(first posted 9/3/2015) Earlier this year, Paul declared the 1965 Chrysler New Yorker to be “The Last Great Chrysler” for its distinctive style, fine engineering, and solid build quality, and it is impossible to disagree with that appraisal. Even the great can be improved upon, though, and this parking lot find in Virginia arguably does it. It is a 1965 Chrysler New Yorker Town Sedan, a New Yorker pillared sedan with a six window layout, instead of the four door hardtop found by Paul in California.
The Town Sedan with its extra rear side window had a slim C-pillar instead of the large, vinyl-covered C-pillar of the four door hardtop. This roof style was out of the step with the wide, “formal” C-pillars taking over American luxury cars during the mid-1960s, after the GM bubble tops and other glassy rooflines of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The more prestigious four door hardtop sold better, with 21,110 four door hardtops and 16,339 Town Sedans sold in 1965.
Half a century later, the larger glass area and lack of a vinyl roof covering give the already well styled New Yorker a more timeless look. Especially the lack of a vinyl roof covering, which eliminates a Brougham Epoch feature that many (although certainly not all) prefer to do without. Styling being a matter of taste, some will disagree and prefer the larger C-pillar and proto-Brougham use of vinyl. The pillared sedan may be slightly less airy than the hardtop with the windows down, but with a car with an air conditioner such as this one, which proudly wears an “AirTemp Air Conditioner” sticker at the bottom right of the rear window, the difference probably is rarely significant.
The many virtues of these cars have received detailed praise in the two articles linked below, so there is no need to repeat them at length here. Regardless of which layout one of those approximately 37,500 buyers chose for their 1965 New Yorker, he or she received a well styled car with many distinctive features, an equally well styled interior, the excellent Chrysler big-block/Torqueflite drivetrain, and Chrysler’s unit body and torsion bar front suspension, all of it put together well during a middle period between two quality control crises at Chrysler. Which 1965 Chrysler New Yorker is your favorite is a matter of taste, but they are all fine cars in their own right.
Curbside Classic: 1965 Chrysler New Yorker — The Last Great Chrysler?
Car Show Classics: 1965 Chrysler New Yorker
While I’m by far a hardtop fan, Chrysler really nailed the 6 window sedan greenhouse with its ’57 – ’59 cars and again with this ’65. Too bad sales couldn’t justify its continued existence – a great looking car in a practical and less rattle prone body style.
I’ve always found the 1965 Chrysler Newport and New Yorker.
I always marveled at the optical illusion of length that the extra window provided. While the regular 4 door sedan looks a touch ungainly, the 6-window roof line visually stretches the whole design, making it appear sleeker.
When I was a kid growing up in western Canada, these Chryslers were what my parent’s better off friends were driving. They were seen as aspirational and prestigious. Chrysler products always had a stronger per-capita presence in Canada compared to the US, and had a decent share of the market even into the 70’s. By the time my parents could afford one (loaded ’78 LeBaron coupe) they had degenerated into junk. It confounds me to this day how the same company which produced this gem turned into utter $hit a mere decade later.
I agree that back in the day Chrysler Windsors seemed to be everywhere you looked. Certainly in Edmonton and popular in rural areas because they were wonderful “highway cars.” For some reason the six window model is my favourite, perhaps because it offered a distinctive look from what else was being offered in roof styles.
These six window Newports were not sold in Canada They were only available on the New Yorker.
make mine a 1963-64 New Yorker Salon
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1963-1964-chrysler-new-yorker-salon.htm
still has the awesome shiny chrome dash
Why is ’65 the last great Chrysler? Why not the similar 1966 model?
Glass-covered headlights. Outlawed for ’66.
For me, anyway.
I think both Paul and Robert are including all model years of this generation (1965-1968) in their claim, just referring to them by the first year of this generation.
And, as usual, the initial “pure” design is always more attractive than the follow-up mandatory annual restylings.
I personally think that the ’66 Chryslers are more attractive than the ’65, especially the 300.
The ’67 Imperials are my favorite C-body of this generation.
The ’67 Imperial is a beautiful car inside and out. I can say so from experience, as I am helping a friend to revive one after years of storage. A convertible, no less.
Imperial is not a “C” body. It is known internally at Chrysler as a “Y” body.
Me too 🙂
I find the ’66 nicer too, especially the front bumpers – the ’65 is too fussy.
“”We reached the peak of sorts in our 1965 cars,” explains former Chrysler planning executive Gene Weis. “Though a financial genius, Lynn Townsend admitted that he ‘didn’t know product’ and consequently gave [product planning head] Bob Anderson a free rein in planning the 1965 line. We spent money on every aspect of our 1965 cars, adding content to best the competition, and targeting GM.”
