Jeff Bailey sent us a pic of his immaculate 1965 Chrysler 300L in silver mist metallic. He added that it is motivated by a 413 c.i.d. 4bbl with torque flight automatic. He purchased it from an auto museum in North Carolina.

If you would like your car featured in Reader Wheels click on the link below and tell us a little bit about your ride.

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The post Old Cars Reader Wheels: 1965 Chrysler 300L appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

In early 2007, I received a phone call from the owner of a transmission shop. We were not acquainted, but he had heard that I was conversant in things MoPar. Turns out that he had owned a stalled street rod project based on a 1948 Chrysler Windsor club coupe. My response was that I had restored a dozen Chrysler products over the years, but had little interest in street rods. As the president of the California Chrysler Products Club, progenitor of the W.P. Chrysler Club, I promised to bring the subject up at the next regular meeting. I also asked the price of the project. “No price, I just want it gone,” said the tranny shop owner. At the meeting, interest in the project was even lower than its quoted price and I soon forgot about the call.

Weeks later, as I drove down my driveway, I came upon a completely dismantled car body on the tanbark with boxes and bundles and bags of small parts plus hundreds of bolts and nuts in cans. All of the parts were stuffed into the orifices of the primered and stripped car body on wheels with nothing attached. The doors, fenders, trunk and hood were all removed; there was no instrument panel or seats or upholstery of any sort. Somewhat irate, I called the shop owner who explained that a young man who hangs around his shop heard him talk about the project car, and since my wife had been his high school teacher, he said he would load up the shop’s flatbed and deliver the car to my house. We agreed that if I didn’t find a home for the project car, the shop would retrieve it in two weeks.

Assessing the “coupus delicti,” I found a 9-inch Ford rear end, disc rotors and calipers on the front, a junky and rusted big-block V-8, motor mounts and a properly prepped coupe body. However, there was no transmission or drive shaft, nor a cross member to support a TorqueFlite. Not a single avenue toward finding a donor owner worked out and I began preparing to have it reclaimed when I had a restless night. That night, I started thinking (which can be dangerous at 2 a.m.), would the coupe look great in a dark-blue metallic color? What about woolen Highlander plaid seats, only in Black Watch green and blue trimmed in blue leather? Maybe chromed reversed wheels with the 1948 hubcap centers as I had coveted in the ’50s, but could not afford as a teenager? All these thoughts were dismissed because few would understand a street rod on a Chrysler body, and as sleep was softening my brain, the last “what if’ whispered: “How about a Chrysler Town and Country tribute?” Almost everybody in the old-car hobby could comprehend that. The muses of the “Oh-dark-thirty” had spoken; I would start tomorrow by ordering a subscription to Street Rodder magazine.

The pieces come together

My brother-in-law was talented in wood work and he agreed to form the ash surroundings of the wood-grained wallpaper, so I gave him $1000 to buy wood. I never got so much as a matchstick produced, but these things happen, don’t they? I also considered that some company might have made fake wood kits, such as Chevrolet buyers had available in the middle 1940s, or perhaps a vinyl wrap could be purchased that replicated the wood sides and trunk. The actual companies that create wood for genuine Town and Country woodies wanted a half year of my salary and wanted this “Left Coast” car to be shipped to East Coast places. That was not to happen. The determination to make a faux woodie dissolved at the end of the first year of construction — then other challenges arose.

Many folks doubted I had the skill set to make something out of the quagmire of metal puzzle pieces, and that included me. A drivetrain needed to be sourced and it had to be cheap. Popular wisdom pointed to a 350-cube Chevrolet V-8, but no mouse motor would be attached by this MoPar nut. Months later, a neighbor who was a real estate agent told me that he had an estate sale listing that required the garage to be emptied and included was a 1966 Chrysler New Yorker. I looked the car over and to my delight I found that almost every body panel had rubbed up against something during drinking hours, but the engine had new gaskets showing its “go” parts had been well maintained. For $350, I bought a car that provided a 440-cid V-8, TorqueFlite, driveshaft, cross member for the automatic transmission, radiator, power brake booster and master cylinder. A power wash of the engine and some Chrysler turquoise engine paint and to my amazement, I found that it fit well in the space designed for a flat-six; I didn’t even have to remove the inner fender skirting that kept out road dirt. The 1966 radiator was easily adapted to the space behind the grille, and there was room for the stock fan to live. I cut the driveshaft to length and had a Ford yoke end welded at the rear and the drivetrain was complete. It was then that I ascertained that the body was not bolted anywhere to the frame. Only gravity kept the two major components connected when the car was loaded and unloaded during its past transfers. This discovery showed that a donor parts car would be more helpful than just acquiring an instrument panel and seats. There was much to be learned about how the coupe was first built when addressing the meatless skeleton I now owned.

Searches on eBay located a very worn $600 Windsor sedan in Hollywood complete with the Highlander option. Not knowing any better, I hitched up my tow dolly to the back of my wife’s Toyota Highlander (without any trailering specs) and drove to Hollywood from the San Francisco Bay Area to drag home the sedan. Now I could remove chassis-to-body bolts and bits from the donor, clean and chase threads and insert them where appropriate into the coupe.

Employing imagination and ingenuity

Then the question of controlling the TorqueFlite bubbled up. A floor shifter would be easy, but I planned on using the bench seats from the donor, making floor shifting look unnatural. About then the rod magazine told of a product under development by Moon Equipment Co. (Mooneyes). A long telephone chat taught me that there would be a rectangular box with pushbuttons that electrically excited a small computer that actuated a solenoid forward or backward to shift the tranny bands. “I want one, how much and how soon?” I asked. Moon wasn’t ready to take orders, but I’ve made a career in auto sales and leasing so I was able to outsell them and got a promise to get the first one if I sent $900 today.

There was plenty of other work to do in the meantime, but after nine months without contact from Moon, I called to complain only to learn that Moon had decided not to go forward because of liability concerns of a major component made in Europe. Two of the Moon employees had left the company to continue further development work and I was able to get a phone number. The principal of the new concern promised to send me what was possibly a prototype, because I have never heard of another electric shifter for any make automatic transmission. It turned out to perform as promised and fit nicely into the dash where the factory radio once resided. It also mimicked the factory clock on the other side of the radio speaker enclosure. After installing a hidden 500-watt Alpine/Sony sound system, I used the abandoned radio speaker home site as the major air conditioning outlet. Once I installed the air conditioning, power windows and locks and the stereo, I finished the paint and seats and wiring and the wheels. I considered power steering was for sissies. Wrong! It became apparent that if I drove down an alley and there was no exit, I would have to abandon the car.

Gig employment is available at the Home Depot parking lot, so I hired three guys to help me lift off the nicely painted front clip while I waited for Fat Man Fabrications to send me a rack-and-pinion setup plus a power steering pump and pulleys to ease the angst of steering. Four years after I completed it, I took it to a national Chrysler 300 Club meet I hosted in Carmel, Calif., where a buyer surfaced. He intended to drive it to Portland, Ore., which was a worry to me, because much of the making of the car was unorthodox. However, it made it there without trouble and is still there as far as I know.

I will never do another car, but the satisfaction of finding a way around a vexing problem using only imagination and ingenuity is good medicine for an aging brain.

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The post Car of the Week: 1948 Chrysler Windsor Club Coupe Street Rod appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

In 1936, the automobile touched more American lives than telephones or electricity. Throughout the country, there were 17.2 million phones and 21.1 million homes wired for electric service, but there were 26 million automobiles.

Chrysler was beginning its 11th year of business that year. Walter P. Chrysler had left General Motors as a successful and wealthy executive. Then, he was hired by bankers to “fix” Maxwell as he had done at Willys-Overland.

Mr. Chrysler started building a car named after him in the old Maxwell plant, relying on his “3 Musketeers” — Fred Zeder, Owen Skelton and Carl Breer — for a superior automobile. The Chrysler Model 70 crashed the market for a $1,500 car and gave Ford and GM an able competitor.

