Su8overdrive

"Second tier" was linquistic shading, denoting a relative dimunition among big Lincoln adherents, the KB long considered the pinnacle. You're taking it out of context, in which the K was praised. As for SUVs, they are ridiculous; high center of gravity, cupholders for every seat. As kids, we had station wagons, plenty comfortable. And....we walked, biked everywhere. You rarely saw a fat kid. Every other classroom, perhaps one kid was plump, but not today's rampant morbid obesity, medical researchers citing today's kids the first generation in human history that will live shorter lives than their parents, suffering diseases and ills in their 20s, 30s, once the province of those in their 60s, 70s. Big vans with windows on pick up chassis. Where's the "sport" part? Out in my corporate 'burbs, we laugh at the urban cowboys in their pristine four-door pick up trucks. You need a truck, rent one. Auto designers, marketers would be daft n o t to take advantage of the peculiar domestic Walter Mittyism, unrequited testosterone. But then some of us here gathered are sport car guys who got sidetracked by some of the more rational "road cars," "pocket luxury cars" of the late '30s, '40s, who nonetheless have long experience with the heavy iron "Classic" fire trucks of the earlier '30s, able to appreciate them for what they are, while still seeing them as a mite comic opera, over the top offerings to snare what discretionary coin remained during the Depression by automakers unwilling or unable to engineer novel juniors.

Only seeing expected head in the sand, troll snarkiness. What are your plans, gentlemen, to shift attention to the causes of our i.c. cars being convenient whipping boys, other than dredging a half century of old newspaper clippings, living in the past? The nation's and world's scientists concur. You know better? We're here now, 2023. New I.C. cars are already being phased out in Norway in two years, 2025, in Britain and halfway US 2030, the EU 2035. You imagine a relative handful of old car owners will long be immune from fees for limited use, requiring special permits? Are you really that insular, unable to grasp the big picture, see beyond your own hood ornaments?

Again, every poll of s c i e n t i s t s has them agreeing overpopulation by far our biggest problem, their words, "bigger than climate," including a 2013 poll of 2,000 UN scientists in 2013, another of 11,000 scientists in the 11/5/19 Bloomberg News. UN and other vetted studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined. S c i e n t i s t s, d o c t o r s, m e d i c a l r e s e a r c h e r s not overtly or covertly funded by carbon companies, meat, dairy, egg industry. We're not talking about "beliefs," "green energy companies" or "unending funding" or "private jets to meetings" or "average Joes." If you want to disregard the above pair of sentences and play "the dog ate my homework," have at it. The rest of us rationalists are focusing on the overarching problems, shifting attention to them, and away from making our old i.c. cars convenient whipping boys. 8.1 billion people all burning some form of carbon on a planet so small the towers of suspension bridges out of parallel to reflect the earth's curvature. 350 million babies onboard the US. These are staggering problems and the reason our cars are convenient whipping boys. Some of us have a lot of time, effort, money in our vintage cars and do not want to have to pay fees for limited use, require special permits, for their occasional enjoyment, which is where we're headed unless we turn focus on the causes: too many people eating the largest producer of greenhouse gas. Which is why this is simple, but not EZ. We do not see salvation in tawk radio, what we want to hear, what we wish were so, whining, playing us/them just because this will be tremendously difficult. So was rebuilding our old cars.

A-fish, you've gotta be kidding. Some client-denying kid shilling for the oil companies? More us/them divisiveness won't ensure a future in which we can still drive our old i.c. cars. We'll stick with the scientists not overtly or covertly funded by the carbon companies, and every vetted medical study not overtly or covertly funded by meat, dairy, egg industry. Bashing environmentalists, quoting Charles Koch-funded Cato Institute may appeal to the Fox "News" set, works for insular silver spooners wishing it was still 1960. Terry Ehrich, the late publisher of Hemmings Motor News, formerly with the New York Times Review of Books, owner of a '40 Buick Roadmaster and several other old cars and trucks, was a lifelong arboritst, Vermont's first Prius owner, an ardent environmentalist, as were car guys Paul Newman, James Garner, Dave Garroway, Steve Allen (co-owner of an LA motorcycle shop), Johnny Carson, Doc Severinsen ('30 or 31 Lincoln), Indy race team co-owner Dave Letterman, and dozens of other educated buffs able to see the big picture. The Union Pacific Railroad, still operating three massive steam locomotives of the '40s on frequent fan trips and excursions, just issued $600 million in green bond funds. We pull together, or spin our wheels per yours above. Some things, Angel, are simple, if not EZ.