THey started to decontent after the smashing success of the 1965 model.
btw, as noted above, the 1965 Hardtop did not have a vinyl top. The top was all paint, altho the rear pillars were covered in a rubber material.
These were beautiful cars in any form, but I must admit I really like the 6-window greenhouse without any vinyl roof. Especially in this color it conveys power and a sense of stateliness.
The 1965-68 C-bodies were unquestionably the last truly great Chryslers. Excellent styling, respectable quality, and all that chrome! A shame that cost-cutting has infected just about every Chrysler product since.
“Especially in this color it conveys power and a sense of stateliness.”
Exactly. Stateliness is something we don’t see any more.
I wonder what was the last stately car – can of worms, anyone?
1997 Lincoln town car
To me the 6-window is unquestionably better-looking. Emphasizes the length, and I like the angularity of it also.
Riding with the windows down would be better in the hardtop, yes, but even for someone who likes to have the windows down in nice weather (like myself), a larger part of the year is spent with windows raised and heat or A/C running.
Anyone else notice the vinyl roof on the station wagon? I wonder if that was Chrysler’s answer to Di-Noc woodgrain appliques (which would be more difficult to apply to Engel’s concave sheetmetal).
Likewise, was there anyone who offered more roof variations in the mid-sixties than Chrysler? Weren’t there no less than ‘three’ different kinds of Chrysler two-door hardtops for a single year at one point? That can’t have been cheap and it’s worth noting that sort of thing didn’t last for very long. In fact, I wonder how much that kind of expense created a situation at Chrysler where the pendulum swung back the other way and they went overboard trying to recover costs with later cars.
Vinyl roofs on station wagons would be an interesting article subject. The only other one that I can think of right off the top of my head (at least that I’ve seen in person) would be the Datsun 510 wagon.
My parents Estate Wagon had a vinyl roof.
Ford offered vinyl roofs on Country Squires and Colony Parks in the 70s
Pontiac offered vinyl-roof wagons in the late ’60s and possibly later.
Had a vinyl top on a 70 Vauxhall Viva estate dont know if it was original but it was still there in 80,
I’m less of a vinyl roof “hater” than most, but every time I saw it applied on a wagon, it reminded me of a hearse!
Love these. The glass headlight covers and the white/clear taillight lenses were really cool touches. I tried to buy a 1966 version of this car, with silver-blue paint and interior. It was not in as nice of condition as the 66 Fury III I was driving, but ohhhhhh, those seats!
It has always amazed me the number of roof treatments Chrysler put on this body between 1965-68, both 2 and 4 doors. It is well documented here how much I love the C body of this generation.
Don’t think I’ve ever seen the 6-window version of this car before. The extremely upright roofline, large glass area and very low beltline must have given superb visibility, a marked contrast to today’s Brink’s-truck like cars. You can definitely see the heritage of the humble K-cars here. A very neat car.
The passenger door mirror would have helped visibility too, an uncommon feature on most 1965 cars.
I noticed the passenger door mirror, too. In fact, this car reminds me of something I thought of while watching the youtube video of Jay Leno’s one-owner 1967 Imperial. In its essence, a fully-loaded ’65-’68 Chrysler four-door is not all that much different from today’s Chrysler 300, save some federally mandated safety features, EFI, and better brakes. With careful driving and maintenance, that mid-sixties Chrysler could easily last a lifetime.
Rudiger: agree. The same type of road presence that is so lacking in modern cars is there in the 300 of today and this 65 New Yorker.
It’s not so much the road presence thing as the fact that virtually all of those comfort and convenience items we take for granted in a new car today were all available in a timeless, non-pretentious car back in ’65-’68. It really hits home with the passenger side rear-view mirror and those C-pillar windows (now known as Day-Light Openings or DLOs) which are so common in today’s cars. Those two items reinforce the notion that these are the pinnacle of Chrysler’s big cars and, for many, could be used as the basis for Chrysler’s next retro-mobile.
Interestingly, the full-size 1965 Dodge was also available as a six-window sedan, but the full-size Plymouth was not.
The six window roof was also offered in Dodge form, but not Plymouth.
Well, the Custom 880 had been an emergency, stop-gap effort to get a true, full-size car into the Dodge line-up when it quickly became apparent that the downsized 1962 Mopars were going to be bombs. It was created by grafting a Dodge doghouse onto a Chrysler Newport body, so it makes sense that Dodge would get a six-window version of the 1965 Chrysler Newport, while Plymouth would not. By 1966, Chrysler had gotten their cars back in order with direct, model-to-model competition with Ford and GM, so the Custom 880 series was discontinued.