By the 1930s, Chrysler had added Plymouth, Dodge and De Soto to his stable, along with Dodge Truck, Chrysler Marine, air compressors and even air conditioning units. A large percentage of the 26 million cars on the road in 1936 were Chrysler products that were known for their engineering excellence. Chrysler’s centralized engineering department worked out of a modern office building that included drafting rooms, offices, and research and testing laboratories. The Chrysler Engineering Division also had a resident chief engineer and engineering staff at each of its manufacturing plants.

A few of the proud achievements of Chrysler engineers were aluminum pistons, all-steel car bodies, Airflow designs, hydraulic four-wheel brakes, the Floating Power engine mounting system and advances in car weight distribution. The remote engineering staffs figured out solutions to engineer and design problems that were encountered in product manufacturing.

The Engineering Building included hot and cold rooms, an electrical testing laboratory, a carburetor development area, chemistry and physics laboratories, a rubber laboratory and a radiator laboratory. The old Maxwell engineering building included an air conditioning research laboratory and the Chrysler Institute of Engineering for teaching future engineers enrolled in a two-year course of study. Students there went to school half a day and worked in a Chrysler department for half a day.

Chrysler stressed precision workmanship in all of its products from a $510 Plymouth coupe to a $1500 Chrysler Imperial Airflow. One out of every 100 parts on a Chrysler assembly line were pulled off and tested. The goal was to build a mass-produced automobile that was as perfect as possible.

In the company’s East Jefferson Avenue and Kercheval plants, a teletype installation controlled the entire production process and allowed management to map out the complete production system and track each step in the process. Six sending stations were set up throughout each factory and a seventh station in the billing department tracked the finances involved. This machine was also connected to Canadian customs to clear shipments in advance and save trucking time.

Chrysler followed 10 rules to ensure that its production departments had layouts that made its shops good places for people to work. They covered feeding raw materials to the assembly line, easily moving parts, allowing clean-up while a plant continued to operate, proper work spaces, easy supervision and proper lighting. Overhead conveyors were employed to move parts above the auto workers.

The manufacture of automobiles was a complicated process that involved ordering parts from 1400 outside suppliers, a process that had to be carefully planned and controlled. Outside-sourced parts were routinely tested in Chrysler’s metallurgical laboratories and were also checked by receiving inspectors upon each delivery.

With its four lines of passenger cars offering 61 body types, there were many parts flowing into the factories and that did not include Dodge truck, Chrysler marine engines and industrial parts. The value of a single supplier order could range from a few cents to millions of dollars. Interior trim fabrics were also tested for quality and durability.

Many different production methods were used in Chrysler factories. Sheet metal parts were forged in huge stamping machines. Forge shops used dies, heat treatment and hammers to manufacture parts. For example, a 12,000-lb. steam hammer was required to forge crankshafts. Quenching oil for other operations had to be brought in through pipes laid in trenches that ran to furnaces and tanks.

Chrysler plants also housed foundry operations that poured molten iron into large ladles and then into molds. Rows of huge, funnel-shaped overhead ducts purified the air inside the foundries. Overhead hoods allowed fumes and dust to be carried away from foundry worker stations.

Fusing metal to metal with electricity allowed Chrysler’s workers to add strength and beauty to cars while making them at a lower cost. The company studied industrial processes and developed hydromatic welding systems that used oil pressure to control the upper electrodes of giant spot-welding machines that could make multiple welds in a single operation. Welders also used Martin guns to do auxiliary operations while the major parts were being welded in the large machines.

Tough steels were made tougher in Chrysler’s Heat Treating Department. After being heated in Hagan rotary electric furnaces, parts such as transmission gears were dipped into hot cyanide and quenched in the air. Continuous furnaces and well-planned material handling played a large part in bringing out the best qualities in Chrysler parts. After such operations, the parts were cleaned in a Tum-Blast machine.

Engine connecting rods were processed in pairs before assembly and diamond-bored afterwards in a broaching operation. The rods and caps were precision checked by an electric gauge. A Heald grinder finished one face at a time while the rod was held on a locating plug. The crank end of each rod was clamped in a pneumatic equalizing jig so they could be reamed. Final sizing of wristpin holes was done in a double-spindle diamond-boring machine.

The amount of parts flowing through a factory was unbelievable. Chrysler’s plant in Newcastle, Ind., which made steering gears and tube axles for Dodges and Plymouths, turned out about 90 million pounds of work in 1935! Over five million aluminum pistons were made by Amplex Mfg. Co. (a Chrysler division) between late 1933 and 1936. That translated into 1800 pistons per day!

Engine and transmission assemblies had to be put together and checked at the factories. Speeding Machines were used to check gears for quiet running. At the end of one assembly line, the gears were fitted into the gear boxes by dozens of experienced auto workers. On the engine line, a Hall hydraulic machine utilized eccentric spindles to simultaneously grind six valve seats. Pistons were turned in a Baird six-spindle chucking machine. A double-end Ex-Cell-O precision boring machine bored the wristpin holes.

Eighteen miles of conveyors and the world’s longest 1936 assembly line were installed in Plymouth’s Detroit factory. A monorail conveyor carried bare metal fenders into a vapor degreasing machine where they were prepped for paint. The paint was mixed at a central plant and distributed by pipes to hydro-filtered spray booths located throughout the factory. In a rust-proofing process, an overhead tank supplied a protective solution to the Bonderite spray booths below it.

Drag chain conveyors carried the recently painted car bodies through drying ovens in which the temperature was controlled within two degrees. The painted parts then moved towards a synchronized process that sorted out nearly 5 million possible combinations of colors, trim options and body styles. There were 72 possible engine combinations.

At the Jefferson Avenue plant — where Chrysler and De Soto passenger cars were built in Airstream and Airflow styles — finished bodies were lowered from a mezzanine to the chassis assembly line on the first floor. In another operation, a circular roller conveyor system carried parts to the workers who built up sub-assemblies from De Soto grilles, radiators and shrouding.

After mounting of the proper size and style tires, painted wheels in any of 10 colors were discharged from the bottom of a chute and delivered to the proper car on the assembly line. Chrysler’s Traffic Department used Track Sheets to make sure that the correct parts got to the assembly line at just the right time. Using code, the Track Sheets gave the specifications of every car built each day, with the first car of the day being No. 1 and the last being around No. 600. Copies of the Track Sheet went to every department involved in building a specific car.

Keep in mind that the factory did not have enough space inside for the storage of the 750,000 parts handled each hour or for the 600 car bodies built up in a typical day. The Traffic Department had to route a constant flow of materials that were used almost immediately. To ensure proper synchronization, bodies had to be ordered five days in advance, while orders for fenders and hoods could be processed in 24 hours.

Plant services were important, too. Forklift-like “trucks” moved parts around a plant on skids or in giant-sized tote boxes. Conveyors, elevators and transfer tables made it possible to move larger parts such as car bodies. Tools and supplies had to be ordered for auto workers to do their jobs. Chrysler tracked the usage, inventory and labor costs related to tools, as well as the annual rate of inventory turnover. Plant maintenance was also a critical consideration. The Plant Engineer’s job was to provide an uninterrupted supply of light, heat and other vital services. Crating and shipping were other important functions that automobile factories dealt with.

As you can see, there was nothing simple about a Chrysler product in 1936, other than the simple joy of driving it once it was done. That was the customer’s “job.” 

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The post Inside the factory: Chrysler 1936 appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

By Angelo Van Bogart, with Bob Brown

Bob Brown and George Collar of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., have been collecting “Letter Cars” for decades — especially convertible versions. By “Letter Cars,” they mean big-finned Chrysler 300s (300-D, 300-E, 300-F, etc.) and Chevrolet Corvettes (C1, C2, C3). Other big-finned MoPar products from Dodge, De Soto and Plymouth have joined the fray, but throughout their years of collecting, Brown and Collar have never been able to land a 1957 Chrysler 300C, the first year that fins on Chrysler Corp.cars really took off toward the sky.

