Many moons ago when I worked at Lockheed Aircraft Service at JFK we serviced those Lufthansa L-1649's. Later we also worked them for Transatlantica Argentina which had bought them, I believe, from TWA. Air France had the parking spots right outside our line shack door at the International Arrivals Building (IAB) so I saw a lot of the L-1649's.
The "Super Star" was a magnificent looking aircraft with its slender 150-ft wing married to the graceful Constellation fuselage. It had a special model of the TC-18 engine with an increased reduction gear ratio but the engine installation and cowling were pretty much right out of the L-1049. Prop was wider chord and originally had hollow aluminum blades. These were changed to solid dural when one of the Air France planes came in with the welded leading edge seam split and stuffing hanging out.
Restoring the old bird was always going to be difficult. There were lots of L-1049's built in civil and military versions but only a few (44) of the Super Stars. Systems were completely different, It had a dual 3000 PSI hydraulic system for example in place of the 1700 PSI of all the other Connies. So even with two spare aircraft to rob from, parts were going to be near impossible to find. It is one thing to fabricate sheet metal parts but flight control components and the like would be like Hen's teeth. There must also have been a deal of difficulty in trying to shoe-horn a glass cockpits into that cramped Connie cockpit.
Still, it was a magnificent effort and I surely hope the aircraft will be reassembled for display if nothing else. The last efforts of Lockheed and Douglas in piston airliners were great looking aircraft and I am proud to have worked on them.