(first posted 2/16/2018) My great uncle William was short, stout, and bald, and always chomped a cigar. He wore slacks and a dress shirt and suspenders and, when he was outside, a fedora. Forever he will be the kind of man I think of who drove a full-sized 1970s Chrysler. Because he did, one much like this 1973 Newport Custom.
I don’t remember for sure what year William’s Newport was. I’m almost ashamed to admit that, because I was a car nut from a very young age. But William’s Newport was definitely of this generation and was almost certainly this color. His might have been a post sedan, and it might have had a loop front bumper, which would have made it a ’71.
William could be quite ornery. It’s a family trait – there’s a wicked sense of humor in all of us. I remember one day I was riding with Dad in his ’71 Impala Sport Coupe behind William in his Newport. We stopped at a light. Suddenly, on that clear day our windshield got soaked. Dad hit the wipers to clear it and immediately our windshield was soaked again. Turns out William’s washer nozzles were so miscalibrated that he could fire them all the way over his car and onto ours. If I didn’t have a crystal clear memory of this happening, I wouldn’t believe this story now. You could see William’s body ripple with laughter through the back window of his car.
When I first experienced William’s Chrysler, I was astonished by it — I had never seen a car so large before. And when I came upon this Newport Custom parked behind a popular pub near my office last autumn, I was just as astonished. This car is big, big, big.
It is also a mishmash of styling cues, some stolen directly from GM. Like these tail lights inspired by the contemporary Olds Delta 88.
Or this front end, which looked suspiciously similar to the one on my dad’s ’71 Chevy.
But it had an attractive greenhouse, even if its dashboard favored the functional over the beautiful. Perhaps William’s Newport really was a Custom, as I remember it having an interior color that harmonized with the exterior, rather than the straight black interior of this non-Custom Newport that Paul Niedermeyer wrote about here.
It’s been a while since I’ve contributed here. A number of significant life challenges have piled up on me and my family and we’ve been pretty consumed by them. We’re pushing through them and expect to come out fine, eventually. But most recently, my father passed away after living with lung cancer for 11 years. I’m writing a lot about him and his family to help me grieve (mostly over on my personal blog), and that’s why I’m sharing this ’73 Chrysler today – just to connect to a memory of my dad.
When all this life stuff clears, I’ll be back to contributing regularly here. If there’s one good thing about my hiatus, it’s that my backlog of photographed CCs is growing. It currently includes a ’61 Falcon, a ’68 Camaro, a ’77 Corvette, a ’77 F-150, an ’80-ish Firebird, an ’83 Wagoneer, and more.
Wonderful article, and I’m sorry to hear about your familial difficulties. I look forward to reading more of your updates.
You’ve triggered a powerful, yet idiotic teenage memory. A friend’s inherited high school ride was a stripped brown Duster that was probably about 10 years old in 1984. The windshield washers still had incredible power coupled with rotting gaskets on the hood that allowed the nozzles to be rotated a quarter turn in either direction. This made them incredible secret weapons to spray unsuspecting pedestrians or rival school students. It was especially gratifying when someone would yell a disparaging comment about the car, only to find themselves suddenly doused from 50 feet away with deadly accuracy.
That Duster’s washers were probably powered not by an electric pump but by a rubber squeeze bulb on the floor of the car. I used to be able to spray fluid a good long way with a sharp stomp on that rubber bulb. In fact, with some finesse you could about aim the squirt anywhere up or down the windshield.
Manly cars have gone the way of manly men. They’re out of style, and tainted with the “toxic masculinity” label. Also see the “study” (replaced with the “man cave”), cigars, fedoras, body hair, and the basic, stripped, ugly work truck that smelled of grease, tobacco, and work.
whatever.
I always imagined this was the car the B-52s were singing about:
“I got me a Chrysler, it seats about twenty
So hurry up and bring your jukebox money.”
Sorry for your loss Jim.
my sincere condolences for your loss.
I did own a 1972 Chrysler Imperial great car!! it was huge!! just couldnt get past the boring dashboard.
Jim, it’s been 15 years that my father died and not one day has passed without me thinking about him. They are fond memories of the kind you shared with us today.
All the best to you and your family!
Nice find. This, right down to the color, was our neighbors’ car most of my childhood.
I think they were all this color or metallic green.
It’s very close to the color of our “73 Fury”. I’d say this yellow had more depth to it.