“We missed out on the purchase of several Chrysler 300Cs for the entire period of collecting,” Brown said. “They were either beyond our price point, or we were too late to the party. We had always hoped to add a 300C rag or hardtop, but they eluded us.”

They were beginning to think a 300C just wasn’t meant to be.

From tracking all manner of old cars and restoring and showing their “Letter Car” collection, Brown and Collar have cultivated many connections. One of them was with a man from their own town who regularly stopped by the annual finned car display at the Iola Car Show in which Brown and Collar participate.

More than a decade ago, a man began stopping at the display to speak to Brown and Collar about “Letter Cars.” It wasn’t until after several years that the man mentioned he had a “Letter Car” of his own: a desirable Chrysler 300C with the beautiful first-year “Forward Look” design and the 392-cid Hemi V-8 with dual four-barrel carburetors — the Chrysler 300 that Brown and Collar desired most.

“He would come faithfully to the Iola Car Show year after year and we would always talk,” Brown said. “Finally, he mentioned that he had a 1957 Chrysler 300C, which he intended to restore, and that’s why he was asking so many questions. I asked if I could visit him someday and see his car, and the response was always, ‘When I get it restored.’”

The cycle repeated for many years without Brown ever seeing the car, so he began to wonder if the 300C actually existed. Then, one year, the man stopped showing up at the fin car display at the show. Brown later made contact with the man’s daughter and learned he had passed away. About once a year, Brown would make contact with the man’s daughter and eventually learned the car had gone to her mother, and then her. She said her dad had instructed her to call Brown and Collar if she decided to sell the 300C, and she planned to honor his wishes.

Finally, in 2018, Brown was invited to see the car himself during his annual call to the daughter. He would finally learn if the 300C was imaginary or truly existed.

“It was winter, two feet of snow and ice, the car was covered with a half inch of dirt and filth, the windshield and side windows were so dirty that you couldn’t see the interior until you opened the doors,” Brown said, “but the excitement of seeing it for the first time made the cold less of a problem!”

Under the dirt and dust, Brown and Collar indeed found a 1957 Chrysler 300C with 1965 Wisconsin plates and 58,000 miles on the odometer. It was painted a desirable Guaguin Red color and, to boot, it was a very desirable convertible version. In their inspection, they noted the driver’s rear fender had been damaged at the fin tip and learned that was how the car came to be parked with relatively few miles and so early in its life.

“I was told that the car had rolled down a hill at the farm decades earlier and hit an oak tree,” Brown said. “It didn’t do the car any good, but the oak tree was just fine! That’s when Dad parked it 54 years earlier.”

Brown learned the Chrysler 300C had been sold new at Universal Motors in Chicago. Robert Ruhs bought it as a used car on April 15, 1964, from the original owner, who was then living in Milwaukee. Just one year after buying the 300C, Ruhs parked after it rolled into a tree. He had only enjoyed it for one year.

True to his word, Ruhs had planned to restored the 300C and in his five decades of good intentions, he had acquired a spare 1957 Chrysler rear fender to repair the tree-damaged fender, as well as a few other parts.

Upon opening the hood during their inspection, a problem was discovered — the entire engine was gone! Not to worry, the daughter assured them; her father had set it aside for a rebuild.

They were later taken to the engine at its longtime resting place, the dirt floor of Ruhs’ barn. The exotic external components such as carburetors, the unique 300C air cleaners, manifolds, Hemi valve covers and all other parts were present and accounted for.

Being stored for so many years had saved the Chrysler 300C from the ravages of most Wisconsin winters, leaving it in relatively good condition. However, it also meant the car would need restoration of all its components.

Now the excitement was building — would Brown and Collar finally get to add the 300C to their collection? And had they found their car just miles from their home? There were no definitive answers that day; they would leave knowing they’d have to continue the patience they had been practicing for years.

Finally, in 2019, the owner called to say she was ready to sell the Chrysler 300C her father had left her. Were Brown and Collar still interested? The answer, of course, was yes.

“We talked several more times last summer and finally came to an agreement to purchase the car,” Brown said. “We promised to give the car a good home and a complete restoration as her father had always wanted.

“Best of all, our search was over — this example would complete our 300 ragtop collection!”

Upon completing the purchase, Brown and Collar verified the car’s numbers and learned it was indeed a very desirable Guaguin Red 1957 Chrysler 300C convertible with its original 392-cid Hemi.

Work immediately began preparing the 300C for restoration. Coincidentally, the unibody restoration was just wrapping up on their 1960 Chrysler 300F convertible, so “the timing couldn’t have been better,” Brown said.

Already, the 300C engine has been rebuilt, the interior restored, and Brown notes new parts are arriving on an almost-daily basis. He and Collar hope to display the last letter of their “Letter Car” collection in 2021.

The post Car of the Week: 1957 Chrysler 300C appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

By Rose Miller

My companion, Dr. Robert Blake, likes to collect Hudsons. He owns and displays more than 35 of them at his car collection/museum, “Old Spokes”, located in New Smithville, Pa. Even though the Hudson marque is first and foremost in his collection, Chrysler cars are very dear to him. While growing up in Ridgefield Park, N.J., in the 1950s and 60s, his father (also a Dr. Robert Blake), generally purchased Chrysler automobiles. It all started with a blue1960 New Yorker that his family purchased from Gatti Motors in Hackensack. Most likely it was the beautiful styling as well as performance that did the trick for young Robert. Who would have guessed that almost 50 years later, another Chrysler car would enter into his life? This time it would be a highly sought-after Chrysler “Letter Car”: A 1960 Chrysler 300F convertible, 1 of 248 produced.

One thing great about being in car clubs are the friendships that are developed. The 300 Club International is a close-knit group of likeminded enthusiasts. The club assisted Robert, through his friendship with member Dave Clelland, in obtaining the 300F. Clelland, a big Barrett-Jackson fan, had been attending an event when this particular 300F appeared unlisted on the auction block. Clelland knew that Robert was seeking to obtain one, so a bid was made and the car was won at an extremely good price.

The day that I saw this wonderful car, I decided to set about obtaining its history. Again, I turned to the 300 Club International for guidance. Gil Cunningham, one of its senior members, was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the car’s microfilm record as well as club ownership history. The history was very revealing. Club records indicated that Robert’s 300F was a Wisconsin car. The dealer tag (which was and is still on the car), showed that Edward’s Motors, of Milwaukee, was the originating dealership. Cunningham was also able to provide me two names of prior owners from the 1980s listed in the club records. The first name was Mr. Craig R. Fuchs of West Allis, Wis., who was shown as owning the car in 1989 and a telephone number was provided to contact him.

On May 24, 2009, Robert called Fuchs to obtain some additional history about the 300F. Matthew Fuchs, Craig’s father, answered the telephone and it turned out that he was the owner of the car before Craig. Mat was a fountain of information. He revealed that he had purchased the 300F from a used car lot in 1983 or 1984. It was originally intended to be a parts car for his 300F coupe. When he obtained it, the car had been partially dismantled by its prior owner, an uninformed teenager, who did not know the value of the car. The rams had been removed, the four-barrel carb had been changed, and the wheels and rims had been changed. Luckily, the teenager had stored the removed parts in his garage and included them in the sale of the 300F.

Mat opted to have mercy on the Chrysler and decided to have the car partially restored. That included having the fenders repaired and miscellaneous bodywork done, although the car did not undergo a complete repaint. The engine was completely rebuilt. The convertible top was also replaced with black material. In 1990, the 300F was sold to a man in California. Fuchs mentioned that the man told him that he was going to do a full “California” restoration to the car. Gil Cunningham’s club records reflected this fact. Apparently, in 1990, the 300F was sold to a man named Earl Rynerson of San Francisco. After that point, there are no club records of ownership, other than Robert’s acquisition of the car. I attempted to contact Rynerson, but his telephone number was no longer in service. It may be safe to assume that the car may have been auctioned off by him or his estate by Barrett-Jackson.