JV, a lifelong Packard maven, who's owned over 70 pre- and postwar, junior and senior, including a couple Twelves, multiple Darrins, would agree with you, as do i, he saying of V-12s, "too much of a good thing." Something poetic about inline sixes and straight eights, the only two automotive engines with natural inherent balance. V-12s and V-16s are really just more of the same with less crankpin loading but more parts, complexity. For us, straight 8s for old road cars, luxe or not, and inline 6s for old sport and GT cars. What more could anyone want on this mortal coil? The older i get, the more i see V-12s, etc. as the SUVs, stupid useless vehicles, of their time, at best fire trucks, parade floats; something ridiculous about them, really. Too ponderous. Desperate automakers pulling out all the stops to entice what frivolous money remained by offering "ultimate" cars to those somehow needing self-agrandizement; to swan around in comic opera cars. Show us anything of the '30s better than a Pierce-Arrow 8 close-coupled club sedan, for one. And Gawd, enough about Duesenberg...Anyone can build a cost-no-object "super" car, but it takes tremendous skill and talent to render something on the order of a '36-on Century, Roadmaster, Packard 120 or 160. And we've yet to hear how a Model J is somehow five (5) times better than a 1931-33 Chrysler Imperial by having twin cams and a cuckoo box full of gears flashing lights for oil change, Bijur chassis lube shared with dozens of other high-end cars, and to check battery level, it taking nine years and several iterations to dispatch 480 of them to Hollywooders and the scions of industrial wealth, who didn't mind a crash box, long timing chains that could stretch at high rpm upsetting valve timing, front end vibration periods cursing most long wheelbase cars of the day when cart springing at the end of its tether. Too many caveats w/ Js, even the factory quickly offering the blown connecting rods in lieu of the aluminum. A friend's on his third J. Sure, impressive when that huge engine rushes you forward, unpassable in its day on a long, straight road, but compared with other more refined juggernauts, a one-trick pony. Topline farm tractors also offered enameled and polished engine fittings during the Depression to attract what money remained, 25% unemployment in the East and industrial upper Midwest, less so in the more agricultural west. JCrow above is right, cars of the '40s seem like cheating. But if sheer size and engine finish are your holy grails, a J, Phantom II, Lincoln K/KB hard to beat, a Packard the most refined overall, and if we're splitting hairs, no finer inline or veed engines than Pierce's. Nest feathering and one marque-itis do not serve perspective. Remember, the single biggest, longest thread on the CCCA forums is about the vast, overbearing pushrod ohv Mercedes 500/540Ks, which could only make peak power for a matter of 20 to at very most 30 seconds....without courting disaster, otherwise 115 hp and 5,400 lbs., while the most owned car by members a three-main-bearinged flathead 1941-47 Cadillac sharing the same sheet metal as Pontiac. This would suggest a number of fundamentally unhappy Walter Mitties. Since money and unrequited testoterone still hold sway on such forums, Bill Harrah's three favorite marques were Ford, Franklin, and Packard.

Hah, drip rails. That's right. A Cordite friend, earlier a blown '37 812 Phaeton, later with an unblown '37 Phaeton but with the outside pipes optional on Cords as they were on unblown Duesenberg Js, takes his Ganges green '36 Westchester -- looks better than it sounds, everything Indian exotic in the '30s, with green optional leather interior -- to a local show. It starts raining, really pouring, and when you get out, a waterfall, you get drenched. Woulda been hilarious if it hadn't been cold rain. I'm vegan, so prefer heavy broadcloth, and optional whipcord in old prewar dropheads, Buicks, Cads, Packards; like sailcloth, wore like iron. You don't get fried in summer, and a lot warmer in winter.

Thanks, Mr. Durante, for those clarifications. You wonder how many L-29s, among others with marginal lube points here and there, would've survived with our recent black molybdenem/graphite grease instead of the orange fiber chassis grease used into the '70s. My late friend mentioned above, the very young Pan Am wrench at the Alameda Naval Air Station during War II, who raved about the cornering ability of a well-tended L-29 on the sleeping Oakland streets either during or after the war, said a Chevron or Texaco engineer explained how the modern moly/graph a factor of eight times better than the orange fiber, and was originally designed for huge trucks in the hellish environment of stone quarries. Nice pictures all, then and now, above. That '29 L-29 special tourer minimalist job musta been fun to drive, reminds me of another '29 basic number, a Thompson-bodied (Los Angeles) Packard for a Lt. J. R. Glasscock:

All good and true points. But we've gotta remember, many of those staffing the bureacratice enclaves and cabals behind such plans are themselves 20- and 30-somethings often still living with parents, saddled with student debt, the average American's net worth down the past 45 years thanks to inflation, and so unable to buy a new or nicer late model used car. So they're going to hate cars, use them as convenient whipping boys. My gal and i note every fourth stroller on the jogging/bike path a tandem, often with both barrels loaded, these aging young folk so desperately trying to reenact the having-it-all of their flusher parents, taking fertility drugs on a planet collapsing from 8.1 billion people, a nation with 350 babies onboard. Dislike sounding like a broken record, but until we stop whining about silly programs like the above, playing us/them, or dismissing everything we don't agree with as "politics," until we curb overpopulation and get evermore people on a plant-based vegan repast, we can bank on future required permits and fees to drive even our 78-110-year-old dragons once in a blue moon. UN and other vetted studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined. Every study not overtly or covertly funded by meat, dairy, egg industry concludes that a vegan diet the single best way to prevent heart disease, cardiovascular woes, hypertension, high blood pressure, inflammation, diabetes, cancer, macular degeneration, dementia (now termed type 3 diabetes), Alzheimer's. Hasn't slowed the world's leading Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton. And until people control what they ingest, health insurance publc or private will never be affordable. I'd prefer my taxes not go toward underwriting breeding, cattlemen, dairy, agbiz, wholly preventable disease, banning my old i.c. car, ignorance. Every poll of scientists, one of 2,000 UN, another in the Bloomberg News of 11,000, shows them in overwhelming agreement that our biggest by far problem is overpopulation, their words, "bigger than climate." So our focus, if we're serious and not devolving to buckpassing, lame jokes, citing old stories, and bar room rants, should be pressuring Congress to revise our antiquated, agrarian tax code from when more babies meant more hands to work the family farm, half of all children not surviving beyond age four, to instead encourage --- not mandate -- encourage having "one or none," and adopting; and evolving to a plant-based, vegan cuisine. This former omnivore assures you you're not going to miss a thing, quite the contrary. Using Kendall full synthetic motor oil, DOT 5 silicone brake fluid, fuel injection hose (instead of the usual sort) in my ancient barouche, and would like to remain physically and mentally fit to reap their benefits. Bring on the snarky comments about steak, hamburgers and fried chicken, those of you unable to wean yourselves from milk for baby cows. Or "good thing your parents didn't feel that way." But neither you nor I, the Pope, nor MIT knows if not born in 2025, might not be born in 2825, 6825, 16825. And not all of us gearheads live in bucolic New England, East Jesus, Kansas, Broken Wheel, South Dakota, nor see running away to such places as panacea. Onward, upward.

