Browsing on The Facebook recently presented me with an astonishing feat of custom bodywork, one I felt compelled to share in a very special Custom Edition Picture Time Edition of Custom.
It’s a one-off modification of a 2006 Lincoln Town Car, and you need to see it.
The original owner of this masterpiece was apparently a former attorney general (who undoubtedly had a home full of priceless crystal and gold leaf antiques).
That owner obviously hankered for days gone by, where one could purchase a grand Packard in the finest tradition of luxury and craftsmanship.
So, he decided he would modify a Town Car, purchased from his local Lincoln-Mercury showroom, and create the thing we see here. Modifications both front and rear have… occurred. It’s important to keep in mind the amount of money spent on this custom fabrication.
According to the listing on Detroit’s Craigslist, it’s a one-off “Signature L Special Edition Packard Series,” and only two of the words in that designation are real things: the Signature and the L (for long-wheelbase).
Interior modifications are fewer, and include a Packard placard on the dash and a horrible embroidered Girl Scout badge Packard logo on the wheel.
The seller is asking $8,000 firm, which is not the adjective I’d use to describe his logic.
I can’t.
Edit: H/t to commenter Dal20402, who dug up some information on the former attorney general owner in question.
[Images via seller]
That car puts the wow in Brougham.
It is so craptastic but seems sorta well-done. In a “Planet Nine from Outer Space” way.
But it’s someone’s work of love. Viva la differance.
Just thank the stars it’s a one off.
What happened?
Bad taste – that’s what happened.
Thank you, Captain Ob, ob,… ahhhhhhh, you almost got me!!
:D
Another quality Bangle design? He’s a design genius, you know. Just ask him.
Ah, the famous tagline “Ask the man who designed it.”
I’m glad my Packard-driving grandparents aren’t alive to see this monstrosity. (Disclaimer: Junior Packards. Yeah, they moved the brand downmarket, but in and of themselves the 120’s and 110’s were good cars and a great used car value in the 1940s.)
Looks like a Puke-ard to me.
Perhaps inspired by an acid flashback?
Assuming this previous owner was actually an attorney general…those people make good money. Why would he/she not have simply bought and restored an old, ACTUAL Packard?
Many State employees don’t make anywhere near as much as you might think, even if they hold a position like Attorney General (your State may vary).
bill clinton was the lowest paid guv in the US, got like $30k per year.
that’s why hillary got into trading cattle futures and made her 1 in 3 trillion score
If you are going to do a job then don’t cheap out. Finish it properly.
The continental style tire ‘hump’ on the back should be replaced with a proper spoked chromed fake wheel.
The upholstery should be tufted velour.
It needs coach lights.
The windows should have maximum tint.
Props though to the half vinyl roof and attempt at white walls.
The only way to finish this car off properly would be to launch it into the Grand Canyon, “Thelma and Louise” style…
Hey – what did the Grand Canyon ever do to deserve this rolling phlegmatic acid reflux?
I could kind of like this beast if it had both a bit more and a bit less. Bear with me here.
Replace the bumper covers front and back so that they color coordinate with the green lower paint.
Cut back on the hood replacement so that it doesn’t have an overbite and tie it into the front bumper properly.
Connect the rear fender skirts with that new bumper cover so that the lines flow around the car.
Add a similar fender skirt up front to suggest a tire sponson. Connect it to the front bumper cover.
Replace the trunk lid with a proper Continental tire holder, minus the chrome strips.
Add wire wheels, or at least quality wire-look wheels. Keep the Packard hub cap. Get proper whitewalls, too.
Of course, you’ve still jacked up a Town Car that looked good to begin with, but at least you’ve got something that looks whole.
It would have been easier to start with a Fifth Avenue and head toward Packard.
Except that the last RWD 5th Avenue was made in 1989.
And the last Town Car was made in 2011. What’s your point?
A 1989 car would have required way too much work just to get it into reliable condition for that guy to drive – he needed a newer, more reliable car as a daily driver.
Forget it, Corey. It’s Toontown.
COTD right here.
Even before I clicked through “Someone DESPERATELY wishes that Packard was still a thing.”
For a lot less than $8,000 I’d love to enter it in the car show/cruise in that the local Ford/Lincoln dealer does every summer.
I’m very much against civil forfeiture, however, I make an exception in this case, the abomination must be destroyed.
This is nothing new. There have been Panther-based “Packards” for some time now.
http://hooniverse.com/2011/08/04/
hooniverse-what-the-truck-thursday-a-1992-packard-bayliff-custom-sedan/
Thanks for making me sick.
That’s nothing – if you want to really get sick, google “1962 international rat rod”
I wonder what happens to the patch on the steering wheel when the airbag fires.
The knight will protect your face.
How’d you like that hood to fall while you’re changing the oil….
Packard owners don’t change tbeir own oil. They have people for that.
Sajeev needs this.
MY EYES, THE GOGGLES DO NUTTHING.
Stab them out!
The sick thing is that someone apparently spent quite a bit of money on this abomination.
Face it: that thing’s better looking than a current model Civic Si or Type R.
Just the facts, Honda. Just the facts.
If this was Jalopnik, I would give you a star!
My concern is the record of public/career decisions the “AG” owner of this monstrosity might have made in their official “AG” capacity. I was expecting the owner to be a pimp or recent presidential appointee. No one goes broke underestimating the taste or intelligence of Boobus Americanus. HLM
Yuck. Its absolutely awful. Terrible. Horrible. Nasty.
