I had married a 1988 Honda Accord (and the girl it brought with it). That Honda had been rock solid in its role as Car No. 1 for our young family, right up until we outgrew it. It had only very recently been demoted to Car No. 2 when we brought home the ’94 Club Wagon in the spring of 1995. That was when the Accord became my car. It was only by a fluke that Marianne was driving it the day it got caught in a flood. As previously related, we sold the Honda after the flood damage had been repaired and that left me with that rare and wonderful problem – cash in my pocket and an empty place in the garage. And now, with the Good Car role just having been filled by the Club Wagon, the Accord’s replacement would be a new Car No. 2 primarily for me. I had chosen the Club Wagon for love, so now it was time for something vanilla and practical. Or not.
The early part of my COAL experience had been lousy with big, V8-powered American cars from the 1960’s. And my favorites were the Mopars. In my college years, I fell hard for the 1959 Plymouth Fury. As a young professional I made a (barely) more rational choice when I chose the 1966 Plymouth Fury III. I thought that I had reached the pinnacle of the classic Mopar experience in the 1977 New Yorker Brougham, but that turned out to be a troubled and doomed relationship.
The times had moved on, and I tried to move with them. As went the lyrics of the song by The Guess Who, seasons changed and so did I, we need not wonder why. By this time I was a practicing attorney, a homeowner, a married man, and the father of three. Having attained these things, I tried to make reasonable choices in our family transportation that reflected a core reality: It was not 1980 any longer. But I could not forget my experiment with the ’66 Fury – I had bought a top quality old sedan that provided me an outlet for my hobby urge and was excellent transportation besides. And with all of the “toy cars” gone from my life, that hobby urge was stronger. If that experiment had been a success (which it had been) then why not try again?
The process had been tougher in 1987 than when I bought my first car because those 60’s cars were 20 years old by then instead of still-common 10-year-old cars. Now the cars in that demographic were approaching the age of 30. But on the flip side, I knew cars from this era well, had a good supply of tools for them and parts for most of them remained in decent supply. With the right car, this could still work. I decided up front that I was going to stick with what I knew, so something built by either Ford or Chrysler in the 60’s would be the play.
The newspaper was still a good place to start in the mid 1990’s, and the first ad I saw was for a 1962 Mercury Monterey. I thought these were cool cars, and I still had a good supply of manuals from my unfortunate Thunderbird episode (including the massive 2-volume 1960-64 FoMoCo parts book). The guy on the phone described the Mercury as simply beautiful, a car lovingly owned by his late grandfather until his death. I knew that I required something exceptionally nice, and this car sounded like it. I drove all the way across Marion County to go see it. What. A. P.O.S. If I have ever gotten a description over the telephone farther off the mark from reality, I don’t recall it. I drove home, with no ’62 Mercury in my future.
Next up was a 1968 Chrysler. I was intrigued by the idea. I had once spent a few days around one of these on a family trip to Minnesota in the early ’70s. We went to visit my mother’s aunt and uncle who were (of course) dairy farmers. My mother’s Aunt Clara was a Chrysler girl. On this particular trip she was rocking a green ’68 Newport sedan. I remember getting assigned the center front seat when the family loaded up to go somewhere and loved that wide, expansive dash that looked so elegant. I also remembered that Aunt Clara seemed to have a bit of a lead foot (though she denied it) and the way the big Chrysler always eagerly responded when she stepped on the gas.
When I had the ’66 Plymouth, I always suffered from a bit of a complex, a complex that most any owner of a big Dodge or Plymouth experienced. The car was nice and all, but it wasn’t a Chrysler. Everyone knew that a genuine Chrysler was the ultimate expression of the breed and the lesser versions were, well, lesser versions.
I called and things sounded good enough to have a look. At first, I was discouraged. The odo read 14K. I knew that this was not a 14K car. But it also seemed way too nice for a 114K car. So we had a mystery here. The car had outlived two prior elderly owners. It was being sold out of the estate of the second, who had had suffered a massive coronary while driving into a gas station and put a big dent into the right rear door in the process. I mean a BIG dent. You or I might try a hundred times but we would never be able to manufacture a dent that large and deep and still confine it to a single panel and that would not affect the operation of the door or window one little bit. But beyond that one (glaring) dent, the car was clean, straight and rust-free. It was also equipped with air conditioning.
