But Wait...

Paint still not done.  Sigh.

Progress, not perfection?

The car has been in the paint booth for a week, at the paint shop for 2 months since that trip down Grandma's driveway.  It was at the paint shop for 5 months the first time, getting initial body work and paint in the engine compartment.

It's not as if nothing is happening. The inside of the trunk and the area behind the seat has been painted, the entire body masked off, and the trunk lid stripped and primed.  I think the hood and doors are about ready to be painted also.

Interesting thing about the trunk lid... it is not original!  The base paint on the trunk lid is sage green, not turquoise (a.k.a. thunderbird blue) like the rest of the car.  Sage green was a stock color in 1956.  I suspect that the early repair work that caused the rear bondo/fender bullet configuration mentioned in a previous post also replaced  of the trunk lid.  The '56 trunk lid is identical to the '55, so no points off there.

You can see just a hint of the sage green base color peeking through the primer.

What is really interesting is my early memory of the entire car being sage green, not turquoise.  I mentioned this in a much earlier post, but I have found very little evidence to support that memory.  It may be possible that the car was hastily repainted sage green when the trunk lid was replaced, but the quality was so bad that it was easily and completely stripped for a subsequent dark green metallic paint job.  The car was dark metallic green when I got it in 1972.  The paint was old and oxidized by that time, but it was a decent paint job... the trunk and the door jambs had been painted.

I'm still trying to piece together the paint history of this car.   I will need to have another discussion with my Aunt, who owned the car from '62 to '72.   Perhaps she can fill in some details, or find some old photos.

Meanwhile, I wait.  I want to be doing something, but I am not a painter.  I want a better paint job than I can possibly do myself.  I want to know that the car was painted by someone I trust, someone my Uncle Packard trusts.  I want to remember Body Guy and Paint Guy when I look at this car, and its beautiful paint.

I also desperately want to take Dad for a ride while he is still on this planet.  Or, more importantly, I want to remember taking Dad for a ride, and that it become part of this car's story of redemption.  I know that I may be obsessing about that future event, but I feel compelled to strive for it.

If it is God's will that I NOT have the opportunity to remember taking Dad for a ride,  at least I want to remember giving it my best shot.