(first posted 10/22/2012) There’s a big wagon-load of postings at the Cohort, and I’m going to make a serious effort this week to get to more of them. And it starts with this big bad boy, a ’68 Chrysler T&C, posted by bjcpdx. As the headline makes rather clear, the ’65 – ’68 Chrysler wagons are my favorite of the genre Wagonus Americanii Giganticus. If only my father had felt the same way.
When my Dad was shopping for a new wagon in 1965, he looked at the mid-size Plymouth Belvedere at the Chrysler-Plymouth dealer. I hopped into a big Chrysler wagon, and he had to practically drag me out. “No; I want you to get this instead (you cheap bastard)!” Maybe that’s why he left in a hurry and bought a Dodge Coronet instead, without me in tow.
And a few years later, some University friends of ours did buy a big Chrysler wagon, and I got to ride in it a few times. Talk about turning the knife.
Actually, I’m not a fan of Ni-Doc, so it would have to be a “steelie” version for me. And a dark color; maybe even black, to accentuate the classy and timeless design of this big long rectangle.And a ’65 or ’66, actually, which have the much nicer sides, as well as grilles. I’m getting picky again.
More like this; with a 440 big block, of course. Love that endlessly-long roof carrier too. What a beast.
Growing up my neighbors had a 68 Town & Country…silver with wood grain…TThey were the typical 60’s family with 5 kids. They called it the silver bullet and used it to pull a huge trailer every summer…My recollection also was the huge roof rack.
The car was huge until my Dad bought a 72 Buick Estate Wagon!
I sadly have never seen one of these before. Such a handsome design. The taililghts & rear styling are just incredible. The pillars are so thin & the beltline is so low: I bet these are a dream to drive. Just wow.
+1
This is indeed great, but I like the fastback coupe version. In 1985 I got a ride from the train station to the university dorm from three brothers who had a 68 Polara, like the car they were enourmous guys, and very tough customers.
To get such long sheets of mactac must have endangered fake wood national forest!
Love the slab-side Chryslers. Never rode in one of the wagons, but my grandmother’s last vehicle was a ’65 New Yorker in metallic blue. That was one handsome car.
The 68 Chrysler is one of my very favorite cars, and I drool over almost all wagons. This one has me so happy I can hardly stand it. We can all quit CC right now, Paul – it just doesn’t get any better than this car.
It is a little known fact that the big Chrysler wagon may have been the only car of the 1960s that came with front and rear air conditioning.
I will confess that although I owned a 68 Newport sedan for a couple of years (and really, really enjoyed it), I have never ridden in a genuine T&C. A high school friend drove his family’s 68 Plymouth Suburban, and I liked that one quite a lot. Actually, I believe that all of the C body Mopar wagons used the same body, so that Plymouth would have been pretty close, other than with lesser-quality interior appointments.
I will stop talking now, and just go back to look at the pictures some more. Sigh.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Imperial available with dual A/C units in the early 60s? Same may be true of Cadillac, though that’s unlikely.
Oops – I had forgotten about the Imperials. A quick peruse of the Imperial Club website confirms that the option was available through at least 1966. I suspect that with the redesigned 67, that option may have gone away, but after being caught flatfooted in my last blanket statement, will leave some room for more info.
The dual AC and Heat option was available on the Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth wagons and Imperials till 1973. They did not add that feature in the 1974 redesign. They used the same basic system in the wagons from 1960-1973.
Thanks for the info. I always knew that it was a fairly unique system, but never had any firsthand experience with one. I had no idea they were offered that long. I would imagine that there was no better car for a long trip across the southern U.S. in July than a T&C so equipped.
I had a 71 T&C from 94-02, it was quite a car. It was rusty when I got it, but i painted it and drove it all over the place. I was even able to get the AC working for a couple of summers (it was front only) and in about a half hr the inside was very cold.
I drove it daily from 94-98 put on 100k in that time.
My 71 T&C in the end.