The car seemed to start and run right, but there were some other problems. First, the front end needed clearly needed attention. But that was nothing that some new ball joints and tires wouldn’t fix. Also, while the interior was really nice overall, there was one weird exception: the foam in the drivers seat had shredded so that the driver nestled down on the springs. OK, this car was nowhere near the turn-key proposition the 66 Fury had been. Although at least the driver’s door opened on this one. But here it was almost a decade later and it was priced far lower than the Fury had been, so I could spend some money on this one without getting upside down on it. Maybe the Mercury re-set my reality meter, and I decided that I was prepared to roll the dice on the Chrysler. I drove it home right before Thanksgiving weekend. And yes, it was fall so my car fever was kicking up.
Author’s sons No. 1 (age 5) and 2 (age 3) demonstrating the scale of the family Chrysler, probably early spring of 1997.
The first stop was a tire and front end shop. Four new whitewall radials and some suspension work later, the car tracked quiet, straight and true, just the way it was supposed to. Step 1, check. Next was that seat. I called a guy I knew who owned several old cars and was referred to an old-school upholstery shop that looked like it had been there since there was big money in replacing tops on Model T touring cars. The guy looked it over and said he could remove the upholstery (that was flawless, but for a single cigarette burn) then replace the foam and put it all back together. A couple of days later the seat was back in shape. Step 2, check.
I replaced the normal stuff like plugs, wires, points, rotor, belts and hoses on the 2bbl 383 and it ran like a top. About that, my prior Plymouth Inferiority Complex had been heightened by never getting an engine bigger than a 318. A real Chrysler required a big block, and the 383 was a good one. Step 3, check and done. I still remember the first night after that initial work was done. I was driving home from the office, luxuriating in the smooth, quiet power the Chrysler was putting to the ground, when . . . it ran out of gas. OK, I needed to investigate why the gas gauge said I still had a quarter tank left. I fixed it with a used sending unit I received in the mail. Which would never let the gauge read higher than 3/4 full. Oh well, that missing top quarter was nowhere near as important as the missing bottom quarter with the old part.
Another problem with the car was that all of the lap belts were missing from the seats. I was preparing to source some seat belts and I pulled up the back seat cushion to check the mounts. To my surprise, I found the entire set of belts neatly folded up under back seat cushion. Yes, this was what old-timers did in the ’60s in small town Indiana. (“Damn seat belts do nothing but get tangled up and in the way!”) After about 45 minutes the belts were re-installed and I discovered that I could fasten three kiddie seats abreast in that expansive back seat.
The garage was a bit of a problem. My house was built in 1958 and I had a standard two car garage. Our other car was a Ford Club Wagon. I had to clear everything from the front to get the back bumper to clear the garage door, but then it fit with two inches to spare. We accommodated for both vehicles’ girth by snuggling the van’s driver’s side up to the wall and we always entered or exited it airplane style through the back side passenger doors. Marianne refused to drive either car into or out of the garage, such was the precision necessary.
In the spring I checked the air conditioning. Everything worked, but the air wasn’t very cold. I knew this system from both my ’77 New Yorker and my ’64 Imperial, and saw right away that there were bubbles galore visible through the sight glass. I miss a/c systems with a sight glass. One can of R-12 (or was it two?)(of which I still had a stash in my basement) and I had air conditioning as cold as in any car I ever owned. Recall that the a/c in our van had been less than optimal, so on every hot day it was requested that I back the Chrysler out for Marianne’s use and I could take the van to work.
This Chrysler was even a Newport Custom, not an ordinary Newport. The Custom got me stainless trim around the windows, which really dressed things up. And did you know that Chrysler added an extra inch of trim along the rockers of the Custom which brought it onto the lower doors? I may have been the first person who did not work in a body shop to ever notice this. I also knew that the front armrest and the higher quality upholstery was another benefit to the Custom trim. The seat, by the way, was so much more comfortable than the one in my Fury. Yes, it was good to be a Chrysler man.
Really, this car proved to be everything I had hoped for when I owned the ’77 New Yorker, only it had all of the 1960’s candy that had been eliminated from big Mopar cars after Richard Nixon took office. I loved the stiff, taut structure. I loved the acres of chrome plated diecastings that made up the dash. I loved the fender-tip turn signal lights and the crisp action of the Torqueflite’s shifter. I loved the sound made by the starter when the key was turned in the dashboard ignition switch. This car was everything I loved about Chrysler Corporation before there was a Fiat or a Daimler or any former Ford executives involved in it. But most of all, it ran smooth and strong, from idle to freeway, something my New Yorker’s Lean Burned 440 never accomplished.
Not my car, but one with the same fabric and color. Mine was in about this same condition, only a little cleaner. It would have looked so much better on a green car like this one.
One minor problem was the color combination. I didn’t mind the boring beige paint (Sandalwood, according to Chrysler). At least it wasn’t white. I also didn’t mind the two tone green interior. But together? Whose idea had that been? But once seated and belted in, all I could see was that gorgeous dash panel that was made even better when I replaced a few burned out light bulbs.
