Packer Limo

In this section we have pictures of the restoration job showing the car stripped down, inside and out. More Restoration Process   Take a look at the finished car Gallery. The deails in the artwork are simply amazing and when you see them you'll understand how over 1,000 hours were spent on them alone. More Finished Car

The whole idea for this car started as a joke between big Irv ( Brett’s dad) and me. I’d give him a hard time about being a big shot and how big shots should have a big vehicle to drive him around.

At about that time a friend from Door County sold me an 87 Mercury Limousine that he had lying around for $1 . Once I had that car I decided to start looking for a parts car to fix this limo up. To my surprise I discovered that you could actually buy whole, good condition cars for what others were asking for the parts cars. I started bidding on Lincoln or Cadillac cars from the late 80’s. The next thing I knew I was the winning bidder of this 1988 Cadillac Fleetwood 6 passenger Limousine in Flint Michigan.

Online the car looked great and the sellers insured me that the car was in GREAT shape and needed nothing. Airline ticket in hand I flew to Detroit, then to Flint to pick it up. The current owners decided to do some last minute car shopping and left me sitting at the airport for over two hours.

The waiting of course was only the tip of the iceberg and when they arrived it was immediately obvious that their definition of “Mint Condition” and mine were completely different. I had already paid for the airline ticket and half the car by this time. The money I had paid these hillbilly rednecks had been for a deposit on the car couldn’t be returned because these they had used it to bail their third partner in crime out of jail. It was obvious that this was their party mobile and there was nothing I could do but finish the purchase.

At that point I was off to the closest gas station to check all the fluids and give the car a once over before I started my 6 hour ride home to Milwaukee in my diamond in the rough. Much to my surprise this car drove great. The rebuild motor purred along and the care was smooth and getting good gas mileage. By the time I got home the headache from dealing with the sellers was gone and I was already thinking of how to turn this into my Packer Limo.

Lucky for me my son Jason is a top notch body man so we got right to work stripping this car down. You see, their idea of a “Cherry” white paintjob was to mask off the chrome and slap white paint over a previously grey car. Jason got to work blasting and sanding every square inch of paint off of the car while I began my scavenger hunt for parts. When Jason was done stripping the car I was left with a shiny, down to metal limo that was probably straighter than new. The color we picked to repaint the car in was a beautiful Lexus Gold Pearl. When everythign was done this care was a far cry from the rolling Krylon Brothers rattle-can car I had bought.

From here things really got out of hand and visions of artwork on the hood and elsewhere started running through my head. I started with a custom bug shield complete with custom LED’s to light it up at night. These LED’s help show off the “The legends of Lambeau” etching along with championship dates, some icicles representing the frozen tundra that are all etched into the glass. From here the hood and trunk went off to the artist that was going to paint images of the Lombardi and all of the hall of fame players onto this rolling shrine.

While the artwork was getting done, the car was off to the upholstery shop for some interior work. The first step in the interior work was to have a sunroof installed. The plan was basically that heck, it’s a limo and you need a sunroof to poke your head out and throw beads and candy during parades right? This wasn’t going to be your run of the mill sunroof either. It was off to the etchers to etch in a flying “G” that’s visible thanks to the LED lights that are installed around it.

After the sunroof was finished we moved on to installing a brand new white diamond vinyl roof to complete the exterior upholstery. On the interior I had all of the control panels relocated, installed a Pioneer stereo with speakers, and replaced the headliner, carpet, and side upholstery. The original equipment Cadillac embossed seats were still in great shape so I decided not to touch them.

That was done, the car was back in the garage and I had plenty of time to dream up what to do next while the care was having artwork done. Over the time span of a few football games and a few beers with my neighbor, an electrical engineer, we decided to add neon rope lighting for accents inside the car and multi function, multi color under car LED’s.

The car was going to be used in parades so we also installed a 400watt MTX amplifier in the trunk to power 4 outdoor speakers to run our packer songs through during the parades. These speakers are mounted on custom built brackets that double as Packer flag poles on either side of the trunk.

Finally, after seven months in the fall of 2005, I got a call that my artwork was done. Now normally this work wouldn’t have taken seven months but the artist almost died after getting Salmonella poisoning of the blood from a pet lizard. This was perfect timing. I was getting the car back just in time for football season which couldn’t have worked out better.

It turns out that when I got the parts back that the artwork was laughable. I couldn’t believe that work like this could have taken seven months. After this I had considered installing some decals for all of the images but I was worried that it would make the car look cheap and with all the work that had gone into it to this point, that wasn’t something I was willing to do. Here are some pictures of the original "Artwork" that was done on the car.

After some hunting for someone to fix the work, a local painter (more like an artist) came highly recommended. He had airbrushed things from pool cue’s to motorcycles and I think this was the largest item he had done at the time. We took to sanding off the old work and prepping the parts for new paint. I stopped over at Wes’s a week after he had them and telling you I was nervous as hell is an under statement. When I arrived he was working on the mural of Reggie White and to my surprise it looked as if someone had taken Reggie’s head and arms and placed them right on the hood. My nerves at ease I left Wes to do what he does best. Phenomenal is an under statement of how good his artwork turned out.

That was it, once I got those pieces back the car was essentially complete and we participated in a number of local parades blasting Packer tunes and throwing green and gold beads out to all of the children. We’ve also used the car to take a group of disabled children to training camp to get autographs and tours of the stadium and hall of fame.

Since it’s completion the car has been a huge attention getter at every preseason and regular season home game where it is proudly on display at Brett Favres Steak House.