Upon Robert’s acquisition of the car and subsequent inspection, it was discovered that several important issues needed to be addressed. There were several cracks in the sub-frame, a definite safety issue; the Arctic White paint was rather tired; and the interior was well worn with cracks in the leather in several spots. It was apparent that these items could be resolved and the 300F used as a driver. Instead, it was decided to bring the car back to its former glory and proceed with a full-blown rotisserie restoration. All that was required, at that point, was to find a competent restoration shop, preferably one that specialized in “fin” cars. Jerry Kopecky of Kopecky’s Klassics was selected to undertake the task. Jerry gained recognition in 2007 as the restorer of a 1957 DeSoto that sold for a (at that time) record-breaking $285,000 at a Barrett-Jackson auction in January of that year. The 300F was now heading back to Wisconsin, but it was not going to Milwaukee. This time, it was heading north, to the small town of Iola, home of Kopecky’s Klassics.

Anyone who has experienced the process of a rotisserie restoration understands the painstaking detail and time that is enlisted to complete the task. The 300F was completely disassembled down to a bare frame. Sheet metal was welded and re-aligned to improve the fit and finish of each body component. All parts needed to be photographed and cataloged to ensure proper replacement. Kopecky’s efforts were well documented in various articles written “Old Cars Guide to Auto Restoration.” Old Cars editor Angelo Van Bogart also wrote several articles featuring Kopecky’s ongoing efforts in restoring the 300F. Along the way, Kopecky took the partially restored Chrysler to the 2008 Iola Old Car Show and displayed it in the “Team To Learn Tent”.

Once the car had been physically completed, United Auto Trim of Fond du Lac, Wis., finished the convertible top as well as the leather seats and other interior components. As the car made its way back east to its home in Pennsylvania, a final fine tuning of the 300F was undertaken by Vern Fasel of Rochester, N.Y.

One dramatic change to the car was the color. Terracotta, a stock color option for 1960, was chosen because Robert felt the car needed “pizzazz”. I am sure that many car nuts would fault us in changing the original color, but we felt that the overall visuals of this striking color took the vehicle to another level. You be the judge!

Robert and I are very proud of this car. Yes, it requires time, patience and most of all money. I think that most people would agree that the end result is spectacular.

And to think, it was going to be chopped up and used as a parts car!

SHOW US YOUR WHEELS!

If you’ve got an old car you love, we want to hear about it. Email us at oldcars@aimmedia.com

__________________________

The post Car of the Week: 1960 Chrysler 300F appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Story and photos by Brian Earnest

Joe Gloudemans has owned and lovingly cared for his grandparents’ 1955 Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe for almost 50 years now, but he swears it’s all sort of happened by accident. The semi-retired Little Chute, Wis., resident insists he wasn’t angling to wind up with Grandpa’s prized sedan. It just sort of happened that way. Even though he has 16 brothers and sisters, he says he almost got the car by default.

“I figured somebody’s gotta take care of it. So I took responsibility, even though I needed two cars like I needed a hole in the head,” says Gloudemans, who will celebrate a half-century of owning the Chrysler next April.

The big sedan looks absolutely fabulous today with its wonderful two-tone blue-and-white paint job and rivers of chrome. The truth is, it has never NOT looked good. It was a low-mileage original when Gloudemans got it in 1970, and he had the car repainted and almost all the chrome redone within the first three or four years he owned it. He’s been a wonderful caretaker ever since, carefully documenting all the work he’s had done to the car over the years in a notebook, including the engine and transmission rebuild he had taken care of when the car was getting painted.

Did the Chrysler really need all that work done at the time? Not really, “but I want it to look sharp,” Gloudemans says. “I’ve always taken good care of it.”

He contends that he wasn’t pining to own the car, but he always liked the big Chrysler and remembers when his grandfather, Henry J. Gloudemans, bought it brand new. “Sure, I remember back when he got it. He had a ’41 Chrysler before it. He bought this ’55 Chrysler,” he says. “ I was only 10 years old. He had it for about a year and then he died in ’56. He went back and forth from the farm to the lumber yard. It was a big long trip. It was probably a quarter-mile!

“The car only had only had 3,000 miles on it they told me when my grandpa died. My grandmother didn’t drive, so her sons or stepsons would drive her wherever she wanted to go.

“So in 1970 she was kind of getting up there, and I went and discussed it with her and that’s when I got it. She said nobody else in the family wanted it…. and I’ve had it since and I’ve taken care of it. There were only 28,700 miles on it at the time I got it.”

Gloudemans stored the Chrysler in a barn for many years during the winter months, but eventually the farm owner died and Gloudemans moved the car into a garage stall at the apartment building where he lives. “I moved it here, and that’s the best thing I did. Because now it’s right next to me here. I can put it on jacks or blocks or whatever I need to do with it,” he says. “I don’t drive it from about Oct. 15 until about April 1. It doesn’t ever see any salt or snow, and I don’t have to worry about getting stuck!”

You certainly can’t blame Gloudemans for never wanting to part with his glorious New Yorker Deluxe. Chances are, he shares an affinity for the look and long list of luxury features that attracted Grandpa Henry to the car.

A Big Deal at Chrysler

The “New Yorker” moniker first appeared at Chrysler in the late 1930s, and company brass must have liked it because it stayed in use through various generations until 1996, making it the company’s lost-running nameplate. It was initially used as a trim level in 1938, then graduated to its own model in 1940 as Chrysler’s upscale, full-size offering.

Following the conclusion of World War II, the New Yorker became its own series from 1946-’48, with the familiar “harmonica” grille and a cutting-edge four-speed semi-automatic transmission. A major restyling was unveiled for 1949 with more modern bodies that were shared with DeSoto and Dodge.

The 1955 model year proved to be one of sweeping changes at Chrysler, as the company launched new body styles from design legend Virgil Exner that were dubbed part of the “Million Dollar Look.” The cars were ornate and rich-looking and a drastic departure from their predecessors. Gone were the huge long-wheelbase cars. The eight-passenger sedan and limousine were now sold only under the Imperial banner. A new Town & Country station wagon was also added to the New Yorker lineup.

Windshields were redesigned and now wrapped around the front corners, as did the rear windows on the hardtop coupe and sedan. In back, the back-up lights were placed beneath the trunk lid while tail lamps were integrated into a chrome surround that went from the top of the rear fender down toward the bumper.

Under the hood was the holdover 331-cubic inch Hemi engine with a four-barrel carburetor, dual exhausts and 250 hp — a copious power output for the time. The Powerflite transmission was manually shifted by a lever on the instrument panel.

The new-look Chryslers came in three series: Windsor, New Yorker Deluxe and the not new limited-edition 300 series. The two-door hardtop came as a standard Newport and an upgraded St. Regis, which was recognizable by its unique two-tone styling. Later, a summer sales special used the St. Regis’ curved upper bodyside trim on the standard New Yorker Deluxe, providing a rather unusual two-toning effect. Gloudemans’ Rhapsody Blue and White sedan is one of those relatively rare — less than 2,000 were reportedly built — “summer special cars.”

With 33,342 assemblies, the four-door sedan was by far the most popular New Yorker Deluxe model, outselling the other four models combined. The big four-door weighed in at 4,160 lbs. and had a window price of $3,494.

Gloudemans’ grandfather didn’t load his New Yorker up with many extras. It’s got power steering and power brakes, and of course the two-tone paint, but not much for accessories. One thing he did insist on, however, was plastic coverings for the seats. Henry didn’t particularly like sitting on plastic himself and cut the plastic out on his side, but he kept the plastic over the rest of both bench seats and Joe has done the same. It’s one reason why the ’55 interior is in such fantastic original shape. “And the back seat has hardly ever had anybody in it,” Joe quips.

‘The guy with the ’55’

Gloudemans has been showing the car off at local events since the early 1970s. One the earliest trophies that he still has is from the summer of 1973. These days he says he only puts “maybe a couple hundred miles” on the New Yorker each year, and he’s never driven the car out of state. “The car went to Colorado once, because my grandmother had a daughter that lived there,” he says. “And they went to New York and then in to Canada. She had a son who was in a seminary over there.