Mike, three Jensens had the 267-ci Lincoln Zephyr V-12, and since they were produced in '39, also the coil springs at the rear the Model H began that year a la Buick and Olds ('38 for them). Three Allards also used your Zephyr V-12, as did several of the 20 1937-39 Atalantas built in Staines, Middlesex, and a lone Brough Superior, the latter usually powered by a stock Hudson six, tho' a few were stock Hudson eights, like most of the nearly 1,500 Railtons. The Zephyr engine may've put out less torque per cubic inch than any other domestic engine then in production, Crosley included, and had/has reputation for cooling and other pecadillos, but owners who kept their oil clean and drove on the open road reported good service. The 260-ci ohv nine-mained Nash inline eight-propelled Jensens Model Hs, 131" wb (Ford V-8-engined Model S 126") had an overal 2.9:1 final drive in Columbia high range, so the short stroke Zephyr Jensens like yours would, like the 3.5 x 3.75 288-ci 1936-37 Cords, fly; among the very few cars of the era that could safely cruise close to their absolute top speed. Autocar after their usual stringent testing, reported 91 mph for a Nash Model H, so yours should readily manage the same. Forgive the ramble, but I knew Reid Railton's son, who had a well fettled '37 namesake tourer, now back in England, and my late mechanics' mechanic, who ran motor pools in the War II Pacific, then worked at Packard, Hudson, GM dealerships before starting his own shop in 1959, was a Hudson maven, so knowing about the other "sports bastards" as such Anglo-American meldings affectionately known inevitable. Two Californians bought Zephyr Jensens, Clark Gable being one of them. Louis D. Lighton, producer of the Gable/Spencer Tracy/Myrna Loy/Lionel Barrymore Test Pilot (1938) bought both a Ford Model S tourer and Nash H conv. coupe. (You never know where some cars'll show up. I know a fellow Down Under with ten pre- and postwar junior and senior Packards, among them a '39 Twelve formal sedan first owned by Lionel Barrymore, in addition to 35 or so ancient Sceptered isle motorbikes, which he and his wife exercise two at a time on the lightly traveled roads outside Canberry, keeping an eye out for the errant 'roo.) If Bill McNight, owner of Willco Auto Restoration, Carson, CA still around, he might know more, having a masterfully rebuilt '38 Nash Model H sports tourer. Bill said it was the best driving of his cars, smoother than his '35 3.5-liter Bentley, as fast and more refined than his ohv 4.3-liter six-cylinder '37 Alvis, so yours should be both fast and downright silky.

Coast to coast mall 'n' sprawl, mining, drilling, lumbering access roads in "our" national parks Teddy Roosevelt and the other know nothings wisely set aside as untrammeled America the Beautiful. Who said anything about importing unskilled and uneducated people, Monsignor Mara? We have plenty already, our K-12 trailing that of at least 16 other modern industrial democracies. A breeding war the last thing we require with 350 million babies onboard. But you know better than those pesky scientists. Enjoy the ride, in your Model A in bucolic New Jersey. https://time.com/6174966/north-south-pole-melting-climate-change/ https://abcnews.go.com/International/melting-arctic-ice-catastrophic-effects-world-experts/story?id=81588333

Less is more. Always. Certainly when it comes to comic opera gargoyles on the hoods of understated auld road cars, luxe or not.

Leo, playing us/them, blaming the government we elect for "withholding" information any junior high student can deduce does not fly. Despite the New York Times running articles about overpopulation fostering pandemics, 60 Minutes a segment on it causing mass species extinction, there remains a de facto blackout on addressing overpopulation in the consumer-driven media catering to those whose business model so weak it demands evermore buyers and cheap labor. Even EVs run on petroleum tires, and use six times the minerals as i.c. cars, including cobalt, lithium, nickel, copper, manganese, graphite, zinc, rare earths like neodymium and dysprosium, the latters' extraction requiring huge amounts of carcinogens like ammonia, hydrochloric acid, sulphates. Much of these minerals are imported from politically unstable regions. These are among the reasons scientists agree curbing overpopulation by far our most important goal, requiring our pressuring Congress to revise our antiquated, agrarian tax code from when more babies meant more hands to work the family farm, half of all children not surviving past age four, to instead encourage --not mandate -- encourage having "one or none" and adopting, as well as urging the Pope and other religious leader to do the same. Meanwhile, UN and other vetted studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined. Unless we're going to continue with yeah, buts, us/them, thuh guvment, the only way to ensure a future in which i.c. cars, new or 90-year-old used, are not convenient whipping boys, scapegoats, is to curb overpopulation and adopt a plant-based, vegan diet, the latter not slowing down the world's leading Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton, or other athletes inc. NFL players, unlimited cage fighters. In the win-win-win, every study not overtly or covertly funded by meat/dairy/egg industry agrees the single best way to prevent heart disease, cardiovascular problems, inflammation, hypertension, high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, macular degeneration, dementia (now termed type 3 diabetes), Alzheimer's is a plant-based vegan diet. Or we can go back to sniping, finger-pointing, buck-passing until we have to pay fees, purchase special permits to operate an i.c. automobile of any vintage.

