Features My ’51 Packard old school kustom, 12 years of building

Hello everybody. I’m the current caretaker of this cool Packard kustom, built by Sampo Ahonen here in Finland during the 12 years of timeframe.

I will write here a full story with lot of pictures. This car deserves to be featured on HAMB.

Let’s start from the end, the present day that is. We are having a big car show during the Easter here in Helsinki and the car was accepted to the show. One of the themes is ”old Finnish kustoms”. I was given a spot next to a well-known ”Sledanette” Buick ’49.

More to come! After the show I will start the story from the very beginning.

Mika

 

Very kool Packard! I’m looking forward to the rest of the story.

 

Super nice!
Following the thread.

 

Dad would have hated seeing it chopped since he was a Packard man.....BUT, I like it !!! Good for you!

 

I like it, but customs need shiny paint. Look at pictures of back in the day car shows. All the customs had shiny paint.

 

I was told many times by guys back in the day. Very few cars were finished with paint jobs. The najority of the cars built had primer spots on them. And were never completely finished. Money was tight back then. This is coming from the midwest where the majority of the people were farmers. Seems all the pictures taken were of finished cars. As cars unfinished were looked down upon. People just walked on by. Times have changed I hope.

 

***S!!

 

This is true of the cars that we saw on the streets that were driver every day. But the cars that showed up at the indoor car shows were finished cars with no primer. Especially custom cars were not shown until finished.

 

Times have changed, and primmer`d cars are more accepted now. Even in shows.

 

First day of the show behind. Thank you for the comments and following along. The Packard will stay in primer for now, I like it how it is. Maybe shiny paint in the future, we’ll see.

 

Absolutely love the car.

 

Beautiful car , it’s lines flow smoothly

 

I’d drive it



mmmmmmmmmmm

 

Glad to see something other than a Mercury or Buick get the credit that you deserve. Nice car.

 

Today is the last day of the show. What a cool event!

 

Go back 50 years, NOBODY wanted an old Packard. I used to see them in junkyards stacked 3-high.

 

All depends on where you're from and how old you are. In my youth, a fellow who dated the next door neighbor girl had a customized Packard 120 coupe. I shall never forget its beautiful, shiny red body with wide white sidewalls. And its sound: One can only imagine . . .

 

The show is over and it’s time for storytelling.

The Packard was imported in Finland in 1951 as a luxury car for the company called Radiator Ltd. I think they manufactured heaters etc. Obviously big American cars were very expensive and luxurious in that time after the war, and the companies had to get a permission to buy one. In 1952 the Olympics game was held in Helsinki, and that’s why the permits were given. The motor was a straight eight 327 with 115 horsepower. However, only about ten Packard Patrician 400’s were imported in ’51.

After that the car became a Taxi. And in 1960 it got a diesel engine. However, this type of cars were heavily used and it was removed from the register in 1962. After only 11 years of use. Later, when the oil crisis hit the nation these cars had no value. Luckily this car got saved, twice actually. The Packard was owned by two well-known junk collectors one after another and those old men pretty much saved this poor old car, once being a pride and joy. It was very rusty in that time but it made it. The car got saved!

 

This should be interesting...

 

Well, I wasn't expecting that as the start to the journey. Looking forward to more of the story.

 

My aunt married a wealthy fellow and they were Packard owners back in the fifties. I doubt there were many Packards in a dusty ag town like Fresno in the postwar era. This is a composite of two photos that had my sister in the foreground. I cut her out of to show my aunt's car in the background. Until this moment I would never have pictured "Aunt Ruby's Packard" as a custom. So, thanks for that. Awesome car, want to hear the rest of the story.

 

50 years ago? Yeah I bet the mid 70’s no one did want a packard.

You know custom guys complain about no one building or posting customs. This guy comes along and wants to share and you all jump on his ***. Seems a little backwards to me

cool car car, weather it’s primererd packard or whatever lol

 

Nice car and cool story! Thanks for the photos.

 

Sampo Ahonen started the project in 2007. He was looking for a kustom project, and this poor old four-door Packard was a decent option. There's some Packard kustom car history here in Finland. One of the first kustoms ever built here was a cool ragtop Packard and also a few other cool kustom Packards have been made during the years. So Sampo decided to go with this one and he started a major project.

The car had to wait before Sampo finished his garage which was big enough for the car. It was totally a total project. Sampo started with the frame. He took axles from a Oldsmobile Cutl*** -79 as well as the Chevrolet small block motor and 350 transmission. It took a lot of fabrication skills but finally the car was a roller and it was time to start sheetmetal work and kustomizing the body lines.

 

New floors were made and the body got dropped 5 inches over the frame.

 

After that the body modifications took place. The list is long and amount of work is exhausting. It took several years from him to do all these modifications. I'm probably forgetting something but here we go.

First and foremost the bottom part of the body was redone. Basically everything below the beltline is new. Two-door conversion with hardtop roof is of course the most visible change. The roof chop was done by lowering the rear of the roof inside the bodyline, including the rear window! The roof was chopped 7cm in front and 12cm (5in) from rear. And the original rear gl*** is still in its place.

M***ive cruise skirts will hide the rear wheels and rear air suspension with fourlinks was added as well.

 

More pictures of body modifications.

 

Awesome car! Thanks for providing the thread and collection of photos.

 

Very cool lines being created there has sectioned ford shoe box/ Oldsmobile vibes in the progress shots