I drove this car throughout the state of Indiana, from Fort Wayne in the northeast to near the Ohio River to the south. Driving that big stupid tan Newport may have been the most satisfying driving of my entire life. It was smooth, quiet and powerful on the highway and was still easy to drive in our suburban environment. I loved my return to a world where I could spin the steering wheel with my index finger as I maneuvered the QEII into parking places made for far smaller cars. My children loved it, and it was a far, far better family car than the Vic had been (though still inferior to the Club Wagon).
However, where the Fury experiment was an unqualified success, the Newport’s results were a little more mixed. I had some trouble with misfiring but a higher quality set of plug wires fixed that. I replaced the starter myself, proving that I was still not above an occasional session on a cold concrete garage floor. But I paid to have the heater core done, which also led to a new heater control valve that I had to locate myself and give to the guys at the radiator shop. I also went to a mechanic for the brakes. Most vexing was the hard starting on a warm engine. Cold starts were great, but it seemed that gas would percolate after a shutoff, and require a lot of cranking before blowing a big cloud of soot from the tailpipe. Maybe that was what got to the starter. I thought about doing a carb rebuild, but other those hard warm starts, everything else about the way it ran was just right, so (in another lesson learned from the ’77 New Yorker) I decided to leave it alone.
My Chrysler and its soot stain.
But there remained The Big One: that dent in the right rear door. My door was so rust free and fit so perfectly that I hated to mess with it. The dent was way too deep for me to have gotten a decent result from trying to straighten it myself. Dirty Harry has been my inspiration in auto body repair: a man’s got to know his limitations. The finance committee at home had been quite generous about the budget for getting the car in great mechanical shape and keeping it there. However I was never able to get funds approved for that door.
After about a year and a half two things happened which, together, sealed the Chrysler’s fate. First, the Chrysler developed a fuel tank leak. As I considered my options (with the car banished to the driveway out front) my friend Karl (who had introduced me to Marianne) called. He told me about a car for sale, once again presenting me with one of those “Yes or No” questions. This was one time that I really, really didn’t want to say “Yes”. I think that the ’68 Newport was my very favorite of all of the big Mopars in my past. It wasn’t as pristine as the ’66 Fury or the ’64 Imperial, it lacked the funkiness factor of the ’59, it lacked the beauty, luxury and presence of either the ’77 New Yorker of the Imperial. But it did an amazing job of bringing enough of those cars’ best features and eliminating enough of their worst ones. As Baby Bear said in the fairy tale, it was Jussssst Right.
But I was also a realist. The Newport was almost 30 years old and had required more of my time than the Fury III had a decade earlier. Wasn’t it the adult thing to recognize that time had moved on and that it was time for me to call an end to my little 1960’s immersion? My adult nature prevailed and I did what had to be done. I felt like the dad in Old Yeller, going out behind the barn to put down the dog.
But I didn’t actually put it down, just found a new home for it. A partner from my old office happened to call me on a case and he mentioned that his high school age son was interested in a classic car. I told him about the Chrysler, warts and all. They came, they drove, they bought. I missed the Chrysler almost immediately. It would be several years before I would do my daily drives in anything even remotely as satisfying, but nothing since has gotten me completely there.
They say you can’t go home again, but you can visit. I visited my childhood for about 18 months in the mid 1990’s and had a great time. The Newport satisfied something deep within me. It always made me think of the ’60’s. I mean the adult 60’s that was about things like Frank Sinatra, scotch on the rocks and men in suits with cuffed pants. It also reminded me of other things like Aunt Clara’s homemade bread and my upper midwestern childhood. I look back on that car as the best version of my automotive home.
Actually, I got the invitation for a return visit about five years later. The current owner had gone to college, as had his younger brother. The Chrysler was at their house, in about the same shape as when they had bought it, but in need of a transmission. My old colleague called me to give me first chance at it in case I wanted it back. I thought hard about it, and even called a shop to get a quote on a Torqueflite rebuild. But in the end I decided that cars, like most relationships, are rarely better the second time, and that there was no reason to go there. A decision which I still second-guess from time to time.
My next car would have me moving forward by a couple of decades, but moving backwards in some other important ways.
JP: Unlike you, my ’66 Sport Fury fulfilled all of my Mopar needs; I drove my Dad’s Chrysler a few times, and while very nice, it just didn’t do it for me! I must admit that I’m disappointed that you didn’t show a picture of the DENT, and glad that it moved on to another appreciative owner! Looking forward to the next episode!! 🙂
Well of course your Fury fulfilled your desires – you had the sexy one! A Sport Fury, a 2 door hardtop and the cool wheels – that car would have fulfilled my desires too.