“I’ve driven it as far as Madison [Wis.], that’s about it. I don’t have accidents myself, and my record can show it, but I’m always concerned about someone else. I’ll tell you if I’m in traffic [on the highway], I don’t want to be in this car because everybody’s got their eye on my car instead of their own wheel. Keep your eyes on the road ahead of you, you know what I mean? Am I careful? You’re goll-darned right I’m careful. You bet I am.”

It’s not that the big New Yorker isn’t plenty up to the challenge of the open road, however. The engine hums and the car rolls down the road like the big, comfortable cruiser that it is. It has just enough squeaks and groans coming from underneath during slow turns to reminder passengers they are in a 74-year-old machine.

“To me, it feels good to drive it. I still enjoy it. It’s nice and smooth. It’s a smooth ride. And it’s comfortable,” Gloudemans says. “But the thing I probably like most is all the chrome. I’ve read that the amount of chrome on it is more than the [driver] weighs. And how they could put that much chrome on a car; they must have had an abundance of it after the Second World War.”

Gloudemans bristles when asked if he’s every considered selling the New Yorker. It’s clear the answer is no, even before he replies. “I had somebody offer me so much for the engine. But what am I going to do with the chassis without the engine?” he grumbles. “I was never serious about selling. I have never been looking for the money.”

If you get to take a spin in the New Yorker with Gloudemans on his local streets, it doesn’t take long for people to start smiling and hollering his name. Little Chute, Wis., isn’t a huge town, and it seems like everybody Gloudemans passes on a joyride through town knows both him and the car.

“People wave to me. They all know me: ‘Yeah, you’re the guy with the ’55 Chrysler.’ Well, if you had a car for 49½ years, they’d know you too!”

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The post Car of the Week: 1955 Chrysler New Yorker appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

By John Gunnell

Sometime in the early 1960s my parents decided that they needed a “new” used car. Dad had driven the wheels off his sky blue ’57 Ford Custom 300 sedan and, as that car aged, he decided it needed new paint. So, he got out his paint brush and a can of black enamel and transformed the Ford into a really ugly ebony “ickmobile.”

Mom didn’t like the brush-painted black Ford very much and put the pressure on my dad for different wheels. He started visiting all the used car lots in Staten Island, N.Y., and eventually returned with a 1957 Chrysler Saratoga four-door hardtop that was mostly white with green accents between the body side moldings.

I was around 14 years old at the time and was terribly disappointed that the car was the same model year as the Ford. But I didn’t have a vote in that election and the Chrysler soon became our “first” car (I think that’s the right term because the Ford was then called our “second” car). Dad tried to ease my pain by telling me the Saratoga had a Hemi engine. It didn’t, but I hadn’t compiled any Standard Catalogs back then and didn’t know that the big, silver V-8 under the hood was what car guys call a “Wedge” engine.

A few years later, I was ready to start practicing how to drive. The Saratoga was still on family duty at that time, so my introduction to the behind-the-wheel experience took place in a gigantic “finmobile” with push-button transmission, a rearview mirror on the padded dash and an inclination to sway from side to side. The latter was probably due to a worn torsion bar suspension or full-time power steering system that had no “feel.”

The Saratoga’s steering was so bad and the feeling of the car was so loose that I wound up failing the New York State driving road test three times. Did I mention that it was also a bear to park that 219.2-inch-long Chrysler land yacht? I finally passed my road test in the 1955 Chevy 210 that my grandfather gave me. It did not have power steering, so it went straight down the road and was a lot easier to park at 195.6 inches long.

All of these memories came flowing back this past April when I went to W. Yoder’s Spring Classic Car Auction in Wautoma, Wis., and saw a Chrysler Saratoga four-door among the cars for sale. It was a sedan, rather than a hardtop, and it was brown with white spears, rather than white and green. Those, however, were just details. The car did have those wonderful Chrysler “Forward-Look” fins, the push-button gear selector pod on the left of the “deep-dished” steering wheel and that wonderful enormous trunk where my apartment-dwelling dad kept all his man things — tool box, tire chains, fishing gear basket, bowling ball, softball bats, etc. Yep, the Chrysler’s rear end did sag a bit!

Looking at the Saratoga in the auction took me back to the past. The year 1957 was a mighty interesting time. The Eisenhower Doctrine pledged the might of the United States to defend Middle Eastern nations against communism. In the World Series, the bats of the Milwaukee Braves won it 4 games to 3 over my then hometown New York Yankees. In Russia, mighty rocket engines launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite, into orbit, putting the Soviet Union one up the race to space.

Automotively, the mighty Chryslers took the Forward-Look one step further with their towering tail fins and Flight Sweep styling. The 1957 Chryslers looked totally different from the 1956 models and they were nothing like each other as well. A new third line of middle-priced models revived the old Saratoga name. It included a two-door hardtop ($3,694), four-door sedan ($3,658) and four-door hardtop like my dad’s ($3,772).

In addition to the fins, there was a new massive bumper grille with wide, horizontal parking lights under wraparound wings. Dual headlights were optionally available, but only allowed in a few states. All Chryslers looked longer, lower and wider, but the wheelbase was unchanged and overall lengths were slightly reduced. Saratogas came standard with dual exhausts, back-up lights, a brake-on warning signal, stainless steel full wheel covers and loose-as-a-goose power steering.

“Torsion-Aire Ride was Chrysler’s trade name for the new front suspension system with torsion bars instead of springs. This system was said to do a better job of absorbing road shocks and providing more level stops, starts and turns. Chrysler claimed improved handling, too. A new Torque-Flite automatic transmission was also available in all series and standard in all but entry-level Windsors. This three-speed transmission was operated by push button. Torque-Flite was said to be smoother and quieter than PowerFlite, giving better on-the-road performance in every gear range.

“Saratoga” was written in script on the front fenders in Chrysler’s new line. A single, full-length body side molding sweeping gently from the center of the headlights to the bottom of the taillights was standard. An upper rear molding positioned parallel to the top of the fin was a trim option. Being the era of two-toning, when this molding was added, the area between the two chrome strips was often done in a contrasting color and the same contrasting color was optionally available for the roof.

A new 295-hp version of the 354-cid Spitfire V-8 was used in Saratogas. This four-barrel engine had the same displacement as the 1955 Hemi, which might have been a fact that confused my father into thinking he was buying a Hemi-powered car.

On a calendar-year basis, Chrysler enjoyed a 45.8 percent increase in production in 1957, with the total rising to 156,679 cars (including 118,733 Chryslers and 37,946 Imperials). Model-year production included 115,858 Chryslers and 35,734 Imperials. The Chrysler total included 10,663 Saratoga two-door hardtops, 11,586 Saratoga four-door hardtops and 14,977 Saratoga sedans.

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t buy the auction car. Someone else paid $9,500 for the No. 3 condition Chrysler. I thought that was a little on the high side for a four-door sedan.

Automotive memories do have their own value and that’s something to keep in mind any time you go to a collector car auction.

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Story and photos by Brian Earnest

Randy Lutz doesn’t really remember his grandfather. His recollections are hazy at best. But there is no mistaking his connection to his granddad’s favorite car. Lutz figures he and the car are permanently attached, even if he’s not sure when — or why — the connection started.

“My grandpa bought this car in 1959,” he says scanning over his gorgeous 1948 Chrysler Windsor coupe. “His name was Adolph Lutz. He traded in a 1946 Plymouth four-door. They gave him 100 bucks for that, and he booted in another hundred bucks and he got this for $200. I got the paperwork from that. At that time [the car was] 11 years old. He lived on a farm and drove around the countryside with it. He used it for hauling feed, and he drove it until 1972; I think that’s when he died. I never really knew him, I was born in 1967, so I don’t remember him, really.”

“My brothers remember Grandpa taking them fishing in it. When I brought it home there were cane poles in the trunk yet! So I really don’t remember much about it when I was a kid because I was so young, but they remember.”

