Giddings' crew runs the car's engine for a test.   Note electric starter at the front of the car.  These pre-war Grand Prix cars sometimes ran exotic fuels and some required very special start-up procedures.

At a Monterey Historics in the 1980s, your webmaster watched Joel Finn's crew prepare a 1938 Mercedes-Benz W-163 for startup.  Pre-heated oil was added, then pre-heated coolant, then everyone put on gas masks because whatever the thing burned was actually poisonous.  (All for nought, as the car threw a rod on its first on-track lap.)