50-year-old memory; 1958 PACKARD HAWK.(Escape Roads)

Byline: STEVE KASH

Its godfather was crisis; its sire was wannabe corporate savior Roy Hurley. The 1958 Packard Hawk was a last-gasp effort to save the once-proud automotive manufacturer from extinction. Only 588 Hawks rolled off the assembly line before Packard went defunct, but some vintage-car aficionados think the Hawk was one of the snazziest sports cars made in America during the 1950s.

"People either liked the Hawk or hated it,'' says Ron Rheinhardt, a Hawk owner in Evansville, Indiana. "Many people preferred the typically '50s-looking rounded noses of Corvettes, Thunderbirds or Studebaker's Golden Hawk. With the passage of time, the Packard Hawk's advanced styling and engineering have become more appreciated. It could flat-out run faster top end than the American-made sports cars of the Big Three.''

The first Hawk, nicknamed Hurley's Hawk, was originally designed to be the company president's private sports car. Hurley had been the successful president of the Curtiss-Wright Corp. Whether as a tax write-off, a whim or a favor to his friend Dwight Eisenhower, who didn't want a big-name corporate collapse, Hurley had assumed control of Packard in 1953. He continued Packard production in Detroit for three years while acquiring the flagging Studebaker Corp. in South Bend, Indiana. In 1957, Packard moved to Studebaker's facility.

Packards essentially became Packards in name only, and sales continued plummeting as Packard lovers derided the more inexpensively constructed mid-'50s Packards as "Packardbakers.''

To restore Packard's reputation for quality, Hurley decided to use his custom-built two-door ...