I am sure I would have taken pictures of The Dent if I had owned the car in the era of cell phone cameras. But I was still shooting film and was more selective. I wanted to document the good and forget the bad. 🙂
Great story. Your comment about Dodges and Plymouths not “being a Chrysler.” is very true. My dad started with a Dodge in 57, followed by other Dodges and Plymouths. But, down deep he always wanted a Chrysler. Finally, in 69, he got a Newport and was on cloud nine. After that car, he went back to a Dodge but again still wanted a Chrysler. In 95, he got a Concorde and loved that Chrysler.
The interior pics showing the thumbwheel radio controls also brought back memories.
Did you know that on that vintage of Chrysler, you could turn the flashers on, move the turn signal either right or left, step on the brake, and then run accessories without the key? Of course, the radio would pulse on and off with the tempo of the flashers.
I never knew that trick at the time, though have read about it here in the years since.
We were always fascinated at being able to “just turn on” the radio in our “71 Vdub”. No key needed, no accessory position on the ignition required.
Down side, if the volume was lowered, easy to leave radio on.
What a great daily driver! I’d have been worried about driving it on salty roads, so it’s probably best that you moved on to something else, but what a dilemma! I love the funky angled dashboard, too.
BTW, some kind of a carb spacer would have probably benefitted your hot start problem, although it could have been something as innocuous as a leaky float needle and seat, especially since gasoline was still carburetor-approved back in the ’90s. I don’t remember hot starts being as much a problem then as they are now.
That was probably one of my favorite dash designs of all time. It wasn’t “out there” like some of Chrysler’s earlier ones, but it was a great combination of unique and extravagant, in a conservative way.
Or it could be a partial vapor lock issue. Insulate the gas line and move it farther from the intake manifold
It’s like you had an itch, scratched it for a while and it cured?
That interior looks great, even if it didn’t blend well with the cream body colour, and I can see the appeal of the dash.
Looking forward to the next instalment!
Actually, the itch still lingers, but I have developed more self control. 🙂
One of my favorite things about a COAL series is getting to know the author through their choices of cars and experiences with them. Through your accounts of ownerships of verydisparate cars, I feel like I know who you are, JP Cavanaugh, despite having met you only once or twice in person.
First, I can’t imagine riding in any car without wearing a seatbelt. Especially sitting on a bench seat. That would be akin to leaving the house without pants. It just wouldn’t happen.
Shoot… I forgot the other thing I wanted to say based on the text. I’ll just add that I have come to really appreciate the angular aesthetic of this era of Chrysler products. Great piece and family photos.
Thank you sir – It has been just as enjoyable for me, dredging up a lot of great memories.
Yes, the seatbelt thing was a major thing for me. I think I had that resolved within the first week. The great thing was that this was an early car with the shoulder belt mounted on the roof. Chrysler had an odd system in these early versions that used a second buckle for the shoulder belt – I used both lap and shoulder belts regularly in this one.
I had a ’68 Impala with the same system (i.e. separate lap- and shoulder-belts) – when properly adjusted, and actually used, I consider this system superior to the 3-point belts my cars have been equipped with since.
Beautiful car – I consider the ’68 the nicest Chrysler of all time. The styling was slightly refined compared to the ’67, and the (mandatory) addition of side-marker lights was a plus. The whale Chryslers of ’69 and into the early ’70s had their own appeal, but I like the ’68 best. ’68 was also my favourite year for the full-sized Plymouth Fury.
Dad bought a ’67 Newport in ’72, and kept it until the mid- to late-’80s. Very fine car. He didn’t take particularly good care of his cars, but the 383 never hesitated. Heresy, but it seemed to hold up better than the GM and Ford engines of the day.
I took my driver’s test in the ’67. Good memories.
That was always my experience as these got older. They were a really small slice of the market when new, but as time passed they became more and more common as survivors from their era. By the time I owned this one, I still occasionally saw something similar on the road, while much more common big cars of the era (like Ford Galaxies) had become much more rare.
