Power Steering , Power Brakes and Air Conditioning

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On evaporative coolers, I believe they appeared much earlier – in the 1930’s at least. A childhood memory of my mentor was cutting his finger on the fan of a window mounted evaporative cooler that his father rented when they moved from the Midwest to California in the late ’30’s, so apparently there were more expensive units with fans that would move air when stopped. Window units had small water tanks in them, but adding ice would reduce the temp for a while (melting ice as about 15% of the cooling effect of evaporating the water).

I am not concerned with adding any holes though the firewall of my Packard or Pierce, they already had them. Both were already cut very crudely presumably by the dealer or perhaps the original owners themselves to plumb aftermarket heaters. In the case of my Packard they cut through a corner of the data plate. Now in terms of originality what counts, the crude hole cut by the original owner to make the car more comfortable, or trying to cover the evidence. Who counts more, the factory as originally delivered, the original owner who actually used the car, or the person who spent a lot more time and money than either resurrecting the beast?

I’m not posing the question in terms of judging, since that is not something I participate in. I admire the skills, time and patience that others have that I don’t to do better than new restorations but my interest is more about the genius of engineering and manufacture that went into these cars. I think we put individual cars on too high a pedestal. An extreme and unrealistic ideal of these cars when new and never touched by an owner seems to be the goal of judging. Of course it would be impossible to set guidelines for some other arbitrary standard, so in the end it is to each his own.

Jim

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