I. Love. This. Car. And don’t feel bad, I couldn’t ID the year of a fuselage Chrysler for eons. In fact I still have a little trouble around 1970-71.
A 72 Newport Royal 2 door was my first up-close interaction with a Fusey. My best friend’s family had one. I was confused about the interior. In so many ways it was terribly plain and the “floodlit” dash seemed really strange. But somehow I found the overall effect appealing, especially that wiiiiide dashboard that made a wide car seem even more so.
I think this Mopar 3 spoke steering wheel may have been my very favorite of that era. There is something about its perfect symmetry, the gentle curvature of the spokes and hub and the way the spokes protrude out the back. My 71 Scamp had this wheel (which was a big upgrade on that car) and I loved it every time I slid behind it.
This thing is gorgeous. And enormous. I just love the look of the greenhouse.
I thought I was the only one who noticed that it looks like a 71 or 74 Chevy in the front and an Olds Delta 88 in the back.
Thank You, Jim…. someone had to say it.
That body shape was really past its freshness date by 1973. I have always thought that final 1973 refresh was amazingly successful given the shapes they had to work with. And you are right, Chrysler was really stealing from GM in 1973-74. It is amazing the way they found their own voice on isolated models thereafter with the Cordoba and the 74 Imperial.
I get the impression that the one-year-only ’73 refresh was caused by the 5 mph bumper mandate and may have been a compromise Chrysler agreed to in exchange for the exemption they got for the rest of their car lines, where they were able to get by with just a pair of big ole, rubber bumperettes until the cars were due to be cancelled or significantly changed by 1975.
They surely wanted to do the same thing with the the ’73 full-size, too, but I would imagine there just was no way they could pass the standards with bumperettes on the loop bumpers that the full-size cars still had. So, the 1973 car got a completely revised front end with a traditional style bumper until the ’74 cars came out.
In fact, the whole 5 mph bumper thing may have been the reason Chrysler didn’t come out with their completely restyled 1974 full-size cars a year earlier. Otherwise, it seems like just another really bad timing decision: releasing the new ’74 full-size cars about a year before the late ’73 gas crisis would have sold much better, and they really could have used the cash from the highest profit big cars. As it was, the big, new, gas-guzzling ’74 cars came out at almost the exact same time of the Gas Crisis. It couldn’t have been worse timing if Chrysler had planned it.
In a way, the earlier 5 mph bumper thing was a significant contributor to Chrysler’s near death experience later in the decade, and it was only right when Iacocca was granted loan guarantees by the federal government since the earlier regulations had, ultimately, very nearly done the company in.
Loop bumpers had run their course by 1973. The Charger still had them, and it had the 5mph bumper guard dealies. IIRC, manufacturers were required to implement a percentage of their fleet that was compliant for 1973, then full compliance for 1974. For example, the 1973 Dodge Polara was compliant, but the Monaco really wasn’t.
Interesting! Thanks for the information.
The parents of a friend who lived up the street from us had a 1973 Newport sedan – light tan with a dark green vinyl top. His father was a retired colonel and somewhat on in years – this particular friend was my age, but he had older siblings in their early 30s. These cars have ever since embodied the perfect example of the early 1970s “well-to-do old man’s car” in my eyes.
The taillights of the 1972 Newport looked as though they had been cribbed from the 1971 Oldsmobile Delta 88. For 1973, Chrysler simply copied the taillights from the 1972 Delta 88! Even as a kid I had picked up on this.
The 1973 Dodge Polara’s front looked like it had been lifted from the 1971-72 full-size Oldsmobiles. It reinforced the notion that Chrysler styling was basically, “GM, two years later.”
I always thought that the fronts of the 1973 Chrysler and 1973 Plymouth Fury were unattractive. The blunt front of the Chrysler really clashed with the rest of the car, while the Fury simply looked odd.
To my eyes, they were even more awkward than the grafting of the square front of the 1973 Ford Torino to the swoopy, carryover 1972 body.
Agree with much of what you say. A Chrysler Newport always identified its owner as an older guy who in early 1970s Allen County Indiana was usually a rock-ribbed conservative. Chrysler wasn’t really appealing to much of anyone but longtime Chrysler buyers by then. My father would not have bought one if someone else had paid half.
As for those taillights on the 72, I always saw shrunken versions of the boomerang lights of the 64 Pontiac. But then my grandma had owned a 64 Catalina and those odd lights were seared into my memory.