That interior. Delicious! I had the delightful opportunity to foster care my friends 66 imperial for about 2 months. Black w red leather. It was one of his 60 ish various cars…he had picked it up cheap as it was a estate sale. He was running out of space and wanted to sell it. I took it to do cleanup. Basic detailing. Some of the non factory options i found we’re a couple of mouse corpses 2 mouse nests and plenty of mouse urine. While not something that i would characterize as pleasant, it doesn’t bother me and I really appreciate that change from gross and smelly to clean and clean. Another thing that I did that wasn’t on my initial scope of work was to align the headlights. Lighting is and always has been a keen interest of mine . I’m gonna guess that probably 50% of you Reading This know that the Imperial in question has these cool glass covers over the Headlights. You had to remove them to align the headlights and I was very very very careful when doing that period it’s been a while but I figured each one of those assemblies weighed 3 pounds each. The point of this ramble was to say that during the time I Foster cared the Imperial I drove it a lot. Your points about driving it, the starter sound, the functioning of the transmission and the fingertip steering all resonate. There’s something quite special about sitting in a big fat front bench seat , Flicking the thin shift lever down into drive-through a comfortably broken in quadrant And stepping on the giant accelerator pedal through which you can feel a mechanical linkage Then hearing The carb and exhaust their say While the car gathers up at skirts lifts its prow and gets on its way. Fratzog to yall
You get it – those Chryslers of that period had a really unique feel to them, and they were a real delight when they were the way they were supposed to be.
Even little things like the shift lever mechanism were satisfying. GM levers always had a longer travel and Ford levers always felt a little mushy, but these had a really sharp, clean action to them.
I’ve always been partial to the Dodge Polar of this pre-fuselage era, but this Chrysler Newport is a beauty.
Not being a Mopar guy myself, I still always like the way a 383 just seemed to pull for days every time I got the chance to drive a car equipped with one.
Plus, the turn signal repeaters out on the tips of the fenders was always a favorite feature of mine. Learning to drive on a Dart, similar to your old Scamp, always made me smile when I went to the driving school at 16. Its 225 slant six was another favorite Mopar engine of mine (and most likely everyone here). What you say about the light touch steering is SO true…. And that Highland Park Hummingbird… 😉
Yes, that 383/Torqueflite combination may be one of the most pleasant ever. Each seemed just perfect with the other. Mine was only a 2 bbl version, but after the 4 cylinder Accord and the sluggish 85 Crown Vic, the Chrysler gave me all of the power I could want.
Your reasoning for getting the Chrysler, and the realization time has that bad habit of moving on, was mimicked in my buying that ’91 Dodge pickup three years ago.
That was one nice Chrysler. You have mentioned the allure of a 383 many times I would really like to experience that one day. Dent or no, you did well with this one – better, you know when it’s time to cut one loose. That is perhaps an even greater gift than finding nice old cars such as your Chrysler.
Your pickup purchase reminded me of this car a lot, for just the reasons you say. Hopefully you will get to enjoy yours for a much longer time.
Sometimes the cutting loose doesn’t seem like so much of a gift, but life does move on whether we like it or not. And yes, you will have to find a way to get a few minutes of wheel time in behind one of these engines, though that is getting to be more of a trick than it once was.
If you’re scratching a Mopar itch, this was a great choice.
Chrysler products were to me like slim speedy hunting dogs; taut bodies where you can feel the muscles and watch their strength as they run and play.
I got this feeling in the 1957 models but their well known quality issues put a damper on the enjoyment and their reliability. By 1959, many of the quality issues were resolved, but new car buyers were “once bitten and twice shy”.
The late 1960 Chrysler models like yours continued the taut and muscular metaphor in my mind while Fords and GMs (mostly) were like slightly overweight and friendly Golden Retrievers. Still good, just softer and smoother riding than the Mopar breeds.
The 1968 Chrysler wagons carried this sense of strength and power one step beyond the sedans and still looked good doing it.
Nice tale of visiting home again, even if just for a while.
You have just described these cars better than I have ever been able to. Your example of the slim, muscular hunting dog is spot on.
One of my best friends had a pair (sequentially, not at the same time) of ’68 New-Putts, starting in High School; and long before these were anything like collectable. At least one of them was a New-Putt Custom, but I can’t remember if it was the first (blue) or the second (green). Maybe both.
The first was bestowed upon him by his father, who–knowing him–bought it for little or nothing from a friend, or co-worker at The Railroad (Burley-Northington). He asked Dad what engine was in it–we were GM kids. Mopar was strange and exotic to us. Dad says “the small one”.
Yeah. The standard 383 instead of the optional 440.
We’d pull up to a stop-light on The Main Drag in our town. He’d power-brake the thing, and the whole car would lift on the left side, hunker-down on the right. And then the one rear tire would start to squeal. He had very few people willing to race that dead-stock two-barrel tuna boat.
One evening he’s coming home from whatever minimum-wage job he had at the time, takes off from a stop sign with “some enthusiasm”…and blows the driveshaft off. Wound the thing up like a rubber band, pulled it right out of the transmission. The local Treasure Yard had a shaft from a similar car with a 440. Bigger diameter, correct length. Anyway, he never had a driveshaft problem again. The first car was totaled (not his fault) and the insurance paid for the second car.
