ones out of stainless steel.

I had to leave Hershey in the middle of the night Saturday morning. Rather than risk being broken down on the side of the road in the middle of the night, since I needed to get to Detroit asap, two friends left Hershey early with me, and drove me home. I left the Packard in the motel's parking lot.

When dawn broke, I called another friend who was staying at the motel, and he agreed to drive the car onto the show field for me, in the rain. I then had to find a place to store the car until I could get back to Hershey and pick it up. Chris Ritter, AACA's head librarian, has a airplane hanger at his place, and agreed to store it for me. Since I was unable to return to Hershey before the snow fell, it will remain in Pennsylvania for the duration.

At the last minute, I decided to change the car from "Do Not Judge" and put it in the judging category. It received a Third Place trophy.

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Oh... and a clearer shot of the rear end, with newly repaired/refinished trunk lid, rear fenders, and luggage rack.

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West,

I was pleased to see your car at Oconomowoc. We came up just for the Saturday show and enjoyed the variety and quality of cars there. We drove up in my 41 TuTone Green 110 touring sedan but did not display it. I took several shots of your car and was delighted to hear you are putting it on the road. It is always an adventure but to quote Jay Leno, "The fun is in getting to the destination" and even more rewarding to get home! Thanks for sharing the stopping points on your trips.

Earlier this month the AACA group organized a trip , a "Brighton Run" to Brighton Wisconsin. It was a beautiful crisp day as over 100 cars descended on the back roads to Brighton which has a saloon called Jedde's Bar, a church and graveyard. The church hosted a huge turkey dinner and the bar served up 6 buck margarita's to all the passengers. We did not visit boot hill.

Hi

Great account of your Wisconsin tour. Somewhere in that harried, rain-soaked, rush-hour traffic the very sight of your majestic Packard raised the spirits of another kindred soul. Like a vision from another era, reminded him that at one time, automobiles were so much more than transportation appliances.

Enjoyed seeing it on the Hershey show field too, glad it was there, hope you get to be with it next year.

Steve

West,
Congratulations on the Hershey 3rd award! Well deserved after the Hell or High Water challenges that faced you in the repairs. The Velocity Channel reality shows "got nuttin' on you.

pm

It has been quite some time since my last update. I had scheduled to show the Packard at 5 AACA events this year, including Virginia Beach; Auburn, Indiana; Kansas City, Missouri (the car's original home, by the way); Louisville, Kentucky; and Hershey.

As mentioned earlier, I chose to leave the car in Hershey all winter long with the wonderful offer by Chris Ritter to store it for me after my emergency escape in October.

This May, I picked it up and headed down I-81 toward Virginia Beach, with a scheduled maintenance stop at a friend's restoration shop in West Virginia to check and top-off transmission and rear-end oil. Apparently, because of the rough road in Pennsylvania, the rear door worked itself open to the safety catch (good thing for safety catches!!)

Apparently, the screws holding the striker plate in place were relatively loose. With the rear door partially open, that allowed the screws to eventually drop out: no screws... no striker plate... BLAM!!! At 65mph, the rear door flew open. At first, I thought I had blown a tire. After assessing that the car still handled normally (and thanking the good Lord that my pants were still dry), I turned my head from side to side to figure out what happened. With a lot of open space out my right peripheral, of course my first words were, "Oh Shit!"

Fortunately, bank-vault-like hinges prevented the door from slamming into the rear fender and quarter panel. In fact, the door post holding the hinges wasn't even compromised. The door was bent, and the hinges were bent.

I was able to force the door mostly back into place, and with an electrical extension cord I tied it shut. My friend's shop was 28 miles away, so I motored on. He told me he could have me back on the road with a make-shift door latch, but I chose to call the insurance company and leave it for him to fix properly.

It is hoped that the car will be ready to show at the Arthritis Foundation meet in Columbus in July, as well as the AACA Louisville show in July, and of course Hershey in the fall. Stay tuned.

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With the striker plate disappearing, I needed to find a new one. Fortunately, 39SixSedanMan (Pat) had two replacements at the ready (I noticed my driver's door was missing the safety catch). This is the left rear catch. Note that it's chrome plated. The replacements have obviously not ever been plated, so that's probably another difference between Junior and Senior models.

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Wow. Glad to hear more wasn't damaged. You're right about the bank vault door/packard door comparison. I once had a hood fly open on me in a '53 Chevy 210 at 60mph. It bent the hood over the roof, smashed the windshield and believe me, unlike you my pants were not dry by the time I got it stopped.

Is it just the outer skin around the hinges that got smooshed?