if you haven't already, click on the owner registry and you can see a 1601 touring sedan with sidemounts

the concrete grille on the body bridge and the main office door were removed. I haven't been by in some time, but the place is in death throes. Some of the Detroit folks can comment more. It's far gone.

Wood from the offices was recovered and can be purchased with funds benefitting the on-going restoration of the proving grounds, which is a much happier story.

the street the body bridge crosses is a public street, but not a neighborhood for a Sunday drive

actually, this was their second shortest car.

V windshield means the windshield is made of two flat pieces joined in a v shape. this replaced one flat piece.

all steel body means the roof and framing are steel. earlier wooden framing with steel panels and roofs with a hole in the middle filled with canvas were used,

that's kind of simplistic, but basically accurate.

your 282 in3 straight eight is a well designed and made engine. The 3 speed transmission is typical of the time - it is not synchronized on first

Hess and Eisenhart, ASC and others did the "factory chop jobs" you mention - the biggest part of the work was the bracing. Remember that this was factory paid engineering and tooling spread over a modest production run. It would be much smarter in my opinion to buy a 52 convertible coupe.

The one-off peach-colored Clipper convertible has been replicated, so it's possible, but the financial side of doing this with a hacked 52 sedan is truly frightening

It would be feasible for a body on frame car like this to be a car with no top and a lot of cowl shake. To have an operable top would be a major operation, made harder by the way the top is hacked off. There is no place for top latches. Maybe the guy who did the Tucker convertible could do it

I haven't seen the term with Packards but I believe GM used "hardtop convertible " for 2 dr hardtop (usually with the stainless "bows" in the headliner). Marketing blather. Sort of like "all-weather phaeton" for convertible sedan and the modern use of "roadster" for 2 place convertible coupe, the Lincoln sedan caled the "town car" , and the especially bad "four door coupe" for a sedan with a roofline that's a bit better than a shoebox.

you could point out how much you're saving because of common spares

right side cowl

is it reassuring to find out there is a DMV even more unthinking than the the typical US one? This is typical in my experience of any German regulatory organization.