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Next to money, parts and performance it requires love to get this car back to life. With an equal amount of efforts one could restore a pricewise highflying car like Gullwing, Horch or Bugatti. What a godsend for the community that the Packard virus is still alive.







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I think it is great that the car is getting rebuilt. I hope the frame is still good as it sounds like the body will come from donor car(s), and there didn't seem to be too much left of the original car. I would almost call it a reconstruction than a restoration since so much will be new. -you see these kinds of things happening with old porsches. Wrecks will be bought pretty much for the VIN, and the rest of the car is reconstructed.
For a limo, it seems kind of strange that the front doors are long doors from a coupe. That must make the proportions of the car more pleasing, but I figured all the length would normally be added for the rear passengers.

The rear compartment is actually very spacious, lots of room even with the jump seats with space to spare.

One of the curious things about this car is the frame, Packard did not offer a 149" wheelbase until 1953 and this car started life in 1951. It does not appear to be a "stretched" frame, the side rails are continuous. So almost certainly the frame came from A. O. Smith and that's the reason we wrote them hoping to get a copy of the frame purchase order but unfortunately they exited the frame business and the purchaser, Tower, never responded to our requests for info.

The limousine frame is now without any body sections and appears to be a 156" 2513 commercial car chassis.

Despite its being the thicker frame it is liberally rusted away in front of the rear axle so the 2552 donor rear frame clip will have to be spliced in.

Serial # is 2552-2047 making it approx the 47th one produced. We are beginning to believe that it was updated to '53 appearance after it was first built. The donor car in '52 was a medium blue but the 53 trunk lid and ornament is tan underneath the black. Hood ornament is a '53, easy swap, next to investigate are the "bottle cap openers" on the rear quarters. Will search carefully to see if the holes for the mounting pins have been filled.

The trunk was fully carpeted with a tan plush pile while the rear floor had what looks like an imitation mouton in tan.

Much work ahead.

Thanks for the new info, James. More telling than the vehicle number is the Briggs number which as I recall is 2452-1088X, and the 1951 theft-proof #. That's curious about the apparent wheelbase, I'm pretty sure we measured it with a tape at about 149".

Our restoration shop has been moving along on the destruction of the limo and it's parts car. At this point we have both bodies removed from their respective chassis. We have assessed the condition of the limo's frame and it too has suffered from years of neglect and is rusted extensively especially in the rear portion that goes up over the axle. During the initial assessment of the frame we have discovered that the frame had started life as a factory Packard Patrician Sedan frame and was cut and stretched just behind the 5th body mount support brackets from the front. Also on the limo frame additional brackets were fabricated and welded in behind the rear portion of the x bracing to support the two piece driveshaft and housed the carrier bearing.
We have determined at this point it will be in best interest of the restoration to use the frame from the donor car as it is a solid starting point for this build. Our shop has begun to measure and cut out the stretched sections of frame and drive shaft support bearing bracing in prep for the stretching of the donor car frame.

James

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I salute the Kanter's for taking on this complex and incredible project! thank you for preserving this special car! This perhaps is indeed the last custom made to order non catalogued coach-built Packard ever made

We are full steam a head on this project. With Fred at the helm we are seeing this dream become a reality for Fred, Dan, and Kanter Auto Products. In the last week or so. Our restoration shop (www.kanterrestoration.com) has been working diligently on making one frame out of the two. By using the sections from the original frame and splicing them into the sedan frame.

Below are the picture of the sedan frame with the lengthened sections and the drive-shaft carrier bearing supports in place.

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Riveted and (tack) welded too. I presume the tack welding will be full MIG/TIG/gas by the time that section is repaired.

One early step on a long journey. Good luck!

Craig