The Front:
Did they come with the 300 grille in ’71?
Crap — I typed that question out & lost my changes (no big loss). Too bad about the rust — that is a very sleek looking wagon. The “400” emblem is a nice touch — well placed..
Thanks i took a hint from the 71-72 road runner. It came with a 383 from the factory but it had a sweet 400 4bbl when I had it. It had a wicked passing gear at 70mph.
Na I put the 70 300 grill on it. I liked the way it looked, and I had a spare grill. I also put the round 69-70 2door Chrysler mirrors on it because i liked the look. It was originally b3 blue with wood sides. The paint and wood grain was faded badly, so why not a Macco yellow paint job!
That wrinkled fender happened when a 89 grand am made a turn in-front of me, the grand am was wiped out.
Too bad the factory didn’t do that. 300 Sport Wagon, or maybe Town & Country Sport, or 300 Town & Country, or………….
Yes, the dual a/c unit was magical. I wrote about it in replies to the recent post on the ultimate Exner Imperials, having owned a ’63 so equipped until about 6 years ago. Like central air on wheels. With cool air coming from two directions, a heavy hand on the fan switch is unnecessary, so the auditory as well as tactile sensations are pleasurably muted.
These were indeed wonderful big bruisers. The last car pictured, in deep brown with dual exhausts, really sums them up for me. In my view, minivans can never replace these magnificent wagons.
I’ve been casually shopping 65-on big Chryslers. I have a feeling if I saw one of these in serviceable condition, I’d probably cave in to the temptation to have one. Man, that last pic is just plain sweet.
The first car I drove was our 1969 Chrysler Town and Country with the 440 and both front and rear air! It had a limited slip differential, so I never peeled out with it, but when you floored it your back would sink into the cushion.
I endorse this post! 🙂
The T&C was spared the di-noc wood on the sides from 65-67. The last pic that you posted is a rare 1965 New Yorker wagon, not a Town & Country which was based on the Newport. (That’s OK though, don’t change the picture. 🙂 )
You might want to reconsider black in a 67-68 Chrysler. Due to the complex shape ahead of the rear wheelwell in these two years, the steel tended to look as if it was dented, and this was more pronounced on dark cars.
I attached a pic of one of the most beautiful and highly optioned 66 T&C’s out there. This one isn’t part of my fleet, but I did photograph it in my driveway.
The T&C in my picture above has almost every available factory option, including factory dual A/C. The rear A/C ducts are in an overhead console, which would block the view of the rearview mirror. The mirror was relocated from the top of the windshield to the dashboard, like 50’s Chryslers.
Note the white painted sections on the sides and roof. That is the way it came from the factory. Two-tone paint on the 1966 Newport (Windsor in Canada) and T&C was an option.
Also note the fang-like bumperettes on the front bumper. These were only shown in the brochure in pictures of the New Yorker, but they were available for all 1966 Chryslers except the 300.
BOC, at the risk of threadjacking, I have to ask. Are you on the Dock with the number “66” in your name? Always enjoy your posts, if so…just now noticing the possibility that you’re him!
Yep, that’s me. There are at least 3 of us from the Dock on here, but I think you and I are the most frequent posters.
I’m a longtime lurker over there. Different screen name, though.
The Dock? Curious. That’s a beautiful wagon. Thanks for posting the pic as it identfies ANOTHER unknown wheelcover style in my collection 🙂
Those 15″ wheelcovers came on all 1966 C-body Mopars ordered with front disc brakes, and some 1967s. They’re somewhat rare because the take rate for disc brakes wasn’t too high then.
Several times now, I’ve come across one at a swap meet and the seller asks me what it’s off of. There’s no brand identification on them, just the words “DISC BRAKES”.
cbodydrydock.com, JB. More proof (along with CC) that the highest use of modern technology is to support the appreciation of obsolete technology.