The car had been traded in by a local woman to a Stevens Point, Wis., dealership prior to it landing in the Lutz family. Somehow, it survived the ravages of Wisconsin winters fairly well, until it was finally parked and left to collect dust.

“It sat on the farm in a building. And sat. And sat. And sat,” Lutz recalls. “Then the building got torn down and it sat outside.”

Somewhere along the line, Randy decided the car would make a worthy first auto restoration project. He was interested in working on cars for a living, and he figured Grandpa’s old Chrysler would be a fun first test subject. “When I graduated from high school in ’86, I brought it home. My dad was always going to fix it up with my other brothers,” he recalls. “My dad was a mechanic and he had a shop in town, too. He never got around to it. [I was] young and ambitious. I was going to tech school for auto mechanics, I decided to [restore it].”

Soldiering on after World War II

Adolph Lutz brought home an 11-year-old used car home to the farm back in 1959, in reality the 1948 Windsor was even longer in the tooth. The 1948 Chryslers were based on models that debuted in 1942, and very little changed when post-war production cranked up in 1946 until all-new models arrived in mid 1949.

Refinements and advances included front fenders that flowed smoothly into newly skinned front doors, beautifully detailed die-cast eggcrate style grille, new front and rear bumpers and different fender trim. Some year-to-year running changes also occurred. The body-structure was all steel, a longtime Chrysler hallmark. Separate chassis/frame construction was used. Body insulation included the interior structure of the body, roof, side panels, floor, cowl and trunk. Postwar developments included Safe Guard hydraulic brakes and a permanent Oilite fuel tank filter. Rust-proofing protected the interior body structure. Series identification was provided by nameplates found on the hood sides. Standard equipment included armrests on both front doors; directional signal; entrance light; brake warning light; cigar lighter with illuminated ashtray; rubber floor covering in front compartment (except on the club coupe and eight-passenger sedans, which are carpeted); dual outside front door locks; glovebox light and lock; pile fabric or broadcloth upholstery; luggage compartment light; assist straps and robe cords on sedans and broughams; dual two-speed electric wipers; plastic steering wheel; automatic dome light; white wheel-trim rings and interior door locks.

The Windsor was one step up from the bottom-tier Royal line and included all Royal features, plus: two-tone wool broadcloth upholstery, carpeted front compartment, electric clock, rear seat folding armrest on sedans and exterior ‘goose neck’ mirror on convertibles only. The Windsor offered luxury on par with the New Yorker line, but was powered by the L-head six-cylinder engine. Windsors were identified by nameplates on both sides of the hood. Popular options included: radios; twin heaters with defroster; Deluxe heater; antennas; bumper guards; locking gas caps; windshield washers; sun visors; exhaust extensions; and six-ply tires.

Buyers could chose from a host of configurations: two-door/three-passenger coupe; two-door club coupe (with a back seat); two-door convertible; two-door sedan; four-door sedan; four-door Traveler wagon; Town and Country or two different long-wheelbase limousine-style sedans. Prices ranged from $1,906 for the three-passenger coupe up to $2,880 for the stylish four-door Town and Country.

Lutz’s car is one of 26,482 Windsor club coupes built for the ’48 model year. That made it third in popularity on the Chrysler sales charts, behind only the Windsor and top-line New Yorker four-door sedans.

An ambitious project

Ignorance might have been bliss for Lutz when he decided to start restoring the ’48. The car had sat from 1972 when his grandfather parked it until 1986. It had 98,000 miles on the clock, the engine was stuck, the body and floors were rotting, and the car was infested with bees. “The first thing we had to do was smoke out the bees when we got it home,” he laughs.

The car was going to need a ton of work to be road-worthy again — even more than he originally planned. But Lutz was just a teenager and had time on his side, and a dad who knew cars.

After some disassembly, Lutz’s first big mission was to rebuild the car’s 260.6-cid six-cylinder engine. The trouble was the original block wasn’t usable. “It had frost cracks in it from sitting. I actually found another motor at a wrecking yard in Black River Falls [Wis.],” Lutz noted. “It came out of a fire truck – a Chrysler car and Dodge truck used the same six-cylinder engine. So I got that engine and rebuilt it in tech school.

“So I re-did the motor, and I had the body off the frame and it was rough. ‘What do I do now?’ The floor almost stayed on the frame when I picked the car up. So I actually found a different shell in Arizona. I took my dad’s flatbed — he had a towing company — went to Phoenix and ended up bringing it back. So it’s the original hood and original trunk lid. The shell and fenders are from a southern car. I finished in 1998. I worked on it 10, 12 years. I wanted to make it nice and I was just putzing with it and did everything myself. I even painted it myself. I rebuilt the motor when I was in tech school and that’s when I had the frame was all done and chassis. At one point I had bucket seats on it from another car and I was driving around in it with no body on it!”

There were plenty of big challenges along the way. The second engine that Lutz had salvaged from a fire truck developed a knock and he had to go to engine No. 3 — the one from the Arizona donor car.

There was also a lot of parts chasing and salvage yard exploring. “But mostly, the biggest thing was there was a lot of sanding,” he chuckles. “They must have had a dance on the roof! I had to pound that all out and there was a lot of block sanding to get that smooth again.

“The tires came off the parts car I bought, believe it or not. It was a little hard finding Chrysler stuff. This was all before the Internet, so I couldn’t just go online to find stuff. I found the body and OEM rocker moldings. The bumpers have been rechromed. Some of the pot metal is rechromed, like the tail light housings. I was just very patient, that’s all it was. I’d work on it a little bit, then in the winter time it sat because I didn’t have any heat in the garage. I’d poke around on it when the weather was nice.”

Lutz finally got the car finished in 1998, and it is a head-turner. The lovely baby blue paint makes a great vintage statement wherever it goes, and the classic long-nose 1940s Chrysler styling and heavy doses of chrome and stainless give it a timeless appeal.

“Why did I want it? Because it was there!” Lutz jokes. “You know, if it had been a four-door, I probably wouldn’t have had much interest in it, but being a coupe, it’s sharp-looking. For someone who is not a body man, it turned out real nice. I had worked on a couple of pickup trucks before this for practice, but this was my first base coat-clear coat paint job. Now I know why everybody wants base coat-clear coat. It’s easy to work with.”

Lutz has had a few other toys and project cars come and go over the years, but he’s always tried to make time for his Chrysler. “I got into buying old Bronco … but the cars I buy now are all rust ones!” he says. The Windsor gets driven regularly in the country roads around Lutz’s rural home, and he’s not shy about driving an hour or so in any direction to spend an afternoon at a car show. “I’ve taken it to some shows and I use it for transportation to work once in a while. It drives nice. It’s fun to drive. It’s got the Fluid Drive, which is basically a semi-automatic transmission. But you have to be cautious, you know. The turn signals aren’t very bright with the 6-volt,” he says. “You really have to watch when you drive. It’s got enough get-up-and-go, but it’s pokey compared to modern cars. Everybody is in a hurry nowadays, and they don’t leisurely drive.

“But my wife [Laurie] really likes it. We had it in our wedding. I had the car before I had my wife [laughs].”

At one time, the Chrysler appeared destined to be completely forgotten and probably headed to the bone yard. Now, Grandpa’s old farm car is likely to be inline for a second restoration somewhere down the line.

“It’s starting to show its age a little bit,” Lutz says. “That will probably be a retirement project.”

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The post Car of the Week: 1948 Chrysler Windsor appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

By Brian Earnest
Photos by Jeff Ponstler

Tim Wolfe didn’t want his ’30 Chrysler to be a “30-footer.” If he and his wife Julia were ever going to be truly happy with their stunning rumblseat coupe, he knew the car was going to have to look as great close up as it did from across the street.

“From, say, 30 feet it looked great, but when you got up close the paint was cracked and alligatored. The door handles were wrong … the air cleaner was wrong. There were a lot of things that needed to be fixed,” says Wolfe, a resident of tiny Oran, Ohio.