I liked the re-do of the 73 Chrysler but thought the 73 Fury was horrible. The 73 Polara was somewhere between (and it was odd how Chrysler kept the old 72 treatment for the Monaco, the only the big C body car without major change, Imperial notwithstanding.)
The 1973 Polara was an improvement over the 1972 model. Our neighbors had a 1972 Polara sedan, and I thought that those were ugliest full-size cars of that time. The intervening years haven’t changed my opinion.
The 1972-73 Monacos were okay, but compared to a 1973 Mercury Marquis or Pontiac Bonneville…as you say, the Dodge basically appealed to Mopar loyalists.
The only one I ever remember seeing on the street in our town was driven by the family of an elementary school classmate – and they owned the local Dodge dealership!
Yeah on the 72 Polara. They always reminded me of Sam the Eagle from the Muppets they way those headlights seemed to glare out from under a furrowed brow. And the 72-73 Monaco was more interesting than attractive. It was just a strange design.
J P Cavanaugh: Strange indeed!
I just google imaged a ’73 Monaco Brougham on BAT(Bring A Trailer), and it looked like it was trying too hard to be too many different things: A schizophrenic nose appearing half ’60s Lincoln with rammer bumpettes and half Toronado clam-shell headlights, combined with Coke bottle rear door-Quarter panel sheet metal, and a generic looking roof from a contemporary squad car, lol!
I always thought the 73 Newport looked like a Chevy from the front. All the 73 Fuselage Mopars from Newport to Polara to Fury seemed to be a mismash of design cues. Nonetheless when I saw a Cougar Club member with a 73 Polara I had to go out and get me one which I did 4-6 months later. Yep, as in the song Love Shack it is as big as a whale and it is white.
Since my wife is down with the flu I have had to get my son to school and back. Wednesdays are early out days so I decided to go in the big Polara being as how commute traffic is an hour away yet. Stop at the gas station as I don’t know how much gas I have due to the inaccurate gas gauge. Self serve attendant walks out to look at the car and goes “man, this is big, what year?”
Later make the turn into the school and see the typical line of at least 15 large SUVs leaving only this time I am not in the Focus. I head up the road to the boarding area with the rumble of the dual exhaust trailing behind. I feel a little bit like Uncle Buck. Teachers eyes turn and have that look of what the heck is this? The car is far from a POS. I pull into view of the kids and my son spots the car immediately, how could he not, and jumps madly up and down. The eyes of the other kids are bug eyed as my son runs for the car and his Daddy. Next week maybe the big Merc.
Put a can of Marvels Mystery Oil in the Merc to “lubricate the valves” and provide a temporary smokescreen!
I like your ‘pick-up’ story, tbm3. 🙂 Your ’73 Chrysler apparently pre-dates a number of the teachers at your son’s school if they looked confused as to what it was you were driving!
I wonder how many of those bug-eyed widdle kids asked their parents later just what kind of car that was we saw at school today?
My college ride was Dad’s 73 Newport Custom hardtop just like this. Thanks for the memories.
Condolences on your Dad. Mines been gone 22 years. I enjoy the memories like this now but it took a while.
Hang in there. It will get there.
I am a classic cars collector. As this about a classic Chrysler product 2 years ago I bought All original 1980 R body New Yorker Fifth Avenue cream color with beige leather interior 360 2B, tilt steering, power driver seat, power windows, factory AMFM, factory AC, wire wheels. has 15K original miles with all documentation wondow sticker & manuals. I paid 13,500 for it.
Jim, I’m truly sorry to hear of your loss.
As to the car, nice find. I still vividly remember the first time I saw a ’73 Newport (or at least the first time I really noticed one), because I thought that someone had swapped a Chevy front clip onto a Plymouth!
Great find! It’s great to see a car gifted with loving owner(s) over the course of its lengthy life. The Fuselage C-bodies are cars I’ve unwaveringly been a fan of over the years, but I the 1973 Chryslers are by far my least favorites. As you state Jim, it’s a mishmash of styling cues, with the blocky front end severely clashing with the curves of the rest of the sheet metal.
Your great-uncle William sounds like a riot though. As I’ve said many times in the past, it’s these more personal accounts of our wonderful writers here at CC that I truly enjoy the most!