As is probably clear from the level of knowledge displayed by our respective commentary, I’m only a “318 2-Bbl” over in big Mopar land, while BOC is a “Blown 500 Stroker” or something impressive like that. 🙂
Wow…a forum for “my” kind of Mopars — thanks so much for the link. I’ll REALLY be unproductive now.
If I joined, they’d probably call me “lean burn”, ha-ha! It still sounds better than “Junior Member” though….which is what I am on a lot of these other forums I occasionally troll.
+1, ha!
I’m on the dock too, don’t post too much though.
The New Yorker wagon was also a Town and Country. Postwar the Town and Country sedans and roadsters were Windsors, powered by the six, and the pioneering hardtops and convertible club coupes were New Yorkers, powered by the eight.
When the Town and Country wagons reappeared in the fifties, they were also built as both Windsors through 1960 and New Yorkers through 1965. The former was replaced by the Newport Town and Country in 1961. Through 1962, the New Yorker Town and Country continued on the 126″ wheelbase, even though the straight eight that made the long hood necessary was long gone.
Town and Country became a separate series in 1966. Imperial was a different division, so T&C was the heaviest and most expensive Chrysler. Even so, it rode the shortest wheelbase. Di-Noc fake wood was pioneered by the T&C, but it didn’t start wearing it again until 1968. There was a wood delete option.
The T&C stood alone through 1977, except late in the year when the LeBaron Town & Country joined it in showrooms. Strangely, the big T&C was not available with leather, but the LeBaron was. They wore the LeBaron name until the series turned minivan. By then, it was the only series in continuous production since before WWII.
Hitch-hiking in the summer of 63, a couple of pastors picked me up in a 63 Newport wagon. I was very impressed with the car, more so than the 63 T-Bird I rode in a few days later. Appearance-wise I prefer this model to the later ones. I wish I had a picture of one to contribute.
The ultimate urban assault vehicle. Plus, it could double as a motorhome!
I bought a 1965 in 2003 as a cheap substitute for a truck. $300 from a new car dealer. 120k or so. The dash board resembled a juke box. We once carried a refrigerator on the roof rack. Fully optioned, but no back up lights. The stainless delete fillers probably cost more than real lights. Someone gave me 4 almost new Firestone 500’s after the fifth had blown out. I traded it on a new 74 Fiat and got a nickle a pound. My friends at the dealership needed a short term tow vehicle.
I remember driving in one of these where the horn would start honking whenever we were taking a hard left… it caused some dangerous reactions from other drivers… but we could never get the car to stop doing that.
These 68 Chryslers were truly built like boxcar tanks.
Oh man. Life calls me away from this place for a day, and that’s when Paul hits us with a sweet slab of C-body.
I only wish for some interior shots. The ’65-’66 cars had the sort of “jukebox” early-’60s dash mentioned above, while the next two years had a full-width die-cast Danish-modern-ish rectilinear vibe. Both fascinating and unlike anything that followed, due to changing safety regs.
(In the spirit of an election year, I expect BOC and JPC to fact-check this statement. 🙂 )
Supposedly the dashboard on the 1965-66 Chryslers featured the largest single piece of diecast metal in the industry at that time.
A friend in high school had a 1966 Chrysler New Yorker hardtop sedan that her family had bought brand-new. That dashboard was quite a sight even in 1980. (Their “good” car was a 1978 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham hardtop sedan, which was also bought brand-new.)
The car had a HUGE interior thanks to a high roofline and little curvature of the side glass – four people could sit in the front seat!
Their next car was a 1981 Plymouth Reliant sedan…which wasn’t quite the same. At least they kept the 1966 and 1978 New Yorkers.
The 1965-66 gauge cluster was supposed to evoke the look of the earlier “Astrodome” gauges, but with a much more conventional design. The Astrodome not only looked cool, the gauges were all electro-luminescent. My dad had a 62 Chrysler Saratoga and one of the ballast transformers burned out in his.
> Supposedly the dashboard on the 1965-66 Chryslers featured the largest single piece of diecast metal in the industry at that time.
