Chrysler has gone back to the 300 well numerous times, but probably the least successful attempt was this one in 1979, which chasglyn found in San Francisco. It was just an option package on that year’s Cordoba coupe, costing $2040. Less than 2900 were built, making these a rare find, although I suspect that a higher than average number of them survived than plain Cordobas. The 300 moniker still had some magic, even in the depths of the malaise era.
The 300 got all the best hardware available at the time: 195 hp 360 V8 (5.9L), with four barrel carburetor and dual exhausts, police-spec suspension, brakes and 15×7″ wheels, and a 3.23:1 rear axle. There were plans to have a 300 model for the second generation Cordoba in 1980, but it just never happened. And the next 300 would be something quite different altogether.
I remember looking at one at 19 years of age in the local CP-store. Our neighbor was the service manager so I wasn’t a stranger there. I got all the promo material for it. This was the first year of the E58 and even if you were approaching 200 HP from 360 cubes in 1979, that was something for the malaise era. The ’79 E58 had 195. Many ended up under the hoods of Volare-Aspen F-body cop cars and were used by the RCMP on the prairies where I lived. My dad had just leased a lame LeBaron Coupe with the 318-2bbl Lean-Burn POS and I was PO’ed at what could have been with a little advance ordering.
What a slug that was, especially compared his previous DD, a 460 Elite that could at least get out of it’s own way (and a little smoke sometimes too).
Flip side
And if memory serves,I believe Chrysler also made one in `73 based on the “fuselage” coupe, with an Imperial interior.
I think you’re thinking of this, it’s a ’70 300 Hurst, and yes, they did come with Imperial-level interior trim.
Can’t be many of these converts left.
To be more precise, there might be ‘one’ 300 Hurst convertible. None were built as a regular production vehicle for sale through the dealership network. The one that was built was a one-off custom, built by Hurst for promotional duty, so I guess it could be called ‘official’.
There’s supposedly another custom where the owner installed a Hemi and modified the hood to simulate the non-functional scooped Challenger hood.
I stand corrected on the year. Thank you!
that is stunning
Wow–300 performance goodies (the last of the full-size muscle cars from Chrysler) and an Imperial-level interior? Yes, please, sign me up!
wow! I have never seen this car before very cool…its like a sporty Imperial
Did these 300s come with “soft Corinthian leather?”
Boy was this ever a shock. They totally made it up. That never even occurred to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinthian_leather
I thought Ricardo Montalban had more class than to outright lie in a commercial.
Yes, in red only. The chrome buckles wore holes in the driver’s seat after 15,000 miles. I had two of these cars.
It’s a personal luxury coupe. I like it even if it wasn’t successful. It is somewhat of a shock to see the crosshair grill on something that old. Looks like something from the new Charger.
The crosshair grille goes back further than this. The letter cars from the early 60s have sported that look. And for a model year or two, the D series pickups had crosshair grilles. That look has bounced back and forth between Dodge and Chrysler a few times over the years.
The MoPaR crosshair grille originated in 1960 on the Chrysler 300F.
It goes to show my age doesn’t match my mentality, but I think the crosshair grilles were always inappropriate on Dodges from the 90s on. I grew up admiring old cars, I was much more aware and enamored over the old 50s/60s 300s with the trademark crosshair grille than the blobby cab forward Dodges I grew up with.
The concept did make it to the second generation Cordoba, but under the Cordoba LS name and without the HD hardware.
Unfortunately, the J bodies didn’t get the uncorked 360 from just a few years previous. Most of these are 318s.
Ive said this a billion times on this forum and others, but the Cordoba LS really was a missed opportunity. That car was a looker, but it really SHOULD have been the 2nd generation Dodge Magnum (carrying the hi-po 360, police suspension, choice of TF or 4spd manual and no broughammy gingerbread), with the Mirada as a Plymouth. Granted, these were dark times for performance, but considering that Ford and GM did have at least SOMETHING for the ponycar set, Mopar’s only offering (G body Daytona and Laser) didn’t really compete on the same level and left a lot of money on the table.
