Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

sweet ride! Looks great!

If you want a reliable BTV that stops on a dime like mine does now send it to Ross Miller in Parkton Md and DO NOT SEND IT to White Post in Virginia not unless you have a death wish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was that the 55 for sale in East Tawas Michigan?
Wes

This one was purchased in Northwest Oregon

I bought this same car in Henderson, Nevada about one year ago. It's with me in Arizona now. Thank God it's out of the Pacific Northwest. The humidity and salt air up there did enough damage to it already.

It had deteriorated significantly from the photo at the beginning of this thread. It went through a chain of owners over the last few years who were not kind to it. They would buy it, abuse and neglect it, then flip it six months to a year later to the next sucker. That happened three or four times. Somebody sanded the paint and scratched the ^@$!# out of it. Another overloaded, shorted out, and generally just barbecued the rear body harness. Darn near burned this car to the ground. It had a few rust spots that nobody had addressed and were allowed to get worse. The chrome pitted more. Clearly bad storage. Just a lot of stupidity and neglect. I've had to work hard to reverse their bad decisions. People suck. Poor thing...this car deserved better.

It is doing much better now. I have done a ton of cosmetic, mechanical, and electrical work to it. Nearly everything is fixed and working now. Some things cannot be overcome, like the crappy repaint job that somebody did to it a few decades ago and the damaged chrome, but it is overall what I would call a very nice driver condition car.

It runs and drives very nicely. A good, strong runner. I've put about 700 miles on it. It has 65,500 miles.

It is not the original colors. I wish it was. The door tag says it was originally White Jade and Topaz. The current white is actually a pearl, and the current copper is lighter and more orange than the dark brown-copper of Topaz. The steering wheel is still painted the original Topaz. It's not Sardonyx either, because Sardonyx is a pink-y non-metallic. It looks like Mojave Tan from 1956. Who knows. Clearly a custom paint job from a few decades ago. Too bad they did a crappy job prepping and applying it.

The date on the heater box is February 5th, 1955.

I would love to know who the original owners of this car were, whether they dressed like me, and whether they listened to Perry Como and Johnny Mathis while driving it like I do.

The next item on the list is new tires of the correct size so my power steering works better and my speedometer is accurate. After that it's getting these darn turbo mufflers off it and replacing them with stock mufflers and resonators. I like my cars whisper quiet.

This photo of me with it was taken at a car show last Saturday.

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The interior cleaned up quite nicely considering it's all original. The white nylon fabric looks dirtier in this photo than it actually is. It's really pretty material with silver threads in it.

You can see the steering wheel and column are a darker color than the rest here. That is because they are still the original Topaz paint. The dash and doors were repainted along with the exterior of the car probably twenty years ago.

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The car still looks very nice, especially in photos. I know how you feel about mediocre paint work. That's the way mine is also, and I don't have the courage to attempt a full repaint.

It sounds like the car is in good hands now and will be well taken care of.

Since you brought up music while driving the Packard, I'm much like you. Some Perry Como, but lately it's been a lot more Elvis, Frank Sinatra, and various doo-wop groups. It's fun to cruise through town with all the windows down listening to some good classics.

-Kevin