CC reader Martin M. sent me this picture and this question:
Not much to go on but I’ve spent hours trying to identify what car this is in the attached photo.
It appears to be left hand drive, four door, but the louvers in the rear and what look like lift-type door handles have me perplexed.
Soft top? Frameless windows?
It’s driving my friend and I mad!
1957 Chrysler New Yorker.
You’re right about 57′ Chrysler but I think it’s a lower level one, maybe a Windsor-Saratoga.
The row of louvers on the rear fenders was a New Yorker signature for years.
What’s throwing me is that they don’t seem to be chrome…….
I’m going with 1957 Chrysler New Yorker, also
57 Stude…
I briefly thought that too, but wrong door handles and Stude never had a 4 door hardtop. Definitely a late-’50s Mopar but I don’t know them well enough to know which one.
I second 57 New Yorker, thought Dodge at first but those gills are the tell
I agree with those calling this a 57 New Yorker. The chrome strakes on the rear fin call it as a New Yorker. It is a 4 door hardtop. It looks to be a 57 instead of a 58 because the two-color moulding goes up to the front fender.
A better picture
Here is the 58 with the shorter 2 color trim on the side. Also, the 58 puts the nameplate on the front fender in line with the side trim. Our picture (and the 57 New Yorker) put the nameplate below the longer side trim.
Agree, ’57 Chrysler New Yorker, distinctive rear fender trim.
No doubt. 1957 Chrysler New Yorker 4 door hardtop.
That was 100% a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker 4 dr. hardtop.
Our family owned a white-and-red 1957 DeSoto FireFlite convertible, and it was a beautiful and very competent Virgil Exner Gen-2 “Forward Look” car. When my dad was contemplating the DeSoto, I begged him to consider getting the slightly upgraded (and significantly more powerful) 1957 Chrysler New Yorker instead, but he would have no part of it. As it happened, I was never able to outrun my best friend’s Olds Tri-Power Oldsmobile; if only dad had sprung for the New Yorker, the score would have been quite different!
The DeSoto taillights are possibly more awesome than the Chrysler’s. Was this any compensation?
Unfortunately the tail lights offered no compensation. Perhaps the Kelsey-Hayes might have made a difference, but not the tail lights. I simply needed more displacement. I suspect that the FireFlite and the New Yorker were similarly heavy, but there was much more horsepower in the FirePower engine.
If it had been a ’58, you could have had “Electrojector” EFI.
Yes, but only a handful of 1958 Chrysler cars were apparently sold with the Bendix Aviation electronic fuel-injection system, and the option was quite expensive! It was certainly ahead of its time and probably very capable—that is, right up to the point of electronic-component failure.
Maybe a 1957 DeSoto Adventurer with dual quads would also have worked, but the Adventurer was probably as expensive as the New Yorker, so it was out of the question as well.
Well that certainly didn’t take long!
Wow! A consensus in 36 minutes! That’s pretty awesome for a 60 yr old car photo
Thanks so much, folks!
It looks like a match to me, too.
I can get on with my life, now, and stop obsessing.
Martin
Now to move on to “Level 2”, what color is it? 🙂
I’m going with Parade Green.
So many colors!
And such colorful colors! Today only art cars like Minis and Fiat 500’s seem to have interesting colors.
Seems about right. Once we have a definitive answer I look forward to “Level 3” what interior trim colour is it? Followed by the “Level 4” bonus round: which of the optional radios is connected to that aerial? 😉
…and what ‘s the mileage?
The young lady seems to approve of the 2nd Gen. Forward Look! ?
the little girl has good taste she’s a pretty one and so is the Chrysler !
I had an advantage in identifying that car quickly.
The 1957 model year JoHan 1:25 scale plastic “promo” for Chrysler was a New Yorker four door hardtop. For some reason the photo immediately sparked my memory of that exact model car.
No matter how you got there- nice job!
Virgil Exner’s ’57 Chrysler sticks in one’s mind like Hal Hillbard and Kelly Johnson’s unforgettable Lockheed L049!
Like many others, I recognized the car as soon as I saw it. There’s something about the 57-58 Chrysler products that still resonates with many baby boomers to this day. It really is not about the fins. It’s the fact that they are long, low and very very clean designs. The baroque designs came later. Theses two years produced some of the prettiest cars ever made–pretty to this day. My aunt bought a 1958 DeSoto. Compared to the lumpy Fords and Chevys in my home town, it looked like a beautiful spaceship to me. It still does.
I agree with FSDusk about the mysterious allure of the ’57-58 era. They all shared some commonality; my gut guess on seeing the photo was a ’58 Chevrolet.
I’ve told you, I’m no expert.
Don’t feel bad; my first thought was Amphicar.
1957 Chrysler
The 57-58 Chrysler and DeSoto models were exquisitely designed. It’s too bad the quality control was so awful, but some survive today.