1911 Packard Model 18 - Jay Leno's Garage

well another episode of Jay Leno's Garage today we're gonna talk about my 1911 Packard model 18 the interesting about this car and the car right next to it that one the model 38 we did a few years ago both of them come from the same family and the cool thing is I can trace the lineage all the way back to the original owners which is kind of cool this car was modified sometime I think in the middle 30s or early 40s it was originally a Land delet style body and then it was converted to this so I've kept it in this style body it's called the model 18 because it has 18 horsepower which is really 30 horsepower the 18 comes from the French version of how they gained or how they derive horsepower but in American terms is actually a 30 horsepower it's a four-cylinder 326 cubic inch for so it's almost a 327 Chevy except it's for similars with big pistons you'll see those in a second as you can see it's a classic roadster body the gas tank is right here under the seat that's the storage compartment there we made that because it was a it was just something we added when we when we put the car together but other than that it's pretty much original gas headlights now let's take a look at the engine let's show you what we got here really pretty motor T head four cylinder there's your Magneto right there these are your priming cups and cold weather you'd put a little gas in there open it that would allow the gas go into the cylinder close it up again and then she'd fire right up a number of years ago I had a guy in The Tonight Show named Victor Christian he was a hundred and six years old and he was the world's oldest car salesman he worked at a KT afford early 90s I had him on The Tonight Show to impress him I drove my 32 Packard to the show and I brought him and I said hey what do you think get my 32 Packard he said to me it's okay you know after 50 there were nothing but crap he didn't use the word crap he used another word but let's just assume was crap and I said why is that I they were they were crap after 15 I I never quite got what he meant by that until I got this car in that nineteen thirteen there these drive and shifts so nicely you know all the gears are hand lapped in it just has a mechanical miss that is missing in later cars there's a hand-built quality to these cars that later mass-produced cars just didn't have although this car looks fairly simple almost looks like a Model T it's much more sophisticated it has a trans axle which means the transmission is rather than right here for better weight distribution and handling it's back here under the rear end three-speed transmission as I said four cylinder engine I'll show you the trans axle in a minute we'll get into the car and take a look but you know the fun thing about these cars sometimes is all the just all the minutiae minutiae you get with the car there automobile er the paraphernalia whatever you want to call it come on let me show you some of the documentation I got with this particular when dealing with old car stuff oftentimes you have to put on your old guy glasses and help here are some original pictures of the car here it isn't in a parade I think this is 1938 is the original owner of the car right there kind of having some fun there as a chauffeur this is the car again here's another picture of the car here that's how it was modified in the late 30s or early 40s here's a letter from the original owner this guy sold the car in 1950 you had no place to start it was his dad so he sold it in 1950 here it is in the 40s she kind of painted up they had to do pretty much did him in gaudy colors back in those days is the other car the model third the model 38 that's what it looked like when I got it it's a letter from 1963 I've consider your offer $5,000 for my Packard not to sell it should be worth at least $8,000 I was pretty high back in 68 oh here's a bigger picture of the one we looked at before interesting thing is when you bought a Packard the instruction book it's not like today they told you everything this I think is the original body style that my car had and as you can see the whole car when you bought the car they told you how to do everything there are some early pictures here there's the car there there's the engine I guess this car has been restored a couple of times over the years and here's an original book this is the stuff that's really hard to find in pretty nice shape you know these cars were very expensive cars this car was $4,500 in 1911 and I'm told the blocks were all cast in France because they had the best casting methods at the time and then they was they were kept outside for two years to let the block age a bit that's the tool kit back then you're expected to work on your car but when you restore in the car this kind of stuff is invaluable I mean it's it's just amazing so shall the clutch engages as your engine right there details of general construction your electrical system clutch oiling collection other parts let's go back to the car and take a look as you can see it's a pretty much a sealed engine compartment dirt can't blow up from the street and get into the carburetor or into the engine you know Packard's were such quality automobiles this was so you could test your spark to see if your mag was working see how that works like that you just saw that you could test him the spark jumps well then he got spark that's how that works you'll notice the water pump is red steering gear is red that's not us trying to make him a colorful that's the way it was actually done back in the day you know a motor was a pretty amazing thing to people and they wanted to make it look as pretty and mechanical as possible you know people would open hood whoo and now people don't really do that anymore they don't marvel it an engines running anymore because we all take it for granted so now you open the hood there's a big piece of plastic there but these early engines a lot of copper a lot of brass a lot of polished aluminum real quality metals what we've done to this car is add an electric starter that's the only modern convenience we've done cuz you've ever tried to crank over 326 cubic inches it's it's a lot so the electric starter helps out a little bit when you bought your Packard this is what you got you got your tool kit right here that's kind of cool everything is nicely laid out there for you as I mentioned before we put in an electric starter as you can see it's a gear reduction starter had to make a ring gear here so we could run that that's your flywheel look how heavy that flywheel is this thing just bumps along but as you can see it's pretty straightforward there's your clutch these are your Oilers you'll see those work in a minute this is your oiler as well we have to turn that on before you drive the car this of course is your ignition you