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He did the one on the blue limo pictured above. He quoted me a $10k price...that is definitely not in the budget.

Two things, first the longish fender mounted parking lights are from a 1940. When sealed beams debuted in 1940, there were many opportunities for the dealers to retrofit sealed beams into earlier cars, and, as sealed beams did not have a parking lamp, the 1940 parking lamp was commonly installed. There was a different, correct, optional parking light for 1939, reproduced (poorly in my opinion), but that is another story for another day. Your car originally had bulbs and reflectors, but using a sealed beam and parking light (and often rewired dually for turn signals is common) may be a safety advantage if you plan on a driver.
Second, your car originally had the short lived plastic dash. Extremely expensive and difficult to replace, carried over in different colors for 1940 180's. Did I mention extremely expensive? That is why a past owner sourced a 39 110/120 dash - heck of a lot cheaper, and who will know? Yeah, most of us, but in all sympathy, anyone who knows also knows the cost of dealing with Troosh, or the other guy in Florida who I understand has given up....

Lastly, painting an antique car has become outrageous. Plenty of variables in play, too long to list. Chase rainbows, lotto numbers and the odd shiny pregnant goose.

Thanks for the advice. I couple of updates are as follows:

1) was able to locate the missing gas tank, yay, that saved a little coin.
2) Couldn't locate the missing glass
3) Couldn't locate the missing telephone style clock and speedometer. I have the one from the 110/120 I can use.

I think I am going to go with black paint since it's the original color. If the car had been blue then I would have been more inclined to paint it blue..

I have some samples coming from Hirsch to see how close I can get to the original material to fix the arm rests in the back seat.

All in all I am very happy with only missing the few pieces, since the car was in boxes when I got it. I do plan on driving this a bunch so maybe I'll talk to my shop about the marker lights again. See what he thinks.

I was planning on using the same ratty carpet that came with the car but now I am re-thinking that decision. Th rest of the interior is cleaning up nicely and it might be a good idea to put the correct carpet it. It's not in the budget but...

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Bernie Estes was in Florida. He passed away. He was THE best, in my opinion, for wood graining. The business still thrives, as it was bought by one of his works. He still does outstanding work. I think the company now goes by the name of Woodgraining by Estes, and he's out of Indiana.

So a couple updates...

Got my samples from Kirsch for the rear arm rests



The one on the right appears closest, the lighting is different between the two photos so it actually looks pretty close. I'll be able to tell more when I take these swatches over to the car.

I have carpet samples coming as well. I was told to ask for hogs hair but Kirsch's is telling me that I want Wilton I or the Wilton II they have in blue. I'll need to figure that one out.

I spoke with Grain it and they have a couple of the blanks left from packardplastic.com. It looks like I can get a dash for $1.8k to $2.5k. the difference is whether they paint it or grain it. I was a little confused as to how they would grain it but I'm still deciding on whether I do that or not. I'll follow up if I decide to proceed with the plastic dash. I can always do it later. Anyway, this pricing is better than where I was before and i could actually envision doing it now.

It looks like this is as close as I can get for the arm rests. I guess it's better than the existing vinyl



The big question I have is on the carpet at this point. On the left is the sample I got from Kirsch. It seems coarser thread than the original. The right shows a color closer to the original and seems denser, but not as thick.



This is what came out of the car. It is actually a dark blue but the fibers seem very fine a tightly patterned.



The back of the original.

So, the guy working on my car said he thought the original might be hogs hair but Kirsch is suggesting Wilton 1 which they don't have but sent a the above sample which is Wilton II.

In talking with dad he thinks the Wilton with a pad will be fine.

Any suggestions?

Blumenthal's "Mosstred" was a truly unique product, used only by Packard and Rolls-Royce. It was also used on the Custom Super Clippers and Custom 8s thru 1950. Nothing available today truly duplicates it. Image below from a 22nd series Custom 8.

The material in your first photo in post #26 looks very much like Laidlaw's striped broadcloth #1406, used back into the early 30s. Many years ago I bought enough of this from Bill Hirsch to redo my entire 34 sedan but only used enough for some repairs - if you want a swatch send me a PM and I do have enough to sell some of it. Though not a quality match to the Hirsch-supplied material LeBaron-Bonney has also had on occasion a much closer match to what you want than the swatch you show.

BTW, it's Hirsch, not Kirsch. A fine gentleman, selling Packard upholstery materials (and other parts) for 60+ years.

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The Wilton carpet is the correct match but is not supplied with the foam rubber backing used on the original Mosstred.

The original can be duplicated by purchasing a sheet of 3/8" thick foam rubber and gluing the carpet material to it.
I've done this on a 22nd Series Custom 8 and it turned out great. Just be sure to leave extra carpet material around any exposed edges so that it can be wrapped around to cover the foam rubber backing.

Supposedly, for 1940 and after dealers offered sealed beam conversions to earlier cars, so a 39 with 18th series fender lights and sealed beams may be one of those cars.

As for the Mosstread, the only product I've seen that was similar was used by Triumph cars in the 1960's. So you might try a few Triumph experts. In the absence of anything else the Hirsch product is about it.

Thanks Owen, I'll send you a PM. I know it's Hirsch, I do stereo stuff too and sometimes het Klipsch on the brain...or maybe it was my spell checker.

It's looking like the Wilton is the way to go if I can find a darker blue or maybe I should look at grey.

I visited my car and it still is in primer. The right front fender was a mess, I kind of knew that but man. He took it to bare metal and it turns out it is 2 fenders made into one. I have 3 days of labor just in that one fender. The rest of the car is checking out ok though so I can be thankful for that.