Most CCCA "Classics" are big, heavy cars. There's no way to answer your question unless a mechanic familiar with such early '30s cars puts it on a lift, drives it, inspects it like any other used car. Many body off restorations are not roadworthy, being what friends in the old plane game call "paint overhauls." That said, assuming this '33 Lincoln town sedan is one of those rare cars mechanically as sound as its cosmetics, it comes down to your having driven any big, multi-cylinder luxe car of the era as to its suitability. Does it have a Gear Vendors or other after-market overdrive, or higher speed axle? If not, you'd be wise to respect its technology and age by staying in the right lane of freeways, or better, confining cruises to back and secondary roads. Properly adjusted mechanical brakes are no match for today's power four-wheel discs with ABS, let alone roads filled with those distracted by cellphones, texting, tweeting, eating, dashboard display screens, fiddling with the stereo. I believe most Lincoln specialists would agree that the KB was the zenith of the big (non-Zephyr) Lincolns, the ensuing Model Ks through 1940s slightly second tier in comparison. However, no cars from either side of the Atlantic or Channel had finer craftsmanship than the big Lincolns of the '30s. Find someone in the local region of the Lincoln Owners Club who lives near you to examine it: https://lincolnownersclub.com/

Charles, yours above worthy of a high end calendar. Shootey, right, the Fageol story is another of those all but forgotten as a lavish, overblown, born out of their age few are celebrated beyond all rational measure. Had forgotten San Francisco's shortsighted Mayor Roger Lapham had in 1947 tried to remove the City's charming cable cars, prevented by the union of 27 women's civic groups, as Jackie Kennedy Onassis among those saving that cathedral to transportation, Grand Central Station, 30 years later. This aside to remind us to work to save not just our cars and covered bridges, but other architecture and civil engineering of note, lest we wind up driving our 80-, 90-, century-old survivors through interchangeable 'burbs, scenery of tire shops, fast food dives, mall 'n' sprawl. Which brings us back to my original post on this scenic thread, the dire need for us -- assuming we want a future in which our old i.c. cars not scapegoats, whipping boys -- to revise our antiquated, agrarian tax code from when more babies meant more hands to work the family farm, half of all children not surviving beyond age four, to instead encourage (not mandate) having "one or none," and adopting. Every poll of scientists has them in agreement overpopulation by far our biggest problem, their words "bigger than climate." Extra credit: If we really want to keep the heat off our old cars, and ourselves, follow the world's leading Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton, and adopt a plant-based, vegan diet, considering the UN and other vetted studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined, and such a repast is the single best move to prevent heart disease, cardiovascular ills, inflammation, hypertension, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, macular degeneration, dementia (now termed type 3 diabetes), Alzheimer's. Fageol Supersonic harks to the 23-year-old ketchup heir Rust Heinz's Cord-based Phantom Corsair of 11 years earlier: We now return to nest feathering, already in progress.

Thank you, Chief Petty Officer Charles. Live and learn. But the bigger point is that the big Lincolns' fittings were brass, not pot metal--excuse me, "German silver" -- as in the big Cads, Packards, Pierces, et al. You must've known Jack Passey? Ah, Eureka. Now there's a right bucolic realm where one might still drive relaxedly an ancient car with stick and no synchro on first.