True at the time, but I believe they then out-did themselves with an even heavier casting for 1967.
My father bought a ’66 300 from “the Tuesday night Auction” in Jasper, AL maybe 20 years ago for $700 on a whim — it was originally white with red buckets/buddy seat interior but had been repainted an awful light blue color. It did have an interesting “rainbow” speedometer..slightly reminiscient of the Astrodome cluster though nowhere near as fascinating.
It was my first ride in a Chrysler & quite an experience. My father wasn’t always a lead foot but the first or second time I rode in it, we were on the four lane (in town) and he got on it — I leaned over saw the speedometer had just topped 100mph.
I was 17 or so & didn’t know cars very well but could tell the 383-4V engine was out of tune (I didn’t hear the secondaries) & the transmission wasn’t adjusted right since the RPMs never got that high. Oh..and the car had a jacked up exhaust system with one rusty glasspack muffler on it.
What a car…it semi-consciously attained over 100mph without even trying and it wasn’t even 440-powered.
I used to see around here a 1966 wagon very similar to the burgundy and white one shown here. It was bright red and white though, and was clean and straight every time I saw it. I wonder what happened to it….
One time at a small local meet a guy showed up with a 1965 T&C wagon in (light metallic) sage green with a burgundy interior. He showed me the trim tag – I don’t remember the codes but at the time they checked out as original.
If you’re referring to the picture that I posted, it’s not really burgundy, it’s in shadow because there’s a big tree overhead putting it in shadow. It’s actually a bright red called “Scorch Red”. I’ll look for another pic that’s in better light…
That is one stunning wagon – the white bits on the roof you mentioned earlier are brilliantly different. And twin A/C as well? Love it!
Here’s an even better one in full sunlight. This is our convoy that drove together to the annual Mopar car show this past August.
I’m drooling. My Dad had a golfing buddy who had no kids. Instead, he had two wonderful cars, an XKE coupe and a series of mid – ’60s T & C wagons. The front seats were amazing to behold… like large, square-pleated black leather couches in a posh men’s club.
The only thing I would add to this beauty would be the front clip of a ’66 300…my favorite nose on Chryslers of these years… to break up the wide, blunt expanse of grille.
I own the red 66 wagon being discussed in the past few posts… and I’ve always wondered what it would be like to create a “300 wagon” – and now I know. Thanks for the skillful photoshop work!! I love it!
I never had the wagons, though the closest “wagon” is my current car, the Mazda Protege5, as good as it is, it’s nothing like these beauties though, especially when properly fixed up and like new.
However, I did have a Chrysler in HS. It was my first car, a ’68 standard pillared, 4 door Newport Custom sedan with the base bench seat and under dash AirTemp AC that didn’t blow cold.
It was past its prime, but still ran, smoked some at 113K+ miles, and had an almost none existent muffler and sagging springs. It had the base 2BBL 383 V8 with the legendary Torqueflite automatic but didn’t have a lot of options, though it had the rare front disc brakes however.
I have always loved these concave bodied Chryslers the best of the period and loved that modern dash and how when equipped with factory AC, the outer dash vents were fitted into the black end panels on either end of the dash, and that it often came with a thumbwheel radio, though only the AM and AM/FM models as the 8-track AM radio had conventional rotary shafts instead.
I miss that old beast and there are 2 67 Newports in the same blue on blue that mine was, one very nice shape with the upgraded bench seat with fold down armrest, and yes, it is also a pillared sedan and there is either a ’65 or 66 that’s been poorly painted a mint green with white top and they all live in Seattle, on Capitol Hill, at least 2 of them anyway.
Been meaning to get a photo of one of them and will try to do just that soon.
Quite the family cruiser!
My best…1969
Very nice?????
I’m a big fan of fuselage styling which has been covered elsewhere in CC. ???
It was nice when the domestic upscale brands offered a wagon, Chrysler still offers the T&C as a luxury minivan, but Buick and Lincoln have abandoned the market.