I strongly suspect that they had CAFE issues which prevented them from doing that, not to mention programs such as this were not exactly high-priority when the company was just fighting to stay alive.
Now let me tell you about a little known option that year. This same powertrain was available in M-body LeBarons & Diplomats, which were somewhat lighter. Tied into the “Heavy Duty Trailer Assist Package”.
FWIW , there were a handful of Miradas that had an E58, but it was down to 185 HP.
Also, plenty of F-body cop cruiser had this engine.
Agreed, it was about CAFE, as well as image issues as Chrysler was suddenly trying to portray itself as relevant to the future with fuel efficient cars. The ’79 300 was planned somewhere in ’77 or ’78, probably to take small advantage the rather weak GM intermediates that GM introduced in the fall of ’77.
If the car had lived on with the 360 in either the old body or the new J body in 1980, it would have been totally irrelevant for both sales and image as OPEC II was raging. Lee Iacocca visited Capital Hill looking for loan guarantees chauffeured in an OminRizon as a publicity stunt to say Chrysler is all about FWD and fuel efficiency.
I can’t help thinking that your CAFE laws were responsible for an awful lot of dreary cars. In hindsight, perhaps your government would have done better to slap a tax on gas, let the car companies build what they wanted (that’s free enterprise, no?), and let the market decide what to buy.
@Pete: Well, any time a new regulation is phased in, whether it’s fuel economy, emissions, safety, or CO2, the initial efforts tend to be rather dire because automakers are scrambling to comply however they can. The eternal challenge in that regard is that automakers complain that new regulations aren’t technically feasible or can’t be achieved within the lead times regulators allow, but regulators also know that if they give automakers too much time to comply, the companies will use that time to try to squelch the regulation entirely. Eventually, the automakers figure out how to do it without making the customer suffer so much in the process and things go back to normal until the next new regulation or regulatory tier.
” In hindsight, perhaps your government would have done better to slap a tax on gas, let the car companies build what they wanted (that’s free enterprise, no?), and let the market decide what to buy.”
Or stay the hell out of the auto biz entirely. Sticking the buying public with a penalty for making their own decisions (no matter how politically incorrect) is just a slap to the face of the free market. Theres no way that a bigger chunk of my hard earned cash is better of in some politician’s pocket than in my own.
@Pete: I may not be entirely accurate here, but pretty close.
The government did effectively give manufacturers an opportunity to continue building less fuel efficient cars if they were willing to pay a gas guzzler tax on each unit that failed to meet certain mileage standards. I believe that GM in particular made a corporate edict that no products would pay the tax, probably in part to foster a fuel efficient reputation. That led GM engineering to all sorts of efforts, some successful and some not, to crank up the mileage of their cars. GM had it toughest in some ways because their large car franchise was the strongest of any of the manufacturers, and they had the most to lose if their big products died.
Chrysler was eventually prepared to walk away from big cars, and did. Ford was prepared to walk-away, but outlived GM in the long run as their smaller large car franchise was better balanced by smaller cars, and some easing of government restrictions.
To the best of my knowledge, Mercedes and some other brands were more willing to pay guzzler taxes in an effort to maintain the prestige of their products. That is where GM really failed Cadillac – they had a way to keep decent engines in their luxury cars and didn’t. Perhaps GM’s decision on the Gas Guzzler tax was one of their Deadly Sins?
This Wiki article explains things, and explains one big reason why 1980 was such a dire year for the loss of automotive performance. The second big reason was OPEC II and its impact on gas prices and the economy in general.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Tax_Act
Edit: Geozinger beat me to it.
I don’t know why the American car companies didn’t do the same as the German car companies WRT to CAFE.
