Re: Golden Anniversary Packards

Posted by 58L8134 On 2014/12/11 18:17:35

Hi Eric

The reason is ask is painting the cowl black below the weld-line, regardless what color is was before, is a practice of "restorers" doing as they've seen done by GM on their 1960's models.

During the earlier decades, where the bodies came from a plant that painted the complete shell whatever color was specified, the cowls always matched the exterior color.

Then, in the 1960's, GM in an effort to reduce cost, started the practice of painting lower areas including the cowl with chassis black before applying the body color. Certainly, this saved costlier color paints and cents-per-car. And all those cents-per-car added up to thousands saved....thus warming the hearts of cost accountants.

I suspect if you scratch off a small patch of the black in an unnoticeable place, you'll see the original color applied by Briggs for Packard.

Steve