Duesenberg Js certainly impressive, and in their day and some years after, on a long, straight road, unpassable. But for their ridiculous original prices--a marketing ploy to generate additional buzz-- should've been, perhaps tripled as gyrocopter and submersible. Obsolete two years after their debut, it took nine years and several iterations to dispatch 480 Js to Hollywooders and the children of industrial wealth. As Richard Hough observed in his wonderful 1961 compendium w/ forewords by W. O. Bentley and S. C. H. Davis, A History of the World's Sports Cars, Js were prone to "....front end vibration periods, which cursed all ultra long wheelbase cars when cart springing about at the end of its tether -- including Bentley and Rolls-Royce....and the lack of refinement at high revs, caused most probably by the enormously long camshaft chains, which were inclined to stretch, upsetting valve timing." An old friend's on his third J, but then he uses a butter knife as screwdriver and likes to talk about them, quoting from the usual tomes; J.L. Elbert's 1975 Duesenberg, the Mightiest American Motor Car, and Duesenberg: The Pursuit of Perfection, Jim Roe, 1986. Just about every article since repeats the usual mantra: 265 hp, and the J's 116 mph top speed, although this pace with the 5.75 optional not standard 5.2:1 compression, and the special tuning buyers paid still more for. Maurice Hendry, an engineer as well as historian, told me most Js in road trim topped out at about 105 mph; of the 3.8, 4, 4.1, 4.3:1 axles, the middle two most common. Fred Duesenberg wanted to build something the size of his earlier Models A and X, about that of the Stutz SV16, later DV32, a well appointed example of the latter costing under a third less than a J. Former car salesman, 10th grade drop out, stock market marauder E. L. Cord knew what he was doing when he advertised 265 hp to eclipse the claimed 250 of a limited-production Mercedes, itself inflated. Preston Tucker did the same when he advertised 166 hp for his namesake, intended to debut for 1947, in order to beat Packard's inflated 165 hp (dynamometer tests at GM's Proving Grounds by Buick in 1940 of all remotely competitive cars showed every last one of them optimistic by 8.46 to 22.10%). Again, as the above videos show, certainly a heady thrill driving such a bruiser on open bucolic roads, but some top-line farm tractors also had enameled and polished engine bits as manufacturers pulled out all stops to lure what Depression money remained. Other than twin cams, the cuckoo box of gears flashing oil change, battery water, and that the Bijur chassis lube pump shared with dozens of other premium cars was working, doubt a J six times better than a 1931-33 Chrysler Imperial, tho' i've never driven nor ridden in one of those huge Mopars. A late friend said his wife could parallel park his Marmon 16 club sedan (a third the price new of a J & its crankshaft not needing counterweights), every one of which lapped the nearby Indy 500 track at 105 mph before delivery, and would out accelerate a J to 70, after which the J dohc's better breathing helped. Once again, no one denies a Model J not impressive, but having dallied with these and higher end automobiles as long as some here gathered have been alive, can't help remarking that two (2) things have second-tiered most in the old car hobby: Duesenberg as some stand alone chariot of the gods, and the replacement of genuine concours d'elegance with recent decades' domestic janitorial d'elegance. This only as we like some perspective. But as with someone's Packard Twelve, why do so many J owners need to remind us what a cut above they are? If true, shouldn't that be self-evident? I had much the same enjoyment as posted above when we took Reid Railton's son's '37 Railton 8 tourer out for a back road romp; the wonderful sound from that stock Hudson flathead inline engine, the charming whine of the less than stout 35-lb. Hudson gearbox, which unlike every Model J, was at least synchronized. In 1940, Augie Duesenberg was selling a marine version of this 254-ci engine. Derby engineers replaced a Phantom III's troublesome 447-ci V-12 w/ such engine and gave R-R's mgmt. a ride around the grounds, the unknowing brass raving over its silky power. (For 1950-56's Phantom IV, sold only to royalty and heads of state, R-R produced a 346-ci inline eight version of their B60, the B80, also used in Dennis fire trucks and airport tugs.) As today, anyone can build a cost little object super or "hyper" car. But it takes enormous ability to produce a fine car those lacking silver spoons might enjoy. Please pardon the ramble, but some of us are under house arrest thanks to the overpopulation we're apparently not to address, despite every poll of scientists agreeing it by far our biggest problem, their words: "bigger than climate" (UN 2013, Bloomberg News 11/5/19, NY Times last year, 60 Minutes this), it rendering our old i.c. cars convenient whipping boys. But thanks for posting and enjoy the ride.

Peter, we know the Lycoming Auburn V-12 displaced 391-ci, the Packard 445, 473, but hewing to brevity avoided rehash. My point stands: The Lycoming Auburn 12 engine is easily the equal in quality to the Packard Twelve's engine. The Auburn 12 shares the Packard Twelve's (and 1930-31 Oldsmobile, '32 Pontiac, '36-37 Cord's) canted valves, and was husky enough for American-LaFrance to use it bored/stroked to 526-ci, compression boosted from the automotive 5.7 to 7.2:1 in 500-, 750-, 1,000-gpm firetrucks through 1962. The Aub 12's valve ports open into a rectangular extension of the combustion chamber at right angle to the valves, so valve jobs could be done without removing the heads. The Aub 12 was one of the first, if not first, production auto engine to come with a full-flow oil filter, and also free of the complex hydraulic valve silencers, the type of hydraulic lash adjusters used in the Cadillac V-16, licensed by GM, for which Packard paid royalties. The Auburn 12's engine was easily the equal of the Packard Twelve, if not a trace better. That the Auburn 12 was one of the best bargains in automotive history should not diminish its engine. Unlike Packard's V-12, Pierce-Arrow's was designed from the outset as power for massive all-out luxury automobiles, as seven main bearings and an industrial mien attest. The Pierce V-12 like their concurrent 385-ci inline eight, used modern, simpler hydraulic valve lifters from 1933 models on, a Pierce-Arrow innovation. The stock displacement Pierce straight eight was used in Seagraves fire apparatus through 1958, the 462-ci Pierce V-12, enlarged to 530-ci, in Seagraves fire trucks through 1970. The Aub/Pierce fire fighting engines had twin ignition simply as such mandatory in emergency equipment. Peter, we lose credibility if we try to argue that every facet of our car better than everything else produced at the time. I wrote that the Packard Twelve chassis was the most refined and modern; only that the Pierce engines, both eight and V-12, might get the nod if we're splitting hairs. Unfortunately, too many buffs suffering one-marque-itis read such as their car being a weak sister. Horse races won by a nose, automobile races by hundredths of a second. Those placing second in such contests are not sent to the rendering plant or scrapheap. Relax. If we view your Packard Twelve as an Olympic decathlon contender in its class, the complete car is hard to best. Bowing to the knowledge and mechanical sophistication of most here gathered, figured curb weight to curb weight, equal gearing a given. In the '30s, such fittings as mentioned were chromed.

