Some cars you never forget. In today’s post we are going to show you 2 of the cars the team at Palm Beach Customs will never stop talking about… The 1941 Lincoln Zephyrs that we restored the body and paint on – one blue metallic & the other maroon.
Still Talking About These Lincoln Zehpyrs in our Classic Car Restoration Shop Florida
A little known fact, Raymond Loewy redesigned the 1941 Lincoln Zephyrs to be the beautiful cars they are. So when Craig Watjen, part-owner of the Seattle Mariners in the 1990s came to us to do full body and paint work on his maroon 41 Lincoln Zephyr Cabriolet we could not say no.
As a matter of fact, Craig was the type of guy that wore blue jeans and a flannel shirt – you know the type of guy that you can totally have a cool conversation with despite being a multi-millionaire. When I went over everything we did with the maroon cabriolet he immediately told me about his rust free 41 Lincoln 3-window coupe. To find one of those is rarer than finding hen’s teeth. So we ended up doing the body and paint.
Some of you might not know this, but Craig Watjen grew up in Pawtucket, R.I. going to Harvard. He played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra on occasion but gave up music to move to California to attend Standford’s business graduate program.
While there he met Bill Gates and became an early stockholder of Microsoft. As an early Microsoft stockholder, Watjen was a wealthy man when he retired as assistant head of the company’s treasury department in 1990. He invested in restoring old Ford’s and Lincoln’s – he had quite the collection – supporting music, cancer research, and become a minor owner of the Seattle Mariners.
Unfortunately, he passed away from prostate cancer, but his cars and good works will live on with the people he worked with.
See the Blue 1941 Lincoln Zeypher Being Painted in Our Classic Car Restoration Shop Florida.
Back in the day most cars were black and gray. They didn’t really have too many cool colors. But that light blue metallic was really sharp as well the maroon.
Check Out the Maroon 1941 Lincoln Zephyr Cabriolet Custom Paint and Restoration…
This maroon cabriolet had a tan leather hide from Europe for interior. Just the leather for that interior cost $12,000.
My friends over at Narragansett Wiring, Ed Pease, at one time ran Narragansett Restoration and they were up by the University of Rhode Island. He was an award winning restoration shop back in the 60s and 70s.
I got to be friends with him and started learning when I was very young with those guys. they specialized in original OEM wiring harness design and manufacturing.
We used to go to the car shows in Carlisle, PA, park next to all the big vendors like Lynn Steel (they made all the injection molds and produced all the after market rubber and weatherstripping) as well as Dennis Carpenter, who was good friends with us. Carpenter’s Restoration Parts produces Ford aftermarket sheet metal and restoration parts.
They had the old 1918 braiding machines that they would run the wire through the machine. It would be color coated and they would run the wiring through a lacquer tower that would coat it with clear lacquer. That would preserve the cloth-coating.
The new harnesses they built using the new modern plastic coated wiring and then run it through the braiding machine so it was much better than the original cloth-coating alone.
If you are looking for a factory wiring harness, the best made in the USA definitely give Narragansett Wiring a call. This is not to be compared Painless Wiring Harnesses – the harnesses built by Narragansett Wiring are for when you’re restoring a half-a million dollar car – these harnesses are made to factory original specs.
So there is the story behind 2 of the classic cars we can’t stop talking about on Palm Beach Customs.
Doing the body and paint work on two of Craig Watjen’s 1941 Lincoln Zephyrs was an amazing opportunity. Hope you liked hearing about it!
As always, we appreciate you stopping by and taking time to read our post. If you have a minute, please like, comment, or share this post with someone who would enjoy it!
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…We Do What We Love
Restoring classic cars is how we started at Palm Beach Customs way back in the day. John Russo has been working on classic cars since he was 14 years old – starting with the Tri-5 Chevys and now we do our classic car restorations in Florida (there’s no snow here – we love it!)
One of our favorites to come through the Palm Beach Customs classic and muscle car restoration shop florida – Check out this 1961 Rolls Royce that we were able to work on – giving it a high-end custom paint and TLC.
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