By this time, we’re in Trade School. He made some dumb choices–removed the A/C which actually worked at the time because it was “excess weight” and “engine compartment clutter”. Installed a Genuine Mopar “Purple Shaft” cam, with no other changes. A guy could run from a stop sign, and beat that car to the end of the block. And of course, a B&M shift-kit in the wonderful Torqueflite because if the tires don’t chirp, how would you know if it shifted?
The AM radio got hotter’n hell when the volume cranked; and then The Transistor would pop. After removing the radio so the shop could repair it a couple of times, he figured out how to install The Transistor himself.
Man, that car was fun.
I love this story. This is what I miss about later big American sedans – these things were not very stylish, but they could sure scoot when you wanted them to, even in their most basic form.
This is my favorite of your COAL series so far. In the maturity you’ve gained by this point, you chose well and really enjoyed your choice. It came through in your writing!
Thank you. I have no doubt that if I had owned this car earlier in my life I would have stuck with it longer, and probably done something about that door too. But priorities shift as we get older.
This was also a favorite of mine to write – I really, really loved this Chrysler.
I knew a 40-something head librarian that daily drove an extremely well maintained Haze Green iridescent ‘66 New Yorker at the same time you had this Newport in the 1990’s; if there ever was a stereotypical Chrysler buyer of these when new, this man was a living personification of it, only thirty years later. Educated, fastidious, somewhat staunch, vaguely superior about his ways… Was quite the sight, this character helming the wheel amongst modern traffic that knowingly gave a wide berth to such an out-of-place land barge that could absolutely get out of it’s own way if he wanted it to. I appreciated his commitment to such a vehicle, and had some conversations with him that let him know I too appreciated the same virtues he himself did about the big Chrysler. I’m not sure how amused or annoyed he found it as these truths to him were very much self-evident, of course. I know he was still driving it to at least 2003 when I moved out of, you guessed it, that particular city in Minnesota. The association with this generation of big Chryslers and that man is strong in me to this day.
You are right, that people who bought these Chryslers seemed to be a pretty narrow demographic, and the kind of people who put substance over style.
Beautiful interior color combination on a fine looking Mopar. Sure as heck beats the black, gray, or tan mouse fur insides on today`s cars-or should I say SUVs.
Another very satisfying chapter. Your ability to describe the qualities that endeared these big Mopars to you is very palpable.
I had a real thing for these ’65-’68 Newports as a kid at the time they were new, due to exposure to two of them. My father’s cousin, who was sold fine Austrian optics to shops out of his car, replaced his ’61 Cadillac 60 special with a ’65 (or ’66?) Newport Custom, with 4-barrel 383. He was the guy I looked up to in terms of cars, as he was very different from my dad that way, and he also liked to drive fast. He always made a point to take me out in his cars on a fast little run. And the one in the Newport was memorable.
And my grade school friend Chris’ family, also Austrian, replaced their ’60 Rambler six wagon with one of these, and again, on a little trip with them once, it left a deep impression. I could tell that these were essentially an American Mercedes of the times, in terms of their qualities of solidity and suitability for fast driving. Right up my alley. It’s one of the very few large American cars I have very warm feelings towards.
These cars completely ruined me for the Fuselage models that followed. Most of the mechanical goodness remained but the bodies and interiors were so cheapened that they were a real letdown.
I had never thought of these as an American Mercedes, but you make a good point. There was something about these that really took to the road in ways that other cars didn’t. Where they diverged was in their assembly quality – the widely varying panel gaps really show up in the photos of my light-colored version.
Wow, JP, you really struck gold with this one. These 1965-1968 Chryslers were indeed handsome in a square-jawed, no-nonsense sort of way and have aged well compared to contemporary competitors like Buick, Olds, and Mercury. You were also lucky to find one with A/C (more common perhaps in Chryslers than Plymouths and Dodges?).
I too remember those two-piece lap- and shoulder belt combinations, which, from your description, sound very similar to the ones in my mother’s 1971 Coronet wagon. Maybe because I was still a kid back then, I remember that setup as being very uncomfortable, ill-fitting, hard to adjust properly, and simply inconvenient. It’s interesting to hear you were able to make them work for you several decades later after the modern inertia-reel systems became standard.
I do remember having to unlatch the shoulder belt to reach things farther away on the dash, like the HVAC or radio controls. Not optimal.
“Stately” looking ride there. Remember a white one, green inside, tooling about the streets of my hometown up until about 1979-80..
Never looked awful, just weathered. If memory is accurate, a ” 50 / 60 something” lady generally was “pilot”.
