I met Don Rook at my very first meet at Rochester, New York, in the fall of 1987. My first visual impression of him, jeans, boots, cowboy shirt and fur vest, beer in hand let me jump to the conclusion that he was either a cowboy or a truck driver. As our friendship grew, he told me that he used to be a salesman for a producer of large, industrial electric motors; but in true entrepreneurial fashion he had set up a refurbishing business for those same former clients who had motors wear out overtime. This business allowed him, among other things, to pursue his true passion of collecting cars. He loved his Packards and Chryslers 300s. He became a magnet for these cars, when he lived in Pennsylvania. Car guys that came across these cars, would contact Don. Not only did he have a large collection; but he also had his own wrecking yard, where a lot of his surplus cars were kept. I enjoyed his gravelly voice and his many stories of how he was able to buy his collector cars. He was not really engrossed in car restoration and he valued originality above every thing else.

I showed him my newly acquired 300K convert at Rochester and I told him it was headed to a restoration shop as soon as I got home. The paint on the car was fairly good, except under the hood, but the die cast trim pieces were in some cases so badly pitted that it would have been almost impossible to have them restored. Don told me that he had the solution to my die cast problems. He told me that he had a 64, 300 four-door hard top that he got from Florida. A deal was made, that he would sell me all of the die cast off of that car and he would have one of the guys at his wrecking yard strip the parts and ship them to me.
So, the K convert went to RM Restorations in Chatham, Ontario in the Fall and work proceeded through the winter. I waited and waited for the die cast parts. RM wanted to get on with sending my parts out for chrome plating. I agonized over calling Don to see about the parts or should I wait and talk to him at his Spring Meet in Mena, Arkansas. A little while later a long wooden box showed up, with some beautiful die cast parts. I still have the box and many of the parts are still on the 300K convert today.