We traded in a ’67 Plymouth Fury III four – door sedan for a ’71 Chrysler Newport four – door sedan — and it was in this exact color, “Lemon Twist” as it was dubbed in the ’71 sales material, and with the standard vinyl – cloth interior in Yellow. Huge car, very spacious, excellent for those long motor trips we took in those days – from our downstate IL home, all the way out to DC and New England, and another out to Seattle, and down the Coast to San Francisco and back, plus trips to the South. As we were rural working/lower middle class, this Newport was a nice step up for us. It was eventually traded in for a ’76 Delta 88 Royale…
Jim, so sorry for your loss. And thanks for sharing this Chrysler and your memories of your great uncle – what a great car to trigger fond memories.
When I think back to when I was a kid in the 70s and the C-Body Mopars were common on the streets, I think of them as very manly cars. Not in the way a jacked up Charger with sidepipes was macho; that was a kids car, but it seemed that only men, very manly men, drove these cars. These were tough cars, and they were parked at manly locales like the American Legion post, the volunteer fire department and the Mason’s Lodge. If you were a man, with a job and a family to support, you had a Chrysler (or Dodge or Plymouth) A big Chrysler with a 440. Even with stock exhausts, they sounded not so loud as they were authoritative. And they sure looked intimidating, bolstered by the fact that so many were police cars. My Mom had a Delta 88, and her best friend had an Impala, so therefore the big GMs were not very manly. Then my friend’s moms had Country Squires and Colony Parks so that rendered big Fords as not very macho either. But while my Dad, who at 6’2″ 280+, was a very manly cop, had a six cylinder Valiant (he was also cheap and could care less about cars) his closest friend and shift partner, as well as my Little League coach, had a dark green 1970 Polara sedan with a 440 and that car was downright scary to my young self; 40 years later I still remember clearly what that Dodge looked, smelled and felt like and it reeked of masculinity. We also had WWII-veteran neighbor with a beige 1973 New Yorker that was equally virile.
Great cars they were.
They were manly cars. I can’t elaborate without ruffling feathers. If you were there then, you’ll get it.
That ’73 Chrysler reminds me of this ’73 Chrysler:
My condolences on your father’s passing.
A fitting tribute to your uncle William. I can almost see him…
Agreed, Paul, and my condolences, Jim.
And I especially love the windshield washer story. I recall reading somewhere – perhaps here? – of a fellow whose friend back in the 70s had a Chevy Monza and the washer nozzle was similarly bent. The friend would call it a “James Bond device” or something like that, and would use it to squirt unsuspecting tailgaters…
Put me down as a fuselage fan, but by 1973 they had run their course. Recall that the base Newport was very plain- a much plainer interior than a Fury III. Seems that decontenting took hold throughout its run.
It’s amazing how cars trigger memories in this crowd. With this Chrysler being able to trigger a memory about your father is wonderful. My condolences to you and your family during this time. Your father was too young.
Jim, I am sorry for your loss.
I took a look at your blog to learn more about your father; it is a beautifully written tribute.
Like your dad, my father always kept his knives as sharp and honed as possible. He started his career as a butcher in Brooklyn where he wore a honing steel on his belt at work and had a long knife in his hand. I now have that worn smooth honing rod and the long steel knife that he gave me back in the 1970’s.
I keep my current knives as sharp as possible and do the same in Debbie’s kitchen.
When I was in my teens one of my father’s friends (Nat) told me that the things I learned from my father were valuable treasures that less fortunate people never got the chance to learn. Nat’s theory was that humans made progress not only through formal education, but perhaps more important, from the gifts of sometimes arcane knowledge from caring parents.
It’s more than sharpening knives, maintaining machines, or dealing with life’s ups and downs in a mature manner that my father taught me, and my continued use of his teachings has made my life better, and in a way, continued the steady impact of his life in mine.
What I’m trying to say is that, despite health limitations, it seems your dad was useful to the end and continues to be so through you and your family.
Thank you for your kind and wise words. Dad was a difficult man and as I grieve I’m working through that. But he did love his family and the way he expressed it was to try to be of use to us. As I think of it, the times when I felt the closest to him is when he was helping me.
p.s.: I’ve written several stories about my dad and a few more are to come. Here’s where you can see them all:
https://blog.jimgrey.net/tag/dad/
I lost my dad 27 years ago, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. My condolences to you and your family.