Wolfe never had any intention of turning the Series 70 coupe into a 1,000-point show car, but after 13 years of ownership, the Chrysler is getting close. It has since undergone a frame-off restoration and Wolfe has gradually made the car as correct, authentic and perfect as he can make it.

“I wanted to drive it and show it in local shows. I had no idea a concours show existed,” he says. “I didn’t even know there were shows like that. Until you get into them and see all the things they check on [the cars] — seeing if all the colors are right and nuts and bolts are correct, everything has to be perfect. It’s really an experience to show a car at one of those shows.”

The car has been a trophy getter at the Dayton Concours and other shows, and will make an appearance this year at Spring Auburn. The whole evolution of the Chrysler is a far cry from what Tim and Julia had in mind when they went to check out the car on a whim back in 2003.

“We were on our way to Hershey, Pa., for the [Fall AACA Meet] over there,” Tim recalls. “We had picked up a local magazine that had nothing but cars for sale, and we saw the car listed for sale and we stopped to took at it because it was in State College [Pa.] and it was on our way. We were really looking for a roadster, but this car was in good shape. It had had an amateur restoration and they had done several things wrong, but the guy was very honest about the condition of the car. It had the wrong headlights, the wrong door handles and a few other things. The guy quoted a price, and when I told him what I had found wrong with the car, he immediately dropped the price. He was an extremely honest man.

“We agreed to buy it, but I didn’t have a trailer with me. He said, ‘I don’t care if it’s a few days or a few months, the car is yours, it will be here when you come and get it.’ He didn’t even want a down payment! He was a very unusual man to deal with. He’s called me several times and talked to me and it’s been 13 years since we bought it.”

The car had been originally ordered by a couple from New Jersey, who had it shipped “across the Great Lakes” and owned the car for many years. They later sold it to a Pennsylvania man, “and he sold it to the man I bought it from,” Wolfe said.

The Wolfes already owned an original-condition 1930 Chrysler Model 70 Brougham — a very rare model — when they added the second ’30 to their garage. Unlike the first one, though, they had plans to invest some money in the rumbleseat coupe to bring it up to pristine condition.

“I’ve been a shop foreman for most of my life, so doing work isn’t a problem for me and I was planning on doing most of the work myself, but I was working so many hours at the shop I just couldn’t get anything done on it,” Tim says. “I took some of parts off and took the engine apart, but there was no way I could do upholstery or the paint.”

He eventually settled on an accomplished restorer to do the ground-up remake on the Chrysler, but the results were mixed.

“The guy is known worldwide. People fly their cars in from Europe and all over to have him restore them… He completely frame-offed it — paint, upholstery, everything. We went with Packard Ivory and Marine Blue, and those are a great color combination and they really draw attention to the car… But he had never done a 1930 Chrysler before and he made a lot of mistakes which I’m still finding and repairing.”

Wolfe’s car is one of 3,135 Royal coupes — aka rumbleseat coupes — built by Chrysler for the 1930 model year. It was part of the 70 series, which was the second-highest in Chrysler hierarchy, above the new CJ and 66 series, but one rung below the top-line 77 Series. The handsome and technologically advanced 70 Series cars were also offered in two-door roadster, business coupe, Brougham sedan and convertible coupe versions, along with four-door phaeton and four-door Royal sedan body styles.

Wolfe’s Royal coupe carried a base price of $1,395 when it was new and weighed in at 3,490 lbs. Styling features included a narrow-profile radiator, bowl-shaped headlamps and pennon-type hood louvers on early-year cars such as Wolfe’s. Later in the year, the cars were given vertical hood louvers. Standard equipment included a Delco-Remy ignition, hydraulic brakes — a cutting edge feature for the year — a four-speed transmission with a “granny gear,” mechanical fuel pump, downdraft carburetor and new “paraflex” springs. Under the bonnet was an inline six displacing 218.6 cubic inches and generating 75 hp. Late-year cars also featured vertical hood louvers, new type instrument panel and thermostatic radiator shutters. The option list included fog lamps, front and rear bumpers, dual side-mounted spare tires, wire-spoke wheels, folding luggage rack and pedestal sidemount mirrors.
“It’s got a lot of firsts,” Wolfe says. “It’s got all hydraulic brakes, which was a big deal. And 1930 was when Chrysler developed oil light bushings in the starter and generator and water pump. They were the first to offer the [Stromberg] downdraft carburetor, too.”

Wolfe had the car reupholstered in leather, but not before double-checking that such a treatment was correct. Leather was standard on the roadster at the time, but could also be ordered on closed cars as an option. “I had pictures sent to me from the AACA and before I put leather in I checked it out to make sure it wouldn’t hurt me as far as showing the car,” he laughed. “Everything was approved by AACA.”

The white-and-blue paint scheme was also available originally. Wolfe’s car was black when it left the factory. “But for $40, Chrysler would paint it a color of your choice,” he said. “The Packard Ivory was actually used a lot for the pinstriping.”

The beautiful Chrysler had 7,000 miles on the odometer when Wolfe bought it, but he’s not sure how that number was accumulated. He has added “a couple thousand” since then and expects to roll up plenty more in the future.

“It rides great since I’ve redone all the suspension and everything,” Tim says. “Our local shop here in town has a new front end alignment machine and he aligned it for me. Now I can drive with one arm out the window and two fingers on the wheel.

“I drive it now. We do not trailer this car anymore. If it’s far away we have a toy hauler, but we go out to eat with it and drive it around. There’s a group of us that go out to eat every Friday night and we drive our cars. The guy who painted it lives 10 miles from me and I take it to him and get it touched up once in a while.

“I can’t see putting all that effort into a car and not enjoying it. I just can’t see having it sit in the garage.”

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The post Car of the Week: 1930 Chrysler Series 70 coupe appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

By Keith Boonstra

I was pretty much like any other kid born lucky enough to sort out his teenage years in the 1950s. We were fascinated with automobiles, and the cars of that age were going through an amazing metamorphosis of re-design that was exciting and fantastic. Designers and engineers were collaborating to re-imagine the bulbous styling and wallowing performance of the ’40s cars and transform them in a rocket-inspired flurry that took us by surprise in year-after-year revelations.

We could hardly wait for each new year’s car designs to be unveiled at the local dealerships. And the dealers themselves did what they could to encourage this frenzy by covering up the new models every autumn as they arrived and keeping them behind whitewashed showroom windows until the official announcement date. We would literally count down the days to the new-model car introductions, and even try to peek through the shop windows of the dealerships beforehand to catch just a glimpse.

It was during this period that Chrysler built its limited edition offering — from 1955 through 1965 — of its Chrysler 300 “Letter Car” series, with the early ones being designed by the talented Virgil Exner. These cars were not actually the beginning of what later became known as muscle cars, with their big engines in in intermediate bodies; but they were the very first over-the-top high horsepower cars to be offered as stock in any manufacturer’s showrooms.

As a kid I was always fascinated by anything mechanical, so I took a few of my hard-earned paper route dollars and spent them on a subscription to Mechanix Illustrated. Tom McCahill was the magazine’s new-car tester at that time. He was a big goofy guy and he loved to throw the superlatives around in describing the looks and the handling of every car he squeezed into. I remember well that his standard of acceptability for trunk space was always whether or not he could fit into it. The bigger, the better.

Well, nothing got this teenage boy’s heart pumping (almost nothing anyway) like the May 1957 issue where Ol’ Tom test drove the ’57 Chrysler 300C. He described it as an absolutely gorgeous car, and you could just tell by its huge tailfins that it could fly. The Chrysler 300C was a factory-built hot rod that came with a 392-cid Hemi engine that Chrysler had tricked out with two Carter four-barrels, solid lifters, a race-grind cam, and a whole bunch of other neat upgrades to pound out 375 horses in stock form! People called it the “Banker’s Hot Rod.” It was big, and fancy, and fast. Tom raved about what an absolute machine it was, and claimed — with a bit of puffery — that it would do 150 mph. I knew right then that it was all I could ever want in a car!

