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One of the customers at my restoration shop talked to me years ago about a 50 he found in a river bottom. It needed EVERYTHING! The poor car had been neglected so long it was literally rust from the door handles down. It was decided that it was too rough to save. Setting next to it once it was home was a 71 Firebird that was his and his wife's first "new" car. Due to poor design it suffered some of the same issues in different places. After a year or so at the chassis shop, the two are now one. He brought it to me a little over a year ago to make it pretty. He asked for a modern automatic car for his wife to enjoy. Please don't hate us for what we have done to this car .... I agree, I would rather restore but it got saved from the crusher.

I will add pics soon



TT

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The pic where it is in the Rat Rod black was for last years River To River cruise. This year it is it's final coat of high build white PPG and we're racing the calender to make as much as we can yellow. (see firewall)

It has been tubbed, chopped and channeled. The engine has been moved back 10 inches and door handles deleted just like the owner asked. Now it's time to make it pretty.

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Quote:G'day TT,
to PackardInfo. While not everybody's cup of tea it looks much like a Packard to me after an innovative solution which took much work to complete.

And a request, could you please ask the owner to include his '50 in the Packard Owner's Registry here, together with a pic, any known history and how he acquired it?

And a request, could you please ask the owner to include his '50 in the Packard Owner's Registry here, together with a pic, any known history and how he acquired it?

Ozstatman
Thanks for the reply, it will take him hours to register all of his cars and the history they hold but I'll see what I can do. I'll register my 49 too. Thanks also for the welcome and the link.

Now that's a radiator!

Radiator? That's a story in itself. When I asked him what engine to use he said the V8. At that time I was in heaven restoring another car for him and setting on a 327 every chance I got to take a break. The strait eight made a nice park bench tucked way back in the shop.

The V8 was out of the 71. He had it going before I finished the other project. It seems the V8 has made a pass or two and has been modified a bit. It needs a big radiator. And the big tires.

A '71 Pontiac suffering from poor design. Imagine that...

Great work salvaging the '50. While some might grumble about the merits of modifying Packards, any Packard that can hit the streets is an opportunity to keep the marque's heritage alive in the minds of the public.

By the way, the taillights look an awful lot like the fog lamps from a '70 Mustang Mach 1. Where did you get them?

The taillights were salvaged from the Firebird. They are the turn signals from the front. The owner of the 50 made the red lenzes.

I tried to load more pics with no luck, did I piss someone off? I have several to share. This has been a use what you have project that spans over 10 years.

Doubt you upset anyone. Any chance the photos are larger than 2048k or something other than jpg.