Re: HotRod Packard

Posted by Jim On 2008/3/18 11:57:54

Drake- good luck with your car. Most of all have fun! You'll hear all sorts of rhetoric about how blasphemous it is to change anything on any original car from a minority of people. You can take that with a grain of salt or not. After all you have a relatively common Packard, like mine. There's a zillion of them out there and plenty of parts cars too.

I got mine because it had a unique engine- a straight 8. I have a DOHC Northstar V-8, a Corvette 350 V-8 in my Z-28 so why have the same thing every other mofo that stumbled into town has?

I mean your car puts out like 150 HP compared to a Ford flathead with 85.

Realistically it won't make much sense if you did spend lots of $$ and go with a V-8. While it would be less ubiquitous than the same era Ford or Chevy, most people are not into Packards as a basis for modifying heavily. The same 51-54 Ford or Chevy will have a greater value than an added-on V-8 Packard simply due to general popularity. And unless it is a 2 door it will never be on par with other era cars in popularity = value.

Every car dicipline is a minority- rodders, rat rodders, low riders, mild customs, stock originals, 1/4 midgets, go carts, pick-up trucks, individual marque clubs- Mustang, BMW, Saturn etc., radical customs, Jap tuner cars, repro kit cars, Euro cars, land speed record cars and whatever else there is.

Whenever one gets on their high horse and begins dictating how all the others should fall into line of their tunnel-vision philosophy because othes' ways are wrong, well, you can see how silly it is relative to their minor standing in the world of cars.

I vote for keeping the unique straight 8 but it's your car. Have fun with it!