Which was to produce the big gas guzzlers and let the consumer take the hit on the gas guzzler tax. It would have prevented all kinds of crap from being foisted upon us such as Lean Burn, Variable Venturi Carburetors, V8-6-4 and God knows stuff I’m forgetting 35 years on. All this sales weighted crap is just that… Crap! I’m all for cleaner air (I grew up in the industrial midwest, next to a steel mill…) and better fuel mileage, but why not let people get what they want?
Imagining an alternate reality: “You want a 455 ci Cadillac Sedan DeVille? We’ll sell it to ya! But you (as the consumer) are on the hook for the gas guzzler tax. You want something with better fuel mileage? Well, we’ve got this nice Seville for a few dollars less…”
The problem with that scenario is that, if GM or even Chrysler had taken that route, Congress would have said, “The law isn’t working as intended, so we have to make the standards tougher (or increase the fines for noncompliance).”
It wasn’t entirely fair, but the domestics simply couldn’t get away with the route taken by the Germans.
@geeber: True. Sort of like the old saw that goes: The beatings will continue until morale improves…
The Mirada was only available with the E58 360 for the first year of production, and they are quite rare. Still I’d love to see one, as I always preferred the Mirada’s styling to the Cordoba’s.
The Cordoba LS name was really weak, otherwise I think that bodystyle and nose are incredibly attractive, especially considering it’s an early 80s car. Lately I’ve been seeing restomodded ones showing up at cruise nights, I know that’s a sore subject here at patina central but seeing those cars all hopped up with Mopar Performance goodies under the hood is just great to see, really I don’t think I’ve seen an original one in person ever, so if they’re going to exist they may as well be nice.
It’s a real shame that they couldn’t do another 300 on the J body chassis. It would have been a great car for the times. OTOH, with the memory of the 1979 oil crisis just directly in our collective rear view mirror, maybe not. I remember those times and the last thing you wanted was a car that had bad fuel economy. Wages weren’t keeping up with rise in fuel prices and that was affecting all prices.
A L body Omni would have made a lot more sense in 1979…
The M body cars weren’t THAT different than what a J body 300 would’ve been when it comes to efficiency. The parts existed in the bins to do it, but Ma Mopar was in survival mode. Problem is, tightening your belt doesn’t generate a buzz around what youre selling.
Neat car, and Ive actually seen a few clean examples here on CL for under $10K. But man, oh man do I HATE those stacked square headlights on this car! This crosshair grille transplanted onto the more jaguar-inspired first run ‘Dobas wouldve looked awesome.
For the times, this car was a real performer. The same basic engine package was used on the Little Red Express Truck. That was the fastest truck you could buy at the time and I remember reading that the LRET and 300 were the highest performing American vehicles you could get for the ’78/’79 MY’s. I think that was on AllPar…Id have to look and confirm when Im not at work…
“This crosshair grille transplanted onto the more jaguar-inspired first run…”
Wasn’t that the ’77-’78 Charger, except that it had a three-row grille instead of a crosshair (for reasons evidently lost to history)?
This car really excited me when it came out. It seemed to be the only large, sporty performance coupe (at least what passed for performance in the late 70s). I thought the package was very well done, and would have bought one of these in a heartbeat had I not been a broke college student struggling to buy gas for a 71 Scamp.
Unfortunately, the era of the large sporty performance coupe was long gone by 1979, and most of the few souls who might have been interested in the concept were undoubtedly put off by Chrysler’s abysmal quality rep. A shame, because this car still stirs my soul today.
Both this car and the 1978-79 Magnum look better now than they did when they were new. Now I would probably choose either one over the GM competition or even the contemporary Thunderbird.
But at the time, Chrysler had far too much baggage in the form of a terrible quality reputation and real questions surrounding its prospects for survival.
But what exactly *was* the GM competition? This car was a good bit bigger than the A-body intermediates. Toronado/Riviera? Or were they significantly more expensive?
Performance-wise the closest you could come at GM in ’79 would be the Hurst/Olds W-30, based on the Cutlass Calais coupe. That was the only intermediate coupe to get the Oldsmobile 350 and was probably among the best-performing GM products in that dark era.