In fact, I wonder if the whole six-window thing was done specifically for the purpose of sharing the bodystyle between Dodge and Chrysler, since it was only built that one year (the last for the Custom 880) and it was possible to get the six-window roof as a Custom 880, Newport, or New Yorker.
Both of these 4 doors look great but I’ll take the wagon.I never even knew they made them, I’ve never seen them in the wild. Love those tailights!
My uncle, a traveling salesman of fine European opticals, had one of these. It replaced his ’62 Fleetwood. He drove all the time all over the middle part of the country, and had very good judgement in cars. I inevitably loved his cars, as they were such a contrast to our own, And his next car was a Mercedes 280SE.
As long as gas was affordable, this Chrysler would make an amazing salesman’s car. People may poke at and gripe about the “rear overhang” on these cars, but the trunks are shockingly big. In my old car driving days I test drove a 6 window Newport and realized that I’d have to climb into the trunk to retrieve the spare tire – and I’m a fairly big guy. Your uncle could probably have made inventory supply runs of his product with this car.
Yes, his trunk was jammed full. I remember him extricating a little telescope to give us kids. And yes, he did deliver the products too, at least to the smaller stores, as these were not high volume items.
The length and width of those trunks are amazing, I have put 6 foot long boards in mine diagonally and closed the lid.
However, the floor is completely flat because the gas tank is underneath, so it’s not hard to find things too tall to fit.
Starting in 1965 Ford moved the gas tank to up behind the rear axle, continuing that hump and creating a deep well behind it. I didn’t realise that Chrysler didn’t think of that around the same time. The remodeled Lincolns in 1964 had already changed to that idea.
Regarding the length of the trunks of these cars, here is a photo that ended up on the cutting room floor.
Colour fits right in, even if the package doesn’t! BTW, your first photo shows the Chrysler isn’t parked all the way forward – but what a trunk!
I had a ’69 Newport 2door and I do believe the fuselage cars had a longer trunk than the pre-fuselage cars. There was no way to get the spare while on the tarmac and I do not care how long your arms are.
Our family mechanic in the 1960s & 70s owned one of these for years. It took me a long time to find another one, as they were pretty rare.
Although a pillarless fan, this particular car nailed the posted sedan right.
Never has a more beautiful sedan than this one in the 60s graced the American road!
Take today’s car and change the paint to that gorgeous metallic dark green with matching green interior, and you’ve got a car that loomed big in my adolescence. Belonged to a Catholic monsignor who was a very close friend of the family and the employer of my mother’s older sister. After he died, I put the push on for dad to try and get the car, but I never did find out what happened to it.
In the midwest, back in the 60’s, a Chrysler New Yorker was THE class ride for the senior clergy.
Did anyone but me notice how narrow that parking space is painted?
I think it is the car that is seriously wide! 🙂
These were and are great cars. Robustly built, bulletproof drive trains, truly distinctive styling and they handled pretty well for a big Detroit sedan.
I took my driver’s license test in this, our family’s ’65 Newport. First car we had with A/C and it would freeze you to death on a 98°F day.
This generation of Chrysler is quite sharp, and well-preserved examples show up often at local car shows. They have a real presence on the road.
The family of a high-school friend was loyal to Chrysler, and they had a dark blue 1966 New Yorker hardtop sedan that they had bought new, and kept even after they bought a 1978 New Yorker Brougham hardtop sedan. That 1966 New Yorker was a tough car with an extremely roomy interior.
I love everything about this car and judging by its condition, its owner does as well. May they enjoy many more miles together.
I dunno. To me the ’73 is the last great Chrysler. It has more _something_ for me than the featured car. Perhaps that large imposing presence? I purposefully chose the black one to stress that it wasn’t the color, although black is my favorite color on these.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1973-imperial-lebaron-by-chrysler/
With so many great models, 1965 was the pinnacle of American styling. I had not previously seen the six window version of the New Yorker, but it seems a great way to add sleekness to a formal sedan.
I keep coming back to this car. But Robert, you didn’t give us a picture of that gorgeous interior! Found one. This dash has it all – padding, shiny paint, chrome and wood. Note too the translucent plastic steering wheel and the carpeted lower door panels. I can testify from experience that the seats were incredibly comfortable.
What’s a bit weird about these Chryslers is that there were fuel and alternator gauges on the dash, but water temp was left to idiot lights. The Imperial included temp and oil pressure gauges.
It was the same on my 68 Newport, and also on the 72 Newport that a friend’s father owned. That ever-present ammeter was one of the reasons I loved Mopars of that era. Those things were so sensitive that you got a lot of info about your electrical system if you watched it. Voltmeters are just worthless in comparison.