You’re in good company.
http://www.speedhunters.com/2013/03/a-wagon-that-rocks-n-rolls/
My father had a white ’68 T&C just like in the pics. Remember it as a truly awful car, it always had issues starting. The dashboard was awesome though with the oversized toggle switches and rotary controls. Interestingly, my father later had a Buick Estate wagon too!!
Back in 1965 my next door neighbor bought a new, quite large, Airstream trailer. When his ’63 Ambassador wagon proved not up to the task as a tow vehicle, he bought a new Town & Country. White, no wood, with A/C and that cool mile long luggage rack. And, the 440 TNT !
Still recall the magnificent sound out of the dual exhausts of that 440 as he backed that Airstream up the hill of his driveway.
As much as I love Ramblers I will totally agree a big Airstream trailer is out of the ’63 Ambassador’s league as far as a tow vehicle for it. It is the same size as my 3 ’63 Classics I have owned over the years and they are smallish intermediates. And having driven or owned several mid 60’s C bodied Mopars I will also agree they are very well suited for towing the big Airstream trailers when properly optioned.
I kept a picture of this custom creation that I saw on eBay recently. It was just so cool to me!! And yes, it’s not a ’60’s wagon, but still, what a presence !! 🙂
That’s a great looking car. The only issue is there are one too many fender emblems. Having both ‘New Yorker’ and ‘Town and Country’ with the exact same style is a bit much. He should have just stuck with one or tried to find one of the emblems with a different font.
On the last C-body T&Cs, I’ve always loved how the chrome (or the woodgrain trim in the case of woodies) did that little skip down before the fender skirt.
While the wagon is okay, I’d still go for a hardtop or sedan for the ’65-’68 Engel Chryslers.
But what I’d really like is a next generation fuselage car, most likely a 300 convertible. For those, the wagon is not my least favorite, but the 2-door hardtop. It just doesn’t look as well balanced as the other body styles.
Plus, Harry Truman and John Lennon had fuselage Chryslers.
I saw a 67 in Napier recently it will be on the cohort somewhere steel sides no formica kitchen drawer plastic on the sides, looked real nice.
As a kid in the eighties, some friends of the family had a 68 Monaco wagon. The 383 ran like no tomorrow. The disc brake parts were tough to find in the pre internet days. That car made many camping trips with our scout troop.
Very cool find. Reminds me of The Brady Bunch everytime I see a old Chrysler wagon. Make no mistake, I am a Ford guy; my mom had a 68 LTD Country Squire wagon, 390 4bbl, and my old man had a 73 Mercury Colony Park wagon 460 4bbl. Both as big as a small country, and that 68 390 made the smog choked 460 in the 73 look silly. But I have been finding myself lately a closet Chrysler fan; why I don’t know, maybe because I am 50, and my only real recollections of ChryCo products from the 70’s, when I came of age, is that they were complete rattletraps, and it was a bet to see if they rusted out before the knobs fell off the dash. Allpar is awesome. On a side note, I should submit a write up on my 83 Ranger 4×4
I had a kid driving one of these delivering flowers make a left turn in front of my 6 month old ’74 Fiat X1/9 back in the day. Not good. No shoulder belts back then, so I got a nice knot on my forehead from smacking the windshield and a little over $2k in damage to the left front fender/trunk area. The repair took nearly 2 mos, they did a terrible job but wore me out to where I cussed them out for a solid 10 minute stretch and took the car, I had a shop in Anaheim, Ca. that knew what it was doing pull the body to straighten it and had a full quality respray from green to black paint. I’ve disliked these gigantic boatwagons ever since.
Photo #3: The fallen leaves covering the wagon remind me
of autumn tailgates at high school or college football games…
In the 1960’s & 1970’s these Mopar wagons were ALL OVER the suburbs I grew up in. It seemed like every other driveway had either a T&C (or a lower priced Newport) wagon in the driveway…or a Full sized Ford station wagon.