When I saw Brendan’s piece on the 1991 Olds Ninety-Eight at the top of the page, I thought we might be reading about an ’80-’84 Olds Ninety-Eight today as well.
After driving an ’82 Olds 88 coupe through the mid ’80s, well, I got the itch to go back to the old car well as well. My list was rather picky, had to be a four door hardtop, had to have AC, preferably equipped with fender skirts and power windows and fabric seats.
In the era of newspaper ads, and with many owners not knowing a sedan from a hardtop, I ended up looking at a ’66 Newport 6 window Town Sedan, one of 9,400 built. Fantastic condition. I’m not a huge fan of white, but this thing was positively resplendent in white, with a red vinyl interior. Talk about a D’oh! moment passing that one up.
And I looked at a ’68 Buick Wildcat four door hardtop. Black vinyl interior, probably had the optional(?) fender skirts. Great condition.
I ended up with my 1972 Pontiac Grandville. It pushed all the buttons, except, wouldn’t you know it, it was the second year of the two year hiatus for fender skirts on the senior Pontiac from 1965 through 1986.
If I could change up history, I’d go for that Newport in a New York minute. You have to love the ’65-’68 era Chryslers, and all the Easter Eggs that came and went with them. Some of my favorite things on your Newport include the dash center, and the way the AC vents were integrated into it (2nd) year, the square button side marker lights (’68 only) and the Packardesque red button wheel covers.
“Easter eggs” is a great term for the cool little touches on the car. I remember being surprised when I pulled out the ashtray. There were two tiny ashtray compartments, a lighter, and a little storage cubby with a lid – about the right size for a pack of cigarettes or a little pack of Kleenex or such. I had never seen anything like that before.
Nice, I was looking for a picture of the dent but you shot all the photos from the good side. You definitely have had an admirable number of good experiences with old cars, and that’s mostly because of your wise shopping.
I have tried to avoid cars that have been messed with or are really weathered and worn. On the dent, the lack of pictures is a combination of wanting to forget about it and that I was still shooting film, which carried that “don’t waste shots” mentality. I was just glad it was on the passenger side. I don’t know how I would have handled it if it had been on the driver’s side.
This was a very enjoyable read. I’ve never driven a 1965-68 C-body Mopar, but your writing made me visualize the experience perfectly. I may have ridden in one of the two ’65 Chryslers (both black, one a Town Sedan, the other a 4-door hardtop) owned by the family of my second grade elementary teacher.
That’s rather comical about finding the complete set of lap belts neatly tucked away under the rear seat. I’d have thought they would have been pushed into the gap between the seat cushion and seat back (both front and rear) or discarded altogether.
I never expected to find those belts. “Where do you buy seat belts” was all I was thinking. The only reason I pulled the back seat was to look at the mounts to be sure I was going to buy the right ones.
Another great entry in your COAL series, very enjoyable. And a reference to The Guess Who! I wasn’t sure anyone outside Canada knew about them.
In the summer of 1971 some older teenage cousins were driving their family’s 1964 Galaxie 500. They had installed an 8-track and a tape by the Guess Who was my soundtrack for that summer because that tape played over and over.
Excellent chapter, and a very attractive car. Attractive in all of the ways you describe. Much more stately than flashy.
I’d never actually noticed before how the grill and hood edge is a strong carry over (style-wise) to the same parts of the subsequent fuselage Chryslers. The resemblance is quite noticeable to me in the brochure photo of the blue one. I love the front ends on these.
Good on you for properly using the separate shoulder belts. I recall that my family’s 1971 Chrysler was the first car that we had with shoulder belts, and the need to pull the belts down from that clipped position against the roof was deterrent enough for my mom never to use them. Both of my parents being kind of short, neither cared for or used those “optional” (which is how they were described to me as a child) belts. Which is really too bad, as the accident they were in which resulted in totaling that car would have been much less injurious to both of them if they’d been wearing the belts as designed. (they survived, but only because of the sheer bulk of the car and a goodly amount of luck) This is something I think about to this day when riding in a car with an “older person” who sees fit to find a way to avoid the use of the shoulder belt. 🙁
During the entire era of those clipped-to-the-roof shoulder belts (and for the whole time they were on the road) I don’t recall a single time I knew anyone who actually used them. Using them on this Newport was a completely new experience for me, but by that time I was used to 3 point belts.
I also really loved the front end on these – that combination of the flat front and the Vee’d grille was really cool. They kind of echoed that treatment in the rear, though it isn’t as noticeable.
