Phil Hill’s Packard and the nickel test

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It’s easy to be overawed by the life and achievements of American racing legend Phil Hill, who died not quite one year ago. The only American-born Formula 1 champion, Hill was also one of the world’s great automotive connoisseurs. But what I like about Hill was that he was so tenderly sentimental about cars. Growing up in Santa Monica, he learned to work on classic cars at a local garage and remained infatuated with the slow, elegant beasts, even though he was a virtuoso driver who could handle the world’s most powerful machines. Hill held on to cars that were important to him: his aunt’s 1918 Packard; his 1931 Pierce-Arrow that won Pebble Beach’s Best in Show in 1955; and this car, a 1927 Packard 343 convertible sedan with body by Murphy, which earned Hill a best-in-show trophy at Pebble Beach in 1977. The car is being auctioned Sunday night at a Gooding & Co. auction in Pebble Beach.

The provenance of the car is impeccable, the restoration -- that Hill himself did -- is immaculate, as you can see for yourself . The purple-and-lilac color scheme, which is the first thing people notice about the car, is an expression of Hill’s puckishness as well as his commitment to authenticity (the unusual color was offered by the factory at the time).

And the car might have the most perfect straight-eight Packard engine in the world. Hill had the engine rebuilt and meticulously balanced with the proper high-compression cylinder head, custom camshaft and other internal investments. To demonstrate the engine’s eerie smoothness, David Gooding’s employee Ricky Reed allowed me to conduct the classic test (from Packard’s advertising) of balancing a nickel on the valve cover of the engine, which was idling at a effortless 500 rpm.

‘I’ve been doing this 15 years, and that’s the first time I’ve ever seen that done,’ said Reed.

--Dan Neil