Odd choices, given the price difference between the two?
Perhaps the Chrysler dealer discounted da hale outta them?
I happened to have shot this car a few years ago and made art out of it, which happens to be of a crime scene…. this isn’t my usual subject matter.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stacyflower/9887414195/in/album-72157633392769430/
Here’s the pic of this gruesome crime scene in the same 68 Town and Country.
To quote the sales brochure:
“This one musters up the kind of luxuries most other wagons can only dream of. Which is why it’s simply the most elegant wagon about town. Or country“.
We had a ’68 Chrysler Town and Country Wagon that my father bought for $400 in the early 1980’s. He actually bought a ’68 Monaco(?) wagon at the same time in a package deal, but Mom and he liked the Chryler better, and he sold the Monaco for a profit. Mom drove that for years. We all learned to drive in it. It was the best. One time a pinto or something pulled out in front of her, the Pinto was crushed (though with no injuries) and the Chrysler had a small dent in the bumper – insurance paid out $400 to get that fixed, though it never was – so the wagon itself was free! I think it only had a 383 though. Not a better American wagon ever built. Solid, reliable. Everything worked, and continued working. That wonderful dashboard. Handled pretty well for it’s size, too. And looked really cool, menacing in a way, but also welcoming. Ours had the Di-Noc, but apart from a few small chips it was not too worse for wear.
No dinoc in white looks good somebody in Napier has one, its a lot of car, theres a lot more variety in the classic imports coming in these days, its a good thing.
A ’66 Dodge Polara was our family truckster when I was growing up, so I agree that these were the best American wagons. Unfortunately, ours was the on the other end of the features scale from the New Yorker and/or T&C wagons, with dog dishes, 14″ tires (and likely drum brakes all around), featureless red vinyl bench seat, featureless red vinyl door panels, AM radio, a dome light as the only interior lighting, and no factory A/C (an aftermarket Cust-O-Matic unit broke by the time I was a teenager and was later removed; it made the front seating feel more cramped, and it never could cope with all that untinted glass anyway). The luggage area had a linoleum or laminate coating, no carpeting. The floor was carpeted but in very thin loop-pile weave. Base engine in wagons was the 383 which is probably what this had – it was plenty powerful. One of the few options was a power rear window. I also liked how the ignition key cylinder was illuminated when the headlamp switch was in the middle parking-light setting.
The wagon I really wanted was a fully-loaded ’65 or ’66 Chrysler (which I like better than the ’67-68 for the former’s fan-dial speedometer, a toned-down version of the “Astra-Dome” gauge cluster on early ’60s Chryslers) and simpler exterior styling. The pic below shows a ’65 NYer wagon interior, with all the conveniences my fam’s Polara didn’t have, including split front seats, fold-down armrest, power windows and locks, carpeting all over the seatbacks and doors, a fancier audio system, and not just factory A/C but dual factory air conditioners, one in front and one in back. The ductwork for the rear A/C blocked the normal view from the insider rearview mirror, so the mirror was placed on the dash as in late ’50s/early ’60s Mopars. Anyone know what was the last year the dash-mounted rearview mirrors were used?
There’s that car again! I shot this pic years back and then made it into a scene when I was doing this type of art.
Did any of these have the rear window cleaner, which worked by retracting the power windows, letting it do its thing, and rolling the window up? How did these work, and how popular were they?
After their beautiful styling for the 1966s, this was a letdown to my eyes. The grille is unnecessariy complex with the sharp angled design. The taillights looked someone had saved them from the 1965 parts bin. The nice flowing design was good though, nice straight clean lines.
As a commenter said above, put the front clip from a 1966 on this and I could calm down.
My drivers ed. car in 1972 [Montclair CA.] was the white w/wood paneling wagon. Equipped w/ brakes on the passenger side. To a 15 yr. old it felt huge and scary, like I was going to hit everything.