Jim I visited your blog and found the reminisces of your Dad to be very poignant. I know that you wanted your Dad to reveal himself as a real human being to you, and I understand your disappointment that you could never connect at that level. I am now in my early Sixties, my Dad passed away eleven years ago at age 85. We became the closest after my Mom passed away, five years before my Dad. I know that my Father would always see himself as my Father and that we could never truly be equals, even though he did respect me as an adult. I think that your Dad felt that his strength and his ability to be of value to you was the existence of the Father / Son dynamic. To be thought of as an equal by you, would have stripped him of his power. Jim, sorry for your loss, and thank you for sharing.
Whether or not he was by the calendar, Jim’s dad sounds like a member of the “Greatest generation” and they just didn’t talk about stuff. It was a very different view of fatherhood from what we have.
I’m short, stout, bald (by choice, usually in the summer) and I drive a Chrysler. It’s a MUCH smaller car, a 2013 200. If parked side by side with the bumpers flush, my 200’s rear bumper may barely reach the midldle of the rear door of the Newport. Even my ’06 Ram 2500 HD may have a good foot or two to go before it reached the back bumper of this land yacht (it’s a short bed due to being a mega cab, though).
The only thing is I don’t smoke cigars (or anything else) and I’ve never worn suspenders (and never will, haha). You’ll find me in a dress shirt or polo and khakis when I’m working, or a polo and khaki cargo shorts on weekends or on a workday during the summer (yes, I dress like the stereotypical “IT guy” as I am one, a systems engineer, However, I am not into sci-fi or video games like the typical IT nerd and I’m the only one of my peers who doesn’t drive a Subaru, Audi, VW, BMW 3-series or Ford Focus ST).
I always jokingly thought that these Newports were GM bodies with a Mopar drivetrain. That front end strongly resembles an Impala.
A very nice find and poignant tangential remembrance of your dad – I’m now going on 23 years without mine and coming up on the age myself that he was at the time… Not sure if it gets easier, the pain just gets a little duller. My dad wasn’t the easiest person to know either but I know he cared at the center of it all – I started attending church again semi-sporadically recently after around three decades since last going and I’m finding it incredibly difficult in that I always seem to think about him during the service and then it gets somewhat difficult, but by about an hour afterwards it feels like a tiny bit of weight has lifted. Not what I was expecting, but an interesting feeling nonetheless…
Great old Chrysler. I’ve ridden in a few, and there’s nothing like the sheer size of these things. I wouldn’t mind taking one for a spin one day and smiling at the lesser rides of today…though I’d have to keep an eye on the gas gauge. They’re thirsty old beasts. And my condolences for the loss of your dad. Mine passed in 2010, and I do miss hearing his stories and well-informed opinions on matters of the world.
Jim: it’s always a pleasure to read your posts. I’m very sorry to hear about the loss of your dad. I’m a regular reader of your blog and your relationship with your father was a great deal like mine. I know in time the good and funny memories of your dad will surface much more often than the difficult ones. My dad has always been a strong, silent, and stoic type to a fault and mostly communicates with advice (sometimes requested, and sometimes not). Over the years I have come to understand that passing along this knowledge is his way of being useful, and the usefulness is tied to love. As you know, we must accept love the way it is given. I’m glad you’ll be posting more articles in the future. My condolences to you and your family.
Sorry for your loss. Jim. Lost Dad in 2013 at age 90, Mom passed in 2010 at 81.
The time from 2007 to 2013 involved a lot of looking after the folks, as their health declined at the same time, I got laid off the end of 2008 which was a blessing in disguise as I finally had enough time to take care of them properly, though this did speed up my gray beard progression!
This cashmere/light tan paint never looked very good on full-sized Chryslers. Despite it being so accepted, as a popular colour at the time.
My parents had a 57 Plymouth that they bought used, so I was probably8 years old. It had a windshield washer that was powered by something on the floor. I remember it as being a small pedal, but it could easily have been a rubber ball. My great discovery was that when the car was in our driveway, if I got in the driver’s seat and stomped on the washer I could spray my brother who was standing behind the car. Lots of fun for an 8 year old!
Just noticed the tach at the lower right of the steering wheel. Such a nice touch in a car like this…
These were cars for men who drove a lot of miles and didn’t give a damn about their image or what others thought of them. You bought it for size and comfort and the most rock solid stump pulling drivetrain ever put in a passenger vehicle. And it had nothing else going for it.