But it is slightly odd that Valiants and Darts from the same era had both temp and amp gauges.
I recall reading that Lynn Townsend authorized a very generous amount of money for the interiors of the all-new 1965 C-bodies, and it really showed, particularly with the Chrysler and Dodge dashboards.
Townsend may have had his flaws, but considering what he was given to work with (the ’62 downsizing debacle), he did okay, even if his mission statement was mostly to copy everything that GM did. Chrysler did have that one Ace-in-the-hole with their engineering prowess, though.
He was good in the beginning. Chrysler quality improved dramatically between 1961 and 1965, and the styling improved as well. The problem was that, by the late 1960s, the bean counter in Townsend came to the fore, and it was all about cutting costs and the Sales Bank.
And it always seemed strange to me that there was never a Chrysler personal luxury coupe to match the Toronado and the Riviera.
I’m not sure anyone in the auto industry thought the personal luxury coupe market was anything more than a fad, and it was only Iacocca’s love of brougham at Ford that really kept it alive. Remember, it started with the 1958 Thunderbird, yet it took GM until 1963 to get the Riviera to market (unless you want to count the 1962 Grand Prix). I have no doubt that Townsend looked at that huge time lag and figured if GM was so unsure about jumping into the personal luxury game, he should definitely hold off making a huge investment, hoping that the letter series 300 would be good enough. Plus, the sixties were all about performance, and Townsend and Chrysler simply dumped all their eggs in that basket.
Even with the stunning success of John Delorean’s mid-size 1969 Grand Prix and Iacocca’s Continental Mk III, Townsend ‘still’ waited, probably because of the huge investment in the new E-body at the time. At least when he did finally jump in, it was one of the few great moments for Chrysler in the seventies with the Cordoba.
I always thought it was such a shame that the Chrysler Turbine went to such waste. Had it been converted to a more conventional gas drive train and interior once they were done with the turbine concept It would have made an awesome Grand Prix / Riviera competitor and they could have recouped at least part of their investment.
This car had what looked like a very good condition interior, with some period literature strategically placed in it. I didn’t have any time to photograph it, though — I was in a hurry and barely had the two minutes that it took to walk around the car one in search of good exterior angles.
When we were kids, My grandfather would drive us to nursery school in his ’65 New Yorker – 4dr hardtop, but w/o the vinyl inserts – and my twin sister and I would bite the foam padding, leaving little tooth marks. My mother was horrified. He thought it was great.
I don’t think I ever saw one of these when they were new, but they’ve always fascinated me. First, because they came out just as GM abandoned the 4 and 6 window approach for their C bodies, and second, because the way CHrysler did it gave these cars a “little limousine” look, like the ’64 Crown Imperial.
One wonders why Chrysler didn’t use this model as the basis for a New Yorker Salon, which is essentially what Olds did with the contemporary Luxury Sedan.
’65-68 C body love here too. Made in *Belvidere IL!
* Yes, the IL town is spelled differently than the Plymouth Belvedere.
Given how many were made there, Neon should have been called Belvedere.
Up until 1973 Chryslers were made exclusively at the two places that God and Water P. Chrysler intended – Jefferson Avenue in Detroit and Windsor for the Canadian market. Both were Maxwell/Chalmers plants prior to the formation of ChryCo.
Beginning with the ’73 models, all C-body wagon production was consolidated in Belvidere. There was no ’78 T&C due to Belvidere’s conversion to the Omni/Horizon.
While it was considered too costly to move the wagon tooling back to Jefferson for one more year, that didn’t stop Chrysler from moving the Ramcharger from Warren Truck to Jefferson for just two years to bridge the gap between the end of the Cs and the beginning of the K-Cars. The move was all the more expensive due to having to convert Jefferson from unibodies (their last BOF car was the ’66 Imperial) to BOF and then back to unibodies two years later.
These New Yorkers, along with the period Lincoln Continental, represent a true high-water mark in terms of distinctly American automobile design and product quality. Let’s hope such a period is soon reprised. This whole SUV thing has gotten out of hand. How many chrome tchochkes can Cadillac hang on a Tahoe before buyers scream “ENOUGH ALREADY”!!
Most of the ’65 six windows seen back in the day were Newports and Dodge Polaras. Only 2,187 300 sedans were built, something never seen.
Personally, I preferred a New Yorker four door hardtop, but they should have also offered another model with simple clean, painted C-pillar…..though perhaps it would have looked too similar to the Imperial.
