Many of you have been following our restoration of our 1941 Packard LeBaron Sport Brougham.  Packard commissioned LeBaron (at that time custom body builders, not part of Chrysler) to build 99 of these cars.  Ours is #71.  We have had the car for 10 years and have completed the engine, drive train, front end, suspension, brakes and body.  On these Sport Broughams, LeBaron kept the front end sheet metal (cowl forward) the same as on its other senior cars (160s - 180s) and restyled the roof and doors using a lot of lead in the roof and to form the belt line edges of the doors.  Care must be used in stripping these cars, using chemicals and not sand blasting, so as not to distort the leading.  Once the car was stripped, we found rust in the side mount wells and lower doors, resulting in the need to remove the hood, fenders, doors and trunk to cut, fabricate and weld in new panels.  With the new panels in place, lots of filling and sanding, we metal-prepped, primed (lacquer primer) and put on a couple of coats of paint in nitrocellulose lacquer (this sealed the primer which will go bad in about six months).  We chose French Gray Metallic, having it mixed from the original formula.  We also had this matched and formulated in modern-day Dupont Centari, which will be used for the final coats.  This French Gray has a greenish tint, giving it a look of pewter.  When on the Sport Brougham, it produces a one-off,sculpted look that you would expect from a custom coach builder.  Although there is more work to do:  Interior, finish body work and final assembly, we thought it would be fun to put some of the parts back on and get a sneak  preview of what it will look like finished.  The car is tagged and insured, and now with the parts on, can be driven around the neighborhood.