Kill it, for the good of humanity, please destroy it at once.
Agreed with Bumpy, obviously the fact that the airbag may one day be needed wasn’t nearly as important as pretending this thing is what it isn’t.
Clearly the owner was a fan of the ’30s-vintage luxury cars but the Town Car simply doesn’t lend itself at all well to a bunch of appliqués portending to make it look like one.
Further background:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2014/12/30/former-attorney-general-frank-kelley-turns/21047543/
Well done! I’m going to see if I can add this.
Thanks for that link – so he is old enough to remember when real Packards were still on the road. Personally, can you blame him for wanting one?
Some day, people will be pining for, oh, I don’t know, a 2018 Lexus LS570 and somebody will make a body kit for whatever featureless autonomous car they have in their driveway.
When you get to be that old, you get to drive whatever the heck you want, and everybody else can go pound sand!
Corey should buy this all American classic and try to sell it in Europe or the Middle East as part of his Rare Rides series. Tired of your Peykan? Buy this!
Don’t nobody got time for that.
Building a classic on a Lincoln Continental reminds me of a much more successful attempt from the 1970s that I used to see as a teenager. I had forgotten about it until I spotted it in Hemmings a few years back:
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/index.php/2011/03/09/zombie-bugatti-a-continental-with-over-the-top-aspirations/
The guy who owned this (not sure who he was) lived not far away and the Bugatti was one of the more interesting cars in a California coastal town with lots of nice cars. Still, I preferred his other daily driver which was a Ferrari Daytona.
As somebody who spent many hours in the august halls of Packard Laboratory on the leafy grounds of Lehigh University (Packard was an alumnus), I’m pretty sure the Packard Model A in the lobby would probably collapse into a pile of rust should this monstrosity even enter the campus.
Agreed. Although the trunk treatment isn’t too obnoxious by itself, wouldn’t look bad with the proper badging IMO.
Kill it with fire.
It’s not even a long wheelbase model…
While there’s no pictures of the rear interior, door panels, which are a dead giveaway, the length/width of the C pillar window makes it clearly a SWB. LWB town cars have about a 10 inch window there.
Source: I’m staring at an 09 in my garage right now.
Did you actually go outside and look? Ha.
Well I was taking a nicotine break as I was reading…but yes.
@spookiness
On our 09, there is no up-down lock peg on the back doors. Instead, there is an un-lock lever built into /blended into the interior door handle. There is black trim along the window felts, and the door panel doesn’t curve as far up as in the front surface I e. The horizontal plane that the lock peg would protrude to is very different. But there is still a big area of dead space for 6 inches where the wood and armrest and door trim is sized/set back toward the rear of the door to fit the standard door
I can always tell a LWB by the distance of the rear door locks from the B pillar.
After further relection it’s a damn shame that the gentleman didn’t add a wood dash kit.
https://tinyurl.com/yc3wwju7
That would have made it complete. ;-)
I’m thinking the owner may have a purple velour sports coat and matching top hat ?
I hate those panther monstrosities with a passion. At least someone tried to do something – ANYTHING – with one of them. I applaud them. Nothing looks worse than the original.
My face as I read this article: https://imgur.com/a/5WDV5
From the side it looked okay, even nice. That two-tone color scheme and the rear wheel arches look sleek.
From the front it looked horrendous. From the back it looked like an accident. And that interior was dismal. A 2006 Lincoln is worth nowhere near $8,000, especially not defiled like this.
One of my bucket list cars is a ’55 Packard Clipper. This monstrosity is an insult to the Packard name.
Still more tasteful than any donk.
Hey Mom…look what I made!
If I ever went back to get my Masters in Design, for my thesis I’d like to interview people who own such…unusual vehicles…and find out how they came about, listen to them explain why they like it.
Such passion and it looks like a Packard!
Can this be used as evidence of non compos mentis when changing the attorney general’s decisions?
To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, “[it’s] kind of sexy in a not terribly sexy sort of way.”
This thing would look better jacked up with a set of 30″ wheels. It looks far too ridiculous to be so mechanically tame.
This might give the Toyota designers an idea for a new Lexus. I wonder if the most recent Prius was inspired by a car like this.
apparently the seller had enough of b&b mockery and deleted the posting ….
This looks like something the Green Hornet might be chauffeured in if he were gay.
The nose looks so incredibly tacked on that the whole rest of the side profile is destroyed. If it had been better (tastefully?!?) integrated it wouldn’t suck near as much – smaller in height and blended with the original hood line instead of looking bolted onto the hood. Good there is only one.
If you remember the old VW Beetles getting this kind of workover, they almost literally simply replaced hood, fenders and in some cases the ‘boot’ (engine cover) with made-to-fit replacement parts rather than stick-on appliqués. For certain while they changed the look of the Beetle, it was almost always tastefully proportional.
MAGA!!!!!!!
That landau would look so much better in Louis Vuitton print. He really cut corners here.
The overall silhouette is hideous, but I respect a lot of what they were trying to do.
The hood protrusion sticks out too far and I think the grille tilt does a lot to throw it off. It didn’t work on the Rolls-Royce Camargue and it doesn’t work here. And yeah, if you’re going to go this far, having a proper Continental kit out back is very necessary.
The paint and rear fender treatment is actually kind of cool though, and this is the first recent car with a non-formal roofline that I’ve seen that I think manages to pull off the landau top.