The GM competition was the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Buick Regal, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Pontiac Gran Prix. The 1978-79 GM cars were significantly smaller than the Chrysler (and Ford) competition because GM led the way on downsizing.
The Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Toronado were considerably more expensive than this car.
A 1979 Chrysler 300 had a base price of about $8,034, while a 1979 Toronado had a base price of $10,041. That is a difference of $2,007, which, adjusted for inflation, is about $6,340 today.
As for the difference in performance – by 1979, buyers in this segment really didn’t care. Performance wasn’t selling personal luxury cars in the late 1970s.
stacked rectangular headlamps = kill it with fire.
I think this example looks less terrible than some of the other cars with this treatment. It’s like a slightly better ’76 Monte Carlo. Maybe it’s the crosshair grille.
(I liked the ’76 Monte Carlo’s stacked headlights when it came out. In my defense, I was also six years old.)
Bitch all you like about the lights. On my 77 Fury I really liked them. Not because of appearance, which is a matter of opinion (something everyone has one of), but because of performance. That car threw better light than almost anything else I have ever driven.
Definitely better than the B body Chevy cabs I was driving at the same time. Also better than the Diplomat that followed it. My 74 Impala with 4 round ones was close, but put less light where I wanted it.
The 105 amp alternator may have contributed…
I wonder what a 1979 300/Cordoba sedan would have looked like, if Mopar had jumped on the Euro-style US sedan bandwagon…
I can’t help thinking that Ma Mopar was about 25 years ahead of the times with the original 300. By the time the market was really ready for it (Merc sales soaring), they gave us this.
My Dad’s cousin (who owns a body shop) had one of these brought in by a customer about 10 years ago. I remember that the man was spending a large amount of money to restore the ravages of many Ohio winters.
Happy to know they at least had the 360 V8 and police spec suspension components. Living in that part of Ohio with no emissions inspections it would be easy to pull the Lean Burn equipment off and use some of the performance components from the late 60s.
What a shameless rip-off of the Monte Carlo-style stacked headlights. Chrysler was clearly struggling at this stage…to rip-off a styling dud from its nemesis. Reminds me of how Mercedes has ripped off the LED driving lights from Audi.
Monte Carlo/Malibu Classic/Buick Century/Ford LTD II/Ranchero/El Camino/Cordoba/Monaco. All those used stacked square beams, and all were out about the same time. Not that it made them any better looking, but I like the stacked squares of my 77 Malibu Classic. Not quite as clean as the single rounds, but much much better light performance.
That’s ironic really, considering Mercedes-Benz had turned away from vertically stacked lights by then, and was running them horizontal. Detroit, I think you’re just a little bit late.
In that specific area, there was some regulatory interference because as I recall, it wasn’t until about 1975–76 that the feds allowed rectangular sealed beams. European automakers had more flexibility with lighting design because local regulations allowed halogen lights of different shapes and sizes whereas U.S. cars were limited to round or later rectangular sealed beams until 1985.
What’s ironic about rectangular headlights is the automakers told government lawmakers that the shorter bulb height would make for a safer, lower hood, allowing better visibility.
Of course, once they were approved, the automakers then immediately built cars with stacked rectangulars, making for a higher hoodline, overall, than everything other than those with stacked round headlights (which hadn’t been used since the mid-sixties).
I know this conflicts with MoparRocker’s statement above, but I think the 300 was the ONLY one of the late 70s big three intermediates that pulled off the stacked headlights. In fact I think this front end blows the original 75 Cordoba’s away
Lose the stacked headlamps and the little opera window in the roof and it would do wonders for the looks of this car. It’s was good to see among the options not available for the car is a vinyl roof. Nice find.
I happen to think the stacked headlights and that crosshair grill go very nicely together. And I also like the opera windows. The lack of a vinyl roof makes this a very clean looking, beautiful car! Would take it in a heartbeat.
As a pre-teen at the time, the Cordoba/Magnum never appealed to me. I thought they looked chubby then. To my eyes, the newly downsized ’78 GM A body coupes made the first gen Cordoba/Magnum look like tanks.
