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In the Recent Photos column, the pic posted by Owen_Dyneto of the Swiss Packard Meet shows 7 Packards and 4 are Fire Department vehicles. Quite a concentration of unusual Packards in the one locality.

Note - Click on pic to enlarge

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I'm glad you enjoyed the picture which came to me courtesy of the owner of that brown/tan 1102, 3rd down the line from the left, Peter Issler. Their Packard club really brings out the vintage iron, and he's sent me quite a few other terrific photos of sometimes very unusual cars in terrific locales.

Peter's 34 has some of the usual and less usual export features and I'll enclose some detail pictures. I believe the headlights are Zeiss.

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Are those directional (turn signal) semaphore's on that last picture?

Kev,

Spot on there old boy. A lot of British, and probably European, cars had these type of indicators factory mounted in the B pillar and when activated they swing out from the body and the light inside flashes.

Here's another detail photo from the Swiss 1102. Note the sbsence of the traditional Packard yoke shape on the interior edges of the headlight door as on Packard's standard U.S. "Solar" brand headlamps. Switzerland, like many European countries, would not certify cars for import with U.S. headlights; I believe these are Zeiss or Bosch (German), other imports might have Marchal, Lucas, etc. depending on the country of import. Werner Risch of Zurich was of course Packard's dealer in Switzerland.

Also enclosing another very attractive photo of the 1102 in a very Swiss setting.

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Call them what you will according to the customs of your area; where and when I grew up, we always called the ones without lights "wig-wags" and those with lights semaphores. In any case I'm sure you'll agree the fire engines are unique, and Mr. Issler's car is lovely; you'll note in the picture of it by the locomotive he's added the correct 1934 metal sidemount covers, very hard indeed to find and subletly different from 1933 in the location of the side cover trim ring.

It's surprising what and where a thread can lead to. In this instance the "many" Packard fire vehicles caught my eye and I highlighted that. Anyone know why that might be? More pic's were provided which led to trafficators being highlighted and Gerd kindly corrected my explanation there. The pic of the '34 1102 with the locomotive in the typically Swiss setting and Dave's earlier comment Quote: also intrigues me, whetting my appetite for the "other terrific photos".

I'll have to search around for the other photos from Switzerland, but as long as fire engines got your interest, are you familiar with the small run of fire engines made by General on the Packard Twelve chassis? This picture was previously posted on this site but I'll put it up again, it was taken at the Packard Centennial in 1999. The second photo is of a 6=40 built for Brooklyn, NY fire department.

And although not Packard related, I've found this photo of a Stutz-powered early fire engine interesting as well. Hope you enjoy.

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Although not specifically interested in fire vehicles, anything Packard based is of interest. No, I wasn't aware of the General vehicles on the Packard Twelve but it is a real good looking fire engine! And there is no mistaking the maker of the Stutz powered fire engine is there? I do have a pic of a Packard fire vehicle from the Warren Ohio Packard Museum though.

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Graber of Switzerland built costume bodies for Packard's. I guess most of the bodies were Convertible Victoria's.

I refer everyone to page 205 in the book titled The Coach Built Packard by Hugo Pfau.


John F. Shireman