I totally dog-eared that May issue of Mechanix Illustrated reading about the 300C over and over, and I dreamed that someday I might actually be able to buy one. As the years went by I never lost my fascination with the Chrysler “Letter Cars”. So in September of 1962 I knew a stroke of luck was just meant to be mine when I was looking to buy my first car, and I saw a used Gauguin Red 300C for sale about 25 miles from home in Grand Rapids, I couldn’t wait to drain my savings account of the $850 it took to buy it off the seller’s front lawn. That was nearly every dollar I had, but I happily agreed to trade it for the most fantastic car in the world.

On the Friday evening I picked the car up, I had planned a date with Judy, the gal who would later become my wife. What a night that was going be. A date with a gorgeous girl — and in the car of my dreams.

Well, unfortunately that thrill lasted all of 20 minutes. As I was driving my awesome, newly acquired ride to pick up my girlfriend, I stepped it down to pass another car. I had downshifted to second gear, and I swear I hadn’t even reached 75 miles an hour, when that Hemi engine — that Chrysler work of art — blew to smithereens in a humongous cloud of blue smoke.

I was devastated as I let it roll to the shoulder of the road. I got out and walked, numb in disbelief, to a nearby farmhouse to phone a buddy. I asked him to grab a tow rope, pick up my girl, and come help me out. He arrived after what seemed like an eternity, and we dragged the car to my dad’s house. Then we spent the evening on a double date in my buddy’s car with him and his girlfriend. I tried to buck up and enjoy the evening somehow, but I’m pretty sure I was lousy company.

Over the next couple of months, and with the generous help of a mechanic friend of my dad’s, we were able to literally patch the engine back together. We took 5 lbs. of parts out of the oil pan, welded a 4×4 patch over a hole in the oil pan, sleeved two cylinders, replaced two pistons and four bent valves, and reground the crankshaft. The wholesale cost of the parts alone for that Hemi was $481 — an amount that probably would have bought a Chevy 283 long-block from Sears Roebuck at the time. And for all this, the mechanic “put me on the cuff” and let me work the bill down by pumping gas for him on Saturdays for several months. You can believe I was a grateful and loyal customer of his shop for many decades after that. It’s 54 years so far.

Judy and I loved that car and we had a lot of fun dating in it for a too-short year and a half. Even back in that day it drew a lot of attention and respect on the local cruise circuit because nobody else owned one anywhere around us in west Michigan. On a deserted road it would take a legendary 409 Chevy to show us a back bumper in the quarter-mile. But if it went beyond that, the 300C was off in the sunset.

I’m still not sure whether the attraction was me or the car that tipped the deal, but my girl agreed to marry me in 1964. Unfortunately we were both still in school at the time, so that meant we could either afford to keep the Chrysler or get married, but not both. Back in those days it was not at all surprising that a seven-year-old car was ready for paint, chrome, tires, exhaust, brakes and tires — all at the same time. I loved that 10 mph Chrysler, but not as much as I loved my wife. We simply could not afford it, and the car had to go.

I advertised the 300C in Hot Rod magazine in the spring of ’64, and a fellow by the name of Fred Luther from Muskegon came to see the car and bought it from me for $650. When he came to pick it up a couple of days later, it surprised me that he arrived in a rusted-out and raggedy white ’57 300C, and just for chuckles he let me thrash that car for a few miles out in the pucklebrush before he and his son drove off with my Gauguin Red car back to his home in Muskegon. The vivid memory of that bittersweet day has never left me.

We bought a Valiant, got married, had kids, changed jobs a few times, moved around, and life was wonderful; but we never forgot the fantastic 300C we had dated in. I never even saw one on the road in the following years, but I did often dream that we might be able to buy one some day again — maybe even in Gauguin Red like our old one was. So I joined the Chrysler 300 Club International in the late ’70s with the hope that someone there could help me find one.

Then in 1981 something strange happened. An acquaintance of mine by the name of Bill mentioned that he had a good friend, Dave, who was really into these Chrysler 300 Letter Cars and owned at least a dozen of them. He doubted Dave had my old car, but thought he might be able to help me find one. I immediately called Dave and chatted for a while about his collection of 300s. Then he said he had heard of me before, and also of Fred Luther in Muskegon. Then Dave dropped this bombshell — as far as he knew Fred still had the very car he had bought from me some 17 years earlier! Wow!

After thanking Dave profusely for coming up with Fred’s name and information about our very own 300C after all these years, I could hardly wait to phone Fred in the hope that I could persuade him to sell it back to me. As luck would have it, Fred was still in the phone book and I called him. He remembered buying the car from me, and we talked for about 20 minutes about what a great car that was. He told me that he had scrapped out the raggedy white 300C, and that he had swapped its engine into my Gaugin Red car instead of the patch job engine it had.

Now it was time for me to move in with my pitch. I said that I could tell that he probably loved that car too much to part with it, but it would sure mean a lot to me if I could just drive up and visit it for old times’ sake. “Well,” he said, “I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. I don’t have the car anymore. I sold it just three months ago to a young fellow near Cleveland by the name of Vic.”

Three months? I missed it by three lousy months? Aw, man, after all this my good luck had finally run its course, and I had barely missed getting our dating car back. Well, at least Fred offered the phone number for Vic, and I called him. “Vic,” I said, “You have my old dating car, and I absolutely have to have it back. Name your price.” “Sorry,” said Vic, “I love the car and I’ll never sell it under any condition. So find yourself another one.” I was convinced he meant it.

So over the next couple of years I kept looking for another 300C, but I would also phone Vic every few months to ask him to sell me “my car”. The answer was always the same. “I told you I am keeping it, so you might as well quit bothering me. Go find another one.” But on an October afternoon in 1983, I got a strange call from the Chrysler 300 Club president. He said Vic had just called an ad in to the club publication to sell our car. And didn’t I want it?

Within moments I was on the phone with Vic. He apologized for not calling me first, and gave me the price he was asking. I told him the deal was sealed at his price, and then I asked him what so suddenly changed his mind. He said he was getting divorced and his wife had a pretty mean streak in her. “Last week she took a shot at me with a .45”, he said, “but she missed. This week she told me she is going to burn down the garage with the Chrysler in it, and I believe she will. So if you really want that car, you’d better get here tomorrow before she torches it.”

I grabbed a flight to Cleveland the very next next morning, and Vic picked me up at the airport at 8 am. We quickly drove out to where he kept the 300C, and we wasted no time barreling out of that planned demolition site. Then we went over to Vic’s house where we traded cash for title, and I hit the highway for home in west Michigan. The day was drizzly and overcast for the entire drive home, but it was one of the proudest, most beautiful days in memory to me. And what a thrill it was to pull into our driveway 5 hours later and show it off to my wife and two teenagers!

Over the next 26 years we would occasionally get the car out for a car show or a local parade, but mostly it was just mothballed and waiting for me to give it the full restoration it needed so badly. Finally, in 2009 I lifted the hood one day and thought, “I’ll bet it would look better under here if I spent maybe $40 and painted the inner fenders.” I could tell you the whole story of what happened from there, but it would be all too familiar.

With the help of a body shop, we burrowed down until we ran out of bad stuff to fix. We didn’t stop until all that was left was a rolling frame. Then I built the car back up, piece by meticulously restored piece, until the whole car was fresh and essentially brand new. Nearly two years after we started I worked right through an entire night to finish it up for the deadline of entering it in a car show at a.m.. Five hours later it took home a blue ribbon. It’s looking and driving better now than any day since it rode off the Chrysler Jefferson Avenue plant production line.

Since then we’ve put on several thousand miles driving to Chrysler 300 Club meets, and other car shows and cruises, and it thrills us every time. We know we are one of very few couples who have the privilege of owning the very same car they dated in after so many years.

This spring (May 18-22) Judy and I are going to host the Chrysler 300 Club International meet right here in Holland, Mich. We hope to have about three dozen of the Chrysler 300 Letter Cars — the “Beautiful Brutes” — rumbling into town for socializing, cruises, and sightseeing in one of the most attractive and friendly places in the country. Needless to say, our 300C will be the featured car.
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