started on battery and then you switch over to Magneto but that's pretty much your here's your exhaust pipe here mufflers there and believe me electrics daughter this thing is that 326 cubic inches is a lot to kick off especially in a cold day so it just it's a little bit of a cheat but just makes the car more manageable especially if you stall her to something in traffic you just hit the button and go again so let's put the floor back in let's take a look under the car I'll show you that transit I was talking about well here we are under the car here's your drive shaft there's your leather boot to keep the grease in and there's your transaction let your transmission back there for whatever weather a better weight distribution is your muffler right here knows you only have brakes on the rear wheel only and they are mechanical brakes there was no hydraulic brakes until oh I guess the early 20s Duesenberg was the first American car to have hydraulic brakes of course and that's pretty much it it's a pretty simple car uh about ready to go for right now you notice these cars don't have an ignition you just have a switch it turns on and off so what did you do back in the day when you park your car how did you lock it well you got one of these it looks like the Denver boot you know this has got a key in it you open it up you put this around the tire and you lock it and that's how you that's how you keep your car from being stolen I named adalynn McSweeney gave me this he collects a whole bunch of these he's got a quite a set of there's all different makes and model so these were quite popular in the early teens and 20s and before that you know when cars didn't have ignition locks they just lock that on the wheel and if you're really paranoid you put one on all four wheels first thing you want to do is turn on our ignition to coil so it starts on the battery let's try and start it without the electric starter let's the ignition give it a little bit of gas turn on our Oilers what this does is drips feed oil into the engine let's see if she starts this bar makes it really convenient here's your choke lever here what a sweet running engine this is let's take a look at it running [Applause] Here I am checking the slide today now you don't have to do that each time I just do it to make sure everything's running just so smooth top speed on this cars about 60 miles an hour go for ride I know 30 horsepower doesn't sound like much but this thing is a torque monster it just pulls so nicely and it's so smooth don't forget when this thing was built the speed limit was about 12 or 15 miles an hour something crazy like that then the 22 went to 45 miles an hour I mean I really understand what my old friend Victor Christian talked about when he said these early cars just had a mechanical hiss to them they just it shifts so nicely this transaxle you know these big giant gears that just go like this this is what really put the steam cars out of business because these think once the electric starter came in these things were pretty bulletproof just press the button in you go starting to warm up now this thing never overheat such a precision automobile you know I read where when they board these blocks the piston had to fit in the bore without the engine ring on it without the piston rings on it and be tight enough not to fall through you could pull it through but it couldn't fall through on its own so that's how good the clearances were the the piston fit in the bore snugly without the piston ring I'm that that was the measure of putting it together you know these things would just get on reliable it's a warm day here in California and I can't get the temperature to go out of the normal range in fact when they road tested these in the summertime they would drive them from Detroit to New York City or Chicago without the fans connected just to see of the radiator was good enough to cool you know just just driving along let's take a look here you or lers see how those drip oil down into the engine the cam bearings and what nut this is your main engine oily you just fill on up with oil and drive until it goes down is you advance in this is a ham throttle or cruise control and standard clutch gas pedal and middle brake three speed sequential gearbox and of course your handbrake here's your moto-meter up there you see the red line that's our water temperature the Selden patent that was he was a attorney who patented the idea for the automobile Henry Ford became an American folk hero when he took him to court and beat it because he didn't want to pay the Selden patent the Selden never really ever built a car you know it's hard to convey to you on film what a nice car this is to drive how everything just clicks in how the steering's very direct you know the amazing thing is engineers have always been engineers and they always built the best engineer product they could at the time and this is a classic example of that you know when you're driving a new McLaren you realize what modern engineers can do with computers and electronics and when you look at old engineers some hundreds of cars over a hundred years old and I'm driving around Los Angeles like a modern car if more than keeps up with traffic with the exception of the freeway I mean you can use this I use it to go to work and it's a lot of fun it's reliable it's pretty bulletproof it's a real quality automobile you know packard add the greatest slogan the little sexist but it was asked a man who owns one just shifts so nicely Drive so nice you know there's a real sense of mechanical mess I've said that before with this car you just really feel like you're driving the car I mean it's a real Engineers automobile built by the best engineers America had at the time and it's a piece of history and I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane in the McLaren's and the supercars those are all a lot of fun but sometimes it's back it's fun to go back to basics and see what it was like when this car was built the average American had never ridden in an automobile so this was like a revelation most people never gone more than well how fast can a horse run 25 miles an hour maybe something like that I don't know but to go a mile a minute that was pretty crazy and this was the best of the breed the Packard will you

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 1,077,564

Keywords: Jay Leno, Automotive, Cars, Garage, horsepower, Jay, Leno, mods, custom car, Speed, Fast, modded cars, mechanic, fastest car, Jay Leno's Garage, cars, exotic cars, interview, custom, Leno car, funny, Leno funny, car show, Rare, Motorcycles, racing, jay leno interview, auto, drive, power, fast, amazing, cool, the cars, vehicle, 1911 Packard Model 18, packard, 4 cylinder

Id: WXZDySwGfaQ

Length: 16min 36sec (996 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 03 2012