Wow for so few being built I’ve seen a lot of them over the years
Something that made the 1979 Chrysler 300 a bit easier to spot was the body color. You could get it in any color you wanted as long as it was white.
That said, I think now, with 20-20 hindsight, that a Chrysler 300 on that body would have been more successful with the Dodge Magnum’s front end…if only that weren’t already a Dodge.
I recall seeing a few of these new. I didn’t appreciate them very much, the seemed like too much effort to make the Cordoba too many things to too many people. This would have made a more interesting Dodge Charger in 1975, instead of the Cordoba clone that Dodge was selling.
I did not know how well equipped this car was. Seeing the equipment list that Roger628 posted, I’m a lot more impressed with it. It’s a much better representation of what the 300 name should have been several years earlier before being pinned rather disgracefully on a what amounted to a slightly re-trimmed Newport – even in SEDAN form, with a very low level of standard equipment. Selling the 300 as a virtual Newport clone (Hurst trim excepted) made it irrelevant.
They could have easily trimmed out the 1979 300 in a number of ways that would have been relevant to the 300’s history, but perhaps the oddest thing about what they choose was to duplicate in many ways the white, red, and blue 1974 Chevrolet Spirit of America cars.
Does this seem rather familiar?
I like this Chevy, big bumpers and all!
I would like to forget about those wheels!
I noticed those back in ’79, thought they looked nice without the customary Cordoba vinyl roof. Saw only a handful. Though that particular 360 was a good engine, too bad Chrysler didn’t have the 440 around anymore to stick in it.
I was still a Chrysler 300 Club member when these cars were introduced, and several members were enthusiastic enough to factory-order these 1979 cars. That surprised me, as I placed them on a level with the 1970 300 Hurst as cars that didn’t really measure up to the 300 tradition any more than the “plain-jane” 300 cars that were introduced as the mid-line series in 1962.
Stacked quads began before horizontal quads, at least as standard equipment. ’57 Lincoln and Nash had standard vertical quads, ’57 Mercury and Chrysler had optional horizontal. They may have been standard on the 300?
I thought about buying a Cordoba 300 in 79 but went the more practical route and bought the Ford wagon I really needed. It kept my wife happy and we had room for the youngins.
What the first series 300s had that was lost by this time was that they were hardtop sedans. Burly, almost brutish. Though they were 2 doors, they weren’t personal sized in any way. Designed to carry 5 people at 130 mph. They meant business.
I have always liked these better than the Cordoba, Charger or Magnum. I think it,s the cross hair grille.Chrysler was trying to make too many variations of the same car but I guess they wanted to hit every niche. My uncle bought a used Magnum which was a pretty handsome car. Even the Mirada was a good looker, My uncle was a Mopar guy. I fondly remember riding in his 63 Sport Fury. I really miss those old personal luxury cars. There,s not much out there now that catches my eye.
Hmmm, I like it. There are a few things that are just a bit “off” though.
The opera windows need to go. I would say the backseat passengers can do without any side windows at all.
The rear window needs to be smaller like a limousine rear window.
Add a small stylish hood scoop or better yet some form of cowl induction.
Lose the gunsight grill and just go with a large plain understated grill opening without any adornments.
Lose the bumperettes or bumper bullets on the front bumper.
Bigger engine
There, now its perfect
Anyone need parts? Saw this 1979 300, in a junkyard this summer, while looking for parts for my 83 Corolla’s Hemi 2tc swap…
Wish I had one… still miss my ’76. Nice to see a Cordoba that hasn’t been headed for a demo derby.
Forgot that these had even existed. I think I saw just one in the flesh. Really not bad for 1979. 195 HP might not sound like much, but to put it in perspective, that’s what the ’79 Corvette had as well. Problem was not much marketing and gone as quickly as it arrived.
