It’s always satisfying to find a long-dormant old car parked anywhere in the salt states, as rust has taken far too many of them away from us. Hyperpack has recently been out on the backroads of Pennsylvania looking for old iron as many of us are inclined to do, and he’s posted this seen-better-days 1973 Chrysler Newport Custom Sedan on the CC Cohort.
The Newport was parked beside a repair shop that is apparently owned by a fan of C-Body Chryslers, although this 1968 New Yorker Hardtop (one of 8,060) looks like it’s seen the road more recently than the Newport has.
Judging by the rust on the New Yorker’s flat upper surfaces, I’d be inclined to think it is new to the area; cars in the Great Lakes and New England states always rust from the bottom up, and the New Yorker looks solid on its salt-susceptible surfaces.
The 1973 Newport Custom, on the other hand, is a little harder to judge because of its placement in the parking lot. It would have been hard to get a good profile view of a 230-inch-long fuselage with a New Yorker in the way on one side and a building on the other,
but Hyperpack was able to capture the 1973 model’s all-new nose and some of its other styling highlights.
The Newport Custom had a more luxurious interior than its base-model brother, and therefore cost $238 more in sedan format, not a terribly significant amount for a Chrysler buyer in 1973. Still, buyers overwhelmingly chose the base car (54,147 Newport Sedans to 20,092 Newport Custom Sedans).
The Newport Custom’s upholstery and accouterments were clearly noticeable, so the sales spread is a headscratcher. The seat we can see through the glass of our featured Newport suggests that the original owner chose option 5 above, the cloth-and-vinyl 50/50 bench seat, but I think I would have gone for the standard split-back bench shown in blue above. Old habits die hard, and the low-back bench is certainly more traditional, a hallmark of Chrysler buyers back in the day from what I’ve gleaned over the years.
I mentioned in the title that in addition to being the last of the Fuselage Chryslers, this particular car might have seen the end of the road. Of course, anything can be salvaged if someone wants it badly enough, but the top-down roof rust that is almost always caused by a vinyl top might be the car-killer here, although I’ve seen much worse in the way of vinyl top damage. If someone did want to resurrect the Newport, they could tear off the remains of the vinyl top, patch what they could, and paint the roof with some cheap Rustoleum or tractor enamel from the local farm store.
That would be a much better fate than being turned into a demolition derby car (is that still a thing?) or being used as a driveline donor. That is a real possibility, because the 1973 cars still came standard with a Chrysler big-block, the 400 in the case of the Newport Custom. (No 318s or 360s yet.) Being 1973, the big-block wasn’t quite as nasty as it was a couple years earlier, but it still put out 185 net horsepower in its standard four-barrel carbureted form, so the Newport could still show its stylish taillights to many other full-size automobiles. Chrysler’s electronic ignition was also installed in all their cars in 1973, so there was no performance degradation from changing dwell (and timing) as the points wore out. That spark only had to fire against the cylinder pressure of an 8.2:1 compression ratio, so regular gas was all that the Chrysler buyer needed to buy, albeit often and in large quantities. Mileage was certainly dismal.
But let’s hope that the future for this neat Newport isn’t. It’s not flashy (the color is either Sahara Beige or Honey Gold), but it represents what a typical fairly-well-heeled sedan buyer might have bought in 1973, and we’ve lost enough of that kind of history.
Related Reading
CC Capsule: 1973 Chrysler Newport Custom – A Real Car for a Real Man (by Jim Grey)
Curtis Perry Outtake: 1973 Chrysler Newport – “Reasonable Grounds To Believe It Is Abandoned” (by Paul N)
CC Outtake: 1973 Chrysler Newport – The Green Giant (by Paul N)
1968 Chrysler 300 Convertible: The Last Stop Before The Fuselage Chrysler (by me)
Fuselage did not diminish. Models from 1973 looked as accomplished as those from 1969, and this is a good example. The front end is most definitely entering the squared-off idiom that was taking hold, but it still blended well with the sprung sides and flowing rear. And the 5mph bumpers aren’t totally deadweight here, thanks to some deft sculpting. That comparo shot with the 68 New Yorker says it all about how superb was Fuselage.
Yes, demo Derbys are still a thing, firing on all cylinders ’round these parts.
A few doors down from the pair of the featured chryslers is a Demo Derby Regular. Fortunately, he is usually mashing up Blue Oval Panther cars, FWD’s and GM’s; I have yet to see him destroy a Chrysler / MoPar.
Additionally, there are many more pictures in the cohort of the ’68 New Yorker before the OLDMANTAN ’73 Newport showed up at this particular shop.
Enjoy!
The 73 front end always looked like full size Chevys to me……the logo looked like a bow tie from a distance as well.
When I was a teen, my best friend’s father had a black 72 Newport Royal 2 door. I got to drive it a couple of times and those drives as responsible as any for my longtime Mopar fan status. As between the loop bumper 72 and this more formal 73, I can go either way.
When these were still fairly common, I eschewed them for the prior versions (like that black 68). But with the passage of time I love these fuselage cars more and more. One in this condition would make a great daily driver that a fellow would not have to feel guilty about, because nobody is ever going to restore this one.