Which, Peter, is one of the reasons, other than wanting to blend in, anonymity, that adroit hoodlums, bank robbers, preferred Ford V-8s and '33 Terraplane Eights? We gather you've retired from the bar, but might your critical thinking serve law students? Perhaps a retirement gig teaching, or pro bono help for the disadvantaged in order? Because we might also make an argument that automobiles with fewer cylinders, fewer parts, have less to go wrong, were and are less of a load on their tires, suspensions, brakes than the dreadnaughts you deem superior to all else. Engineering progresses. Time moves on, sometimes at a cost to the handwork many admire, bearing in mind machine tools ensure more consistent quality at far more reasonable cost. Your Twelve was one of the paramount cars of its day, certainly the most refined, modern chassis of the big '30s "fire trucks" as former Packard Club quarterly editor/writer Richard Langworth not disparagingly termed them. Though its engine no better than an Auburn 12 or Pierce V-12, or do we suffer from one-marque-itis, as Dave Brownell, the knowing editor of the much missed Special Interest Autos termed such? Monsignor Hartmann, no car has it all; is the last word, beyond reproach. The Packard Twelve, wonderful as it turned out, was originally a 376-ci V-12 intended for Packard's FWD model meant to compete with Buick's then fastest car in the sub-luxe sector, their ohv 345-ci straight eight Model 90. It was never intended to replace Packard's topline 385-ci Custom Eight. But when Cadillac debuted what was essentially a straight eight with firing impulses halved for less crankpin loading, the better able to cope with custom bodies approaching three tons yet use the existing V-8's transmission, Packard hurriedly dropped a stroked 445-ci version of their new V-12 into the existing Custom 8's chassis. The Packard Twelve, like all senior Packards, owned the fine car market (above $2,000 FOB) through 1936, at which point Packard commanded 42% of that t i n y, rapidly vanishing element, thanks to a chiseled, apart from the fray styling as much as pervasive engineering refinement and clever tooling overseen since 1910 and 1912 by ex-cash register company and Hudson executives, Taylor time and motion procedures implemented since 1906, if not as grueling as the Fordism later depicted in Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936). Aside from the ravages of the Depression and 1938 recession, a new breed of "pocket luxury cars" were offering equal or better performance, certainly more nimble, far less expensive to fuel and maintain then and now. The big Lincolns, Model KB and K, if we're splitting hairs, had the finest craftsmanship of anyone in the heavy iron segment. For example, while Packard Twelve, Pierce, Cadillac interior fittings were chromed pot metal, Lincoln's were chromed brass. Yes, we know how rip-roaring your mighty Twelve, but it is not faster than a comparably sized Pierce V-12. It is not "better." Differently executed, yes. Perspective is served by remembering it is vastly harder to produce a fine, affordable barouche than a cost little object "super car." Perspective won't diminish your Twelve's value nor net worth. Something to reflect on: Leaders, the best in any field, do not require continual PR, boosterism, in their day, or 85 years hence. Respectfully, a fellow lifetime Packard owner, if catholic in his taste.

I see we're mired in parsing, equivocations, nitpicking, insular debate, rather than addressing the overarching pair of issues I enumerate earlier in this thread which lead to our i.c. cars being convenient target.

Demco's right, and avgas still has lead, raining down on us, causing brain damage in children, senility in adults. Reading some of the posts on any forum about "thuh guvment gonna take our cores away 'n' make us ride bicycles 'n' be communists" the latter damage is evident. We are the government. We get the government we elect and deserve. If you don't like the news, make some of your own. The lead post above by Peter featuring the article by Ben Johnson, not to be confused with the actor or Samuel Johnson, who wrote 250 years ago "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel," shows we've long had transportation drawbacks, and that was when global population 1.6 billion, less than a fifth today's 8.1 billion, US population 70 million, not today's 350 million. Every poll of scientists shows them agreeing overpopulation by far our biggest problem, their words "bigger than climate." But most here gathered are not interested in focusing on over-arching adult problems, just whining about bureaucrats appointed by those they elect, assuming they even vote. Always easier to devolve to barroom rants and play us/them, pass the buck. There was a five-story pile of manure in Manhattan, horses worked to death, their carcasses left to rot 'til the knacker's wagon arrived, the streets paved with indescribable filth, summer a special joy. But that doesn't mean inhaling carcinogenic filth from carbon fuel power plants and transportation wonderful. Clearly, a handful of vintage/Classic/special interest/antique/Edwardian/old/collector cars is a minor insult, especial if we triage and focus on curbing population, as those pesky know-nothing scientists suggest. But we don't want to address "politics" here, just whine and buck-pass, play us/them. UN studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined. Reread the preceding. Despite every global study showing the best way to prevent heart disease, hypertension, cardiovascular maladies, inflammation, diabetes, cancer, macular degeneration, dementia (now termed type 3 diabetes), Alzheimer's is a plant-based, vegan diet like that adopted by the world's leading Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton, most people still unable to wean themselves from dairy and burgers. Anyone thinking the above is somehow "off topic" or "political" should return to playing yeah but and "theirs are worse than ours;" EVs demand imported lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel; most urban dust is tires, et al. Whatever you do, do not pressure the Pope and other religious leaders to urge having only "one or none" and adopting, or Congress to revise our antiquated, agrarian tax code from when more babies meant more hands to work the family farm, half of all children not surviving past age four. Okay, now we've added "religion" to "politics." Back to insularity, living in a vacuum. Face reality: Internal combustion cars are a convenient target for the round up the usual suspects crowd, increasingly staffed by young folks unable to afford a car or its service. So there's that, and every nerd bombing around the 'burbs in a clapped out Camaro or "classic" '72 Mercury Montego running way too rich so you can smell it half a block away become the poster boys for our hobby. We now delete this post/thread, rejoin our feel good reactionary rants, parsing, equivocation, buck-passing, us/them from the good ole days silver spooners, already in progress.