The domestic automakers argued that belt use would be lower overall if the shoulder belts were integral with the lap belts; hence, the separate nonretractable shoulder belts clipped to the roof. For 1974, the federal government forced their hand, making 3-point belts with shoulder belt retractors mandatory for passenger cars (except for convertibles).
As I’ve mentioned before, my mother had a ’73 Chevy Monte Carlo. She wore the lap belt regularly but didn’t bother with the shoulder belt. When I drove the car locally, I also used only the lap belt, because I didn’t want to go through the trouble of storing the shoulder portion afterward. (I always hated seeing dangling unused shoulder belts in cars.) However, on longer trips, I would use the shoulder belt.
Great story.
My Father in law has had a ’66 300 convertible (basically a Newport 2-door) sitting in his garage for 40+ years. This spring I hired a dumpster and hauled all the trash out of there, then put four new tires on the car. After soaking the pistons for a month, a carburetor rebuild and replacing the plugs, wires, coil, cap and rotor and a fresh battery, I got it to crank over from a boat tank. The project is on hold while we catch up with years of deferred maintenance on the house, but my goal is to get him out on the road in that beautiful beast next spring.
Nice! That looks like the same color as the 65 owned by reader/commenter Dan Cluely in Michigan. Chrysler went to a lot of effort to give 300s unique front end designs. As much as I like the 68 Newport’s front end, the front of the 68 300 is even fabulouser.
I love the description of the what its like to drive an old Chrysler in this story, I think the sound of the starter alone is worth the price of admission.
I would like to add one more delightful aspect to them. The intoxicating aroma you get inside an old Mopar.
I was lucky to experience driving a 68 Fury III convertible one time and even though it was a very worn and tired example, and ‘just’ a 318, I got a sense of what it would have been like in it’s day. A really strong feel to the bodywork, impressive for a worn out convertible.
I loved the way you could slam the big door shut with none of the quarter panel tremble that you got in the Hardtop Valiants (US Dart) when the windows were down.
I used to have some books of old road tests on Chrysler products, and some articles mentioned the 383 engine was the Chrysler engineers favourite choice when it came to their own cars. its my favourite as well because I think the 383 numerals look great on the hood of a Road Runner.
I remember you mentioning your ’68 Newport in the past, and commenting about the ’68 New Yorker I bought from my neighbor after he lost his license due to too many DUI’s, so it came with a freshly dented left front fender at no extra charge for $100. It had the 440 4 bbl, it was a true torque monster. It had the all too common light green exterior and matching interior, which was still in perfect condition when I bought it around 1984.
It had new brakes, but bald tires, non working AC, and the transmission output seal had a small leak. The belts (matching green) were there, but the shoulder belts had been cut off with a knife. I found a set at the boneyard in black, back then this style seat belts were still easy to find. One thing different with the Chrysler shoulder belts is the buckle assembly (the female part) was on the shoulder belt and had a male storage bracket mounted by the A pillar, a good idea for neatly storing the belt tightly against the roof, the belt had a sliding plastic sleeve to hold the excess slack. The downside is it could be struck by your head if unbelted and stored, that was a big, bulky lift release buckle right at sunvisor level, most cars had the male end on the roof portion and the buckle on the seat, the opposite of Chryslers design.
Interesting your ’62 Monterey prospect was in bad condition, around 1970 parents had a pristine S-55 version, first car I drove on the freeway at age 14, it had a 390 Thunderbird engine, said Thunderbird right on the valve covers. That was also a great car, you would have enjoyed that car had the deal worked out.
Great story! I lent the Chrysler to my sister a few months after purchase, it soon blew out a freeze plug while her boyfriend was driving it and he drove it until the engine seized, it wound up in the junkyard soon after.
Pretty neat car. Chrysler Corp really did try hard with these, seems almost like they were trying to make up for the ’62-’64 Plymouth downsizing, and the ’63-’64 Chryslers which were nicely done (especially inside) but didn’t seem as popular as prior years.
My Dad started out with a ’56 Plymouth, but never owned a Chrysler (he did own 2 Dodges) whereas my Mom’s father bought a new ’51 Chrysler Windsor which was in the family until 1969. From ’65 to ’80, he never bought a Mopar, mostly sticking with Ford but one GM as our main family car. His 2nd car (starting in the mid 60’s) was an import until 1980 when he bought a Dodge Omni….and he never bought another import the rest of his life. I know, kind of bucking the trend…but he’s also the same guy who moved from Southern California to Pittsburgh in 1961…he did things his own way, left many people scratching their heads (but he usually had a reason, even if it wasn’t superficially evident to other people). For some reason he never bought a MOPAR wagon, that body style was a fixture in our family from 1961 to 1984, he even bought 2 Ramblers in a row.