Oh, yes, and a ’65 New Yorker convertible should have been added to the line again, the 300L just wasn’t the same thing. After all, Buick Electra convertibles were available and quite popular.
Considering that the Newport & 300 combined only sold about 5000, I’m not sure how they justified the convertible at all.
I have seen a ’68 Newport convertible reworked into a fairly convincing New Yorker.
Probably not justified in terms of volume, but only as competitive opposition for the Electra convertible. After all, the effort to produce them was no more than writing the production orders fit and trim convertible bodies as New Yorkers.
I always liked the mid-’60’s Chryslers. I haven’t seen a Town Sedan in years.
Had a ’68 New Yorker (much less of a looker then the ’65-’67) purchased for $100.00 around 1983. Had wrinkled drivers fender and missing skirts, ugly faded puke (forest ranger) green in and out. But interior was still almost perfect and it still ran well, the 440’s torque is a great experience.
These were overshadowed by many more flamboyant cars of the decade, but these were a very rich looking, understated luxury car. There was one in my neck of the woods still being driven until the mid 90’s. I haven’t seen one since. How I wish the young people could experience the ride quality, the quality of fabrics, the overall design of how the exterior styling and the interior styling and the dash layout work together to give you the real luxury experience. The technology in today’s luxury cars will be obsolete in 10 years. The luxury in this Chrysler is timeless.
I like this generation of Chryslers. Big, but cleanly and elegantly styled with those Elwood Engel sharp creases. Tons of power too, with the 440.
Neighbor had a 1966 Town & Country wagon with the 440 TNT, which he used to pull a huge Airstream trailer. Still can remember the melody of the 440 from its factory duals as he backed that trailer up his steep driveway. I once asked him how it was pulling such a large trailer and he said that once on the highway he didn’t know it was there.
The last of the great Chryslers was the 78 New Yorker Brougham, if you got one that was built right and the Lean Burn was sorted out.
This rare six window job is quite conservative when compared to the “four window” sedan. It almost seems like it was cut from a different cloth than the four window, but the style definately works for me. In all my years of car watching, I`ve only seen a handful, so it was good to see one here.Definately a solid looking car and built like the proverbial brick outhouse, but thats a compliment-and a good one too.
I always knew when my grandparents were coming up the street; the 383 of their 65 Chrysler 4-door had a distinctive, high-pitched whirr…and I knew that in mere minutes I’d be showered in kisses, hugs, loose change and of course, candy.
Very nice memories!
I just noticed that the New Yorker Town Sedan apparently did not come with the lower body bright aluminum trim, as did the 4 door Hardtop.
My 1965 New Yorker 4 door hardtop has that lower trim. Many years ago, I had a New Yorker Town Hardtop for a short while. I have forgotten, but I will have to look for old pictures of it to see if it had that trim. I have seen some Town Sedans with the trim, albeit only a few, and assume that someone added the trim from a hardtop, or painted that area silver.
My favorite was the New Yorker Town Hardtop in the dark blue (as in the feature car). 15 yrs ago, when I bought my car, I found on exactly like it – in mint condition. The problem was that the price was 4 times what I ended up paying for my hardtop. I love the look of my hardtop, but still prefer the Town Sedan – very limo looking, as in a Mercedes Benz 600.
This is very interesting. I don’t remember the 6 window version. It surprises me that they would have 2 different roof designs for the hardtop and sedan. When I was growing up our neighbour at our summer cottage was a lawyer in a small Ontario town. As far as I can remember he always drove Chrysler’s, always dark blue and traded in every couple of years. He did have one of this year, but the hardtop. It was suitably distinguished for a lawyer.
I am glad to know that I’m not the only admirer of the ’65 to ’68 Chryslers. I followed up 18 months of a much driven ’59 DeSoto Firedome with about two years of an even harder used ’65 Newport 4 door. 1973 to 1975. Same color as the featured New Yorker.
Mine was quite the basic Newport, but the interior gave some feeling of serious business that the largely trim-less exterior did not. No A/C, mega power drum brakes and a 2 bbl. 383. I’m sure that was the lowest engine option. A lower compression version ( 9.2) with 270 HP that was said to be capable of using the cheapest 89 PON regular, although I used Premium. There had been a 305 HP version of the 2 bbl 383 that required Premium in my DeSoto.
I took it from approximately 70k mi. to 134k mi. in about 19 months. I added a CDI piggyback to the coil from a kit my Dad had built. That seemed to help fuel mileage. About 17.5 highway at 70 mph. One of the most reliable cars I have ever owned. I believe a set of shocks and a starter were my only repairs.
If I had to pick just one, a ’66 2 door 300 would likely be it.