SHELTON — It was an odd trade involving disparate classic cars. Five years ago at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jean Silinsky of Shelton surrendered the 1980 Pontiac Firebird Esprit that she owned and often took to car shows. She got a 1947 Packard Clipper in exchange from a man in Springfield, Mass.
While Silinsky “absolutely loved” the Firebird, “I always felt like the car was never mine ’cause it was already done,” she said.
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What she desired was a project that all members of her family could work on, revive and enjoy.
After spotting the Packard in an online ad and conversing with the seller, Silinsky and her husband, Bill Silinsky, went for a look-see.
“It was rundown. It needed a lot of body work. The interior was done. The engine was done, but it needed the work,” she said, recalling that the seller was puzzled by her wanting a fixer-upper model that was 33 years older than what she was driving. “He says, ‘Are you sure you want to trade your car?’ And I’m like, ‘I am positive.’ There was just something about this car that I absolutely fell in love with. I don’t know if it was the shape. I don’t know if it was just the look. I’m not exactly sure, but I just fell in love with it.”
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At the time, the Clipper wasn’t much to look at.
“It was original paint. It was black lacquer. You couldn’t even touch it. You’d turn black. It was disgusting, but I wanted it,” Silinsky said.
Her husband agreed with her assessment of the car’s exterior condition.
“The paint was rough. You just touched it and it smudged,” he said.
A deal was struck, though, and the Silinskys trailered the Firebird to Massachusetts and returned with the Packard. The couple gave themselves two months to get it ready for a July car show in town. Fortunately, much work already had been done by the car’s original owner, including the installation of a 350-cubic-inch Chevrolet V-8 engine.
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“This was his everyday driver and as he got older in years, he couldn’t do the clutch and he couldn’t do the three on tree anymore so, little by little, he had put (in) the new front end, new engine and all that into it so it was power brakes, power steering and it's an automatic. He drove it until the day that he died,” Jean Silinsky said.
The car then passed to the man from whom she bought it.
Making the July deadline even more problematic was Bill’s lack of restoration experience.
“None at all. I worked a little bit as a mechanic in my younger years. Never done any body work or anything exterior-wise,” he said.
With the counsel of a friend and neighbor who had experience in body work, he set to work.
“The rocker panels were rotted away so I welded those in; fabricated new ones, and then painted it in the yard under a tent," Bill said. "We’d come out every morning and spray it because the afternoons it would just get too humid. You couldn’t do anything.”
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Other family members joined in.
“As far as the color, that’s all me,” Jean said. “I wanted it silver, but it’s kind of an homage to my dad who was in the car business his whole life. He had passed away from cancer, so I wanted to bring purple into it.”
She got her inspiration from a one-year color that was used on the 1965 Pontiac GTO called “iris mist.” (Chevrolet also used the color on 1965 models but labeled it “evening orchid.”)
“Every older, fat-fendered car that you see purple is always dark; really dark purple and I wanted to do a little something different, so I went a little light,” she said.
The Packard’s color isn’t as robust as the General Motors color.
“Nobody had the paint code for it so we made our own color. I’m calling it frosted lavender,” Jean said.
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One element on the Clipper didn’t requiring fixing or replacing — the grill and trim elements.
“There is nothing that we did to the chrome. That is all original chrome. All we did was just clean it up, buff it up with really good polish on it,” she said.
In researching the model, Silinsky said she learned from a Packard registry that a running two-door 1947 Clipper is a rarity; there may only be seven in existence.
“They didn’t make that many of ’em to begin with," she said. "There’s a lot of them rusted out in junk yards here and there, but not running."
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With Bill rebuilding the engine and adding a fresh transmission, Positraction rear end, air shocks, headers and chrome side pipes, the Clipper not only looks good but drives well, too.
“It’s a boat. It literally goes down the road like you’re driving a boat. As far as easiness, yeah, I mean it’s an automatic, power steering, power brakes. It's good that way,” said Jean, who does use a pillow to get a proper view out of the windshield.“Will I ever get rid of it? No. Is the value to me worth more because my whole family worked on it? Yes. I have three daughters. They all chipped in. They helped wet sand and they helped buff it and compound it and clean it all up, and it was a family job and it was fun.”
Bill, meanwhile, is pleased with the result.
“It’s her car," he said. "I just have the joy of taking care of it and keeping it running."
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Harwinton native Bud Wilkinson writes about classic cars and motorcycles for Hearst Connecticut Media. Earlier in his journalism career, he reported for The Columbus Dispatch in Ohio for three years and was a columnist for The Arizona Republic in Phoenix before reporting for KSAZ-TV in Phoenix where he won a Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and an Emmy Award for commentary. He may be reached by email at budw@ride-ct.com.