L-29s' influence was entirely stylistic, certainly on the 1931-33 Chrysler Imperials. Unfortunately, L-29s' high gear was about the same ratio as a 1936-37 Cord's third, so their top speed no better than a MG-TA/B/C. Thanks to Miller Indy cars, FWD was the rage so passenger automakers explored it both for the performance image and being cheaper to build, lacking separate differential and driveshaft, as well as allowing a much lower car. Packard's intended FWD 376-ci V-12 was not planned to replace their big top- line 385-ci Deluxe Eight, but compete with Buick's 345-ci Models 80, 90. But when Cadillac unveiled what was essentially a straight eight with firing impulses halved for less crank pin loading, a V-16, the better to handle custom coachwork weighing three tons yet able to use their existing transmission, Packard hurriedly enlarged their new V-12 to 445-ci and dropped it in the Custom Eight's chassis, since the public invariably thinks more is better, including cylinders. A friend who as a very young Pan Am wrench at the Alameda Naval Air Station bought a supercharged '37 812 Phaeton in '42, had either during the war or just after a chance to drive a well-tended, low mileage L-29 on Oakland's sleeping streets. He marveled how it "cornered as if on rails, no heeling over." Its Lycoming engine was good, its mechanical shift not as trouble-prone as the later Cord's four-speed version of the Bendix "Electric Hand" optional in 1935-36 Hudsons. There was an aftermarket "Garcia mechanical shift conversion" for the later V-8 Cords not unlike the relatively simple rods used in the L-29. Off subject, but despite E. L. Cord losing interest in the car biz and spending much of the decade in England dodging the newly formed SEC to police such stock market marauders, there was inhouse discussion of a 1938 Cord having conventional rear wheel drive. This L-29 thread reminds me of a recent one in which 1935Packard wanted to know about Delahayes, intrigued by some of their stylings. From what we've seen over the decades, the best real world, dependable A-C-D product, and perhaps the best bargain in retail auto history, was the 1931-33 Auburn 12 w/ Columbia two-speed axle: finely wrought factory coachwork, like the L-29 an X-membered frame (first seen in France earlier in the '20s), full flow sintered bronze oil filter, an excellent V-12 similar design to Packard's but without the fiendishly complex GM-licensed valve silencers. We all know Duesenberg J impressive and a long, straight road unpassable. But for its outrageous price, should've been. It was obsolete two years after introduction, taking nine years and several iterations to dispatch 480 chiefly to Hollywood and other look at me types, the sort today buying "super" and "hyper" car du jour depreciating faster than they accelerate. Fred Duesenberg had wanted to build something his earlier A- and X-sized, about that of Stutz's fine DV-16/DV-32, but Cord wanted a price no object super car, advertising hp to eclipse that of a limited production Mercedes' 250, itself an inflated figure. About 4,400 1929-32 L-29s built, nearly 50% more than the later V-8 Cords. Novel and slinky, but those who like driving vintage cars at speed better served by Pierce-Arrow 8s, as well as Imperial, Packard. (A lifelong Packard savant best sums V-12s as "too much of a good thing.") Pardon the detour, but it's better to see any car in perspective than a vacuum. The key to enjoying it is just that, sans nest-feathering hyperbole. Hemi Joel has the right idea, and his '29 L-29 gorgeous.

You have to admit there's something schizy, Walter Mitty, when the most posted thread on the CCCA forums is about these overblown Mercedes, but the most widely owned car among members is the Pontiac-bodied 1941-47 Cadillac with a three-main-bearing V-8 having a water pump dating from 1930. Always thought Ralph Stein well summed these ohv Mercedes well 56 years ago, writing: "No longer were they the lean, clean, fast cars Dr. Porsche had envisioned. The production sport cars which took their place were the eight-cylinder, pushrod-engined 500 and 540Ks. They were fat and heavy (about 5,500 pounds) and vulgarly curvilinear. I thought at the time that if you had draped them with medals, they'd look like dear old Hermann Goering himself. If he'd had wheels.... I ran away from one once in my old 4 1/2-liter Invicta, but perhaps the Mercedes-Benz was in poor fettle that day."

