Hotting up

Thoroughly enjoyed Art Deco Festival by Jacqui Madelin in the April issue. I quote from her words, “The following 1934 Packard Super 8 Coupe Roadster arrived from Australia for restoration in 1996, and includes grille bars that swivel to block airflow until the engine warms up”. My first car at the age of 15 (yes, 15), in 1955, was a 1928 Essex Super Six (don’t know why manufacturers ever chose the word ‘Super’!). Anyway, I guess the cost when new would have been less than a quarter of the price of a 1934 Packard. The Essexes of around the period of 1927 to 1931 also had the shut-off system to speed up the motor warm-up. It consisted of vertical metal bars in front of the radiator, about one inch wide, running the full length of the radiator surround shell — not unlike vertical Venetian blinds of today, but of course, substantially narrower. To open or close them, you pulled out or pushed in a knob on the passenger’s side dashboard. To hold it in place, there were notches on the underside of the rod plate that went through the firewall then to the Venetian-type bars. So simple. When Packard introduced them in 1934, the system was already at least eight years old. The Essex models certainly needed them, as when cold they were hopelessly gutless. They also had a factoryfitted ‘hot box’ whereby they drew hot air from the exhaust manifold to the carb. Didn’t seem to help much. From an Essex to a 1935 Ford V8 five-window coupé! From chalk to cheese, as they say. Even raced it at the annual Sefton oval clay circuit meeting (a 1950s boy racer? I had a twin straightexhaust-pipe system, so I must have been!) Trevor Stanley-joblin, Amberley I saw a similar system on a mid ’30s Bugatti recently, Trevor, and though it was a brilliant and effective idea. It would be nice to know what other manufacturers used the same method — maybe some of our readers can let us know. AFW