Each time a mopar from the 70’s is presented at CC, a number of contibuters (often the same persons over and over) will explain the cars poor sales with Chryslers poor quality. The same with this 79′.
So, how come that Chrysler sold loads of K-cars from the start of the 80’s. Did the quality suddenly go through the roof, or maybe there are other reasons Chrysler sales lagged behind in the 70’s?
You mad bro?
There is something about this car I really like, though I preferred the original Cordoba over everything else it was used for. The mid ’70s Grand Prix used to be my favorite ’70s personal luxury coupe. It is now my second favorite, though not by much. The Grand Prix had a lot of straight lines and angles. The Cordoba is all curves, giving it a very graceful, elegant look, which has, at least IMO, aged very well. I would love to be able to buy a brand new one today, but of course if it were still sold today, it would be a $40,000+ car, just as much out of my reach now as it was in it’s first year.
I do not remember quality problems with RWD Chrysler products. FWD is where they messed up, but so did Ford and GM. Their FWD cars have gotten better, but still do not have the reliability of RWD. My theory of why people are buying so many trucks and truck based SUVs is to get RWD. Again IMO, there is just something fundamentally wrong with FWD. I have spent decades on dragstrips, and have been to Bondurant twice. I would like to see how it would have worked out had James Garner been given a FWD vehicle to drive in the Rockford Files. You just can’t drive a FWD car that way. With the end of the Crown Vic, Cops are now switching over to RWD SUVs. I still say that FWD cars are cheaper to build than RWD cars, and harder to work on, which is a win/win situation for manufacturers and dealer service departments.
First of all, I don’t see the problem with stacked square headlights. They look great. The big round ones make it look Spartan and crap.
I have a ’79 300 and love it. All original daily driver. Runs like a champ.
I have yet to see a accurate production number, closest thing I’ve seen is 4292. They certainly are rare, I’d say near extinct as a matter of fact from the research I’ve done. I have found maybe a dozen Spinnaker white cars from the American market and maybe a couple Rallye Red cars from the Canadian market.
As far as 300 history goes, they can out in ’55 and ran to ’65 as the letter series. They skipped the letter I and went to J so it wouldn’t be mistaken for the number 1.
Then from ’66-’71 it was just the 300 non letter series. After that, production stopped.
One last hoorah in ’79 created the 300 limited edition. At that point you wouldn’t see the 300 again until after the millennium.
These were good driving,handling cars..
360 E-58 360 was powerful too,these could run 14’s in the 1/4 mile that was very quick for a smog engine,low compression etc..I beat the then ne w1988 Mustang 5.0’s all the time with this car..
All you had to do was remove the lean burn ignition system and computer(mounted on the air cleaner)..Carb swap would increase performance as well…Thats what mine ran in 1988 car was stock except no lean burn..That entails a new distributor either go to points or electronic as the car had,but you needed a new advanced distributor and Mopar’s orange box ecu..really a matter of 1 hour the swap was done..
Then it performed like a rocket vs the high 15’s they ran with lean burn..Well over 1 second quicker with tons of tire smoke on take off(stock it hooked and booked no lean burn it spun it took you to not flor it until 15 feet out then hammer it to avoid tire smoke that wasted a few to several tenths ..I know 13’s were possible with better exhaust(remove the cats)..
I had a 1975 Cordoba that ran low 13’s with a 400 big block(255 hp from the factory remember on Mopars header add 50 hp on average and more on these restrictive factory exhaust manifolds)..I never internally touched the engine! Headers,nice duel exhaust new torque convertor and 3.54 gearing and a 850 holley with a new duel plane intake manifold! Again not a 10 second Hellcat of today but these can be plenty quick and plant you in your seat and just enjoy the ride a little more…Now put a 440 crank in a 400 and hang on 11’s would be possible..
I am helping my grandson restore a 1979 Chrysler 300 for his 16th birthday. The chrome around the grill along with the chrome around the back window and small side window appear to have been painted. Was this factory painted and if so was it the same color of the car (spinnaker white) or was it a white-white Thanks