Matt & Walt, gentlemen, n o w you're talking. The only way to protect more survivors from being decimated to "retro rods" is to show alleged "car guys" with no experience with anything predating '55 Chevies that prewar cars are eminently drivable. Many of us have driven vintage cars Auburn through Zephyr. They are a far remove from the antiques the clueless Camaro crowd imagines. From the opening pages of my 1940 Packard's owner's manual: "Think of driving as a game--such as golf or tennis -- and approach it with the same enthusiasm and expectancy. The ability to handle a motor car adroitly will give as much pleasure as ability in any other sport....Modern cars perform so smoothly that there is no distinct sensation or impression of speed (sound familiar?). Even at high speeds, they seem to be 'floating." Glance at --and be guided by -- the speedometer." It continues reminding owners to merely approach corners at reduced speed, and once into them, slightly increase throttle for a stabilizing effect, instead of braking and ''manhandling" the car through the curve. The only, and i mean o n l y hinderance to enjoying an old car today is overpopulation, our cars designed and built when national and global population a quarter to less than a third today's 350 million and 8.1 billion. Lest some of those here gathered fortunate enough to live in bucolic New England exoburbs whine this is politics, let them drive anywhere but the hinterlands or backroads. For many of us, just getting to a relatively relaxed backroad involves enduring the halting lockstep of concrete conveyor belt. This is a forum for what were once termed "fine cars." College presidents, writers, business owners owned Marmons, Lincolns, Chrysler Imperials, five of the nine Supreme Court justices in the '30s owned Packards, everyone from Walter Damrosch to J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leading choice of the world's embassies, the Company advertising not just in Fortune, but the National Geographic, Literary Digest, and the New Yorker. Leaders, decision makers drove fine cars, so we might, at this very late date -- with all internal combustion cars being convenient scapegoats for the "round up the usual suspects" brigade -- park our usual attention to minutiae and take a run at the 800-lb. gorilla: Germany, birthplace of the automobile, will approve nothing not emission free beginning seven years from now, 2030. France, the automobile's nursery, beginning 2040. Iceland, all of Scandinavia 2025-30, the UK and US selling only the emission free a few years later, most nations even banning hybrids. If the clueless cars and coffees "car guys" Matt and Walt describe don't care about our cars, you know it's only a question of when, not if, the general public allows fees, regulation, special permits for us to continue. Broaching such reality on oft insular forums be fool's errand, but liked old cars all my life, and tho' not rebuilding my Packards to drive to Safeway, like many here enjoy taking them out for no good reason now and then, keeping them ready as old firetrucks in back up service. Like hardcore autoholics Terry Ehrich, the arborist late publisher of Hemmings Motors News, Hemmings Small Boat, and the much missed Special Interest Autos, Paul Newman, James Garner, am also an ardent environmentalist who walks the talk. UN and other vetted studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined. Meanwhile, our antiquated, agrarian tax codes were enacted when more babies meant more hands to work the family farm, half of all children not surviving beyond age four. So, we can parse, equivocate, debate, pass the buck, play us/them, or tackle the 800-lb. gorilla, grab the bull by the horns and lead, press for tax incentives (again, not mandates) encouraging having only "one or none" and adopting, enjoy a plant-based, vegan diet, which hasn't slowed the world's leading Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton. After suggesting a long established, respected club show real leadership addressing the big picture a month ago, my post was immediately deleted by one of the having it all, head in sand, "I've got mine, Jack, life is good here in Lush Falls, I'll be gone in ten years so what do I care" silver spooners dismissing anything proactive "politics." Polls including 2,000 UN scientists in 2013, 11,000 more scientists in the 11/5/19 Bloomberg News, show them agreeing overpopulation our biggest by far problem, their words, "bigger than climate." Please, i'm not posting this to hear how birthrates declining here and there so la-di-da. BTW, every nation with declining birthrate enjoys higher per capita GDP, may it provide solace for those whose business model so weak it dependent on evermore consumers and cheap labor. We don't need the usual escapist/defeatist "well, you should move out here, or to Wagon Wheel, South Dakota." I lived in greater NYC in the '60s, the greater SF/Oakland, CA Bay Area since '76, and we then thought nothing of driving prewar cars anytime, any day of the week. Yes, i well knew Ed Jurist's Vintage Car Store in Nyack, all the Names our here. Not here to reminisce, but to ensure our future. It's up to us, if we're really interested in educating an increasingly dismissive public and preserving our cars. Simple, if not EZ.

Exactly. But should your differential ever start to whine, look for the rare, originally no-cost optional 3.6 "Economy Rear Axle" introduced for the '39 Century/Roadmaster. While adding a second or so to acceleration to 60, once there, reduces rpm. Wilmington's a swell place. But what do you do to protect your lovely old road cars from the salt air? Walt, right sir; the scions of any early members aside, we're approaching the end of the saeculum of those remembering those more relaxed days when the CCCA was merely a new club for those enjoying both higher end and coachbuilt cars from either side of the Atlantic or Channel, not pinnacle or last word in hobbydom, let alone focused on money to such extent that the first question most observers now ask is "What's something like that worth?" As if such knowledge imbues understanding of the times from which the car emerged, and of not just how, but why it was built. To such low horizons, a '31 Alfa-owning friend would reply, "Do you know Oscar Wilde's definition of a fool? Someone who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

Thank you, Walt G. Given it took the CCCA over half a century to accept them, you're far from alone, Mr. Hinson, in seeing no value in a moribund club. A hollow, too late victory for owners of some senior Buicks. But you have to ask, what's the difference 'twixt Roadmasters and those other beloved "road cars," Centuries? Size, wheelbase still rule the roost, underscored by the paucity of sport cars. Other than conclaves of narrow "experts" serving remaining gatherings of the idle rich like Bauble Beach, Amelia Island, janitorial d' non-elegances have been replaced by cars and coffees. Clear-coating "barn finds" underscores that, like flying a small plane, vintage car ownership is no longer for the middle-class, other than those themselves mechanics, machinists, painters, etc. By the time the CCCA returns to the innocent and casual joie de vivre of its founders, there will be still fewer people left who care for these cars. For decades, concourses d' elegance high and low, even far from our shores, rigidly adhered to the CCCA's list as if Delphic oracle. A tiny, increasingly pricey and silly club's selectmen kept hundreds of thousands -- millions -- of old car aficionados in second tier obeyance for so long that many no longer aware of their involuntary servitude. At this late date, all most of us lifelong autoholics can salute is the CCCA's not diluting their raison d' etre by allowing products introduced postwar or with modern, inauthentic drivetrains. Since, as described above, the vaunted "classic" appellation has been long appropriated by nest featherers owning anything out of the Kelley Blue Book, the CCCA's list means less and less to ever fewer. The CCCA can no more return to its orgins than Bauble Beach, Amelia Island and the like have anything to do with the real European concourses of the '20s into the early '50s when cars judged solely on line, form, presence; elan, often driven to the grounds in rain the night before, a bit of mud still in their tire treads. In short, what the CCCA has devolved to, and gaudy nonsense like Bauble Beach, have decimated this hobby even more than inflation. The antidote is knowledge fostering appreciation of the genuine.