Oakland Street Sighting - 1962 Chrysler 300

I have a difficult relationship with early 1960s Chrysler products. I grew up loving the Forward Look cars penned by Virgil Exner. But after 1958, things started to get weird. For your consideration is our second 1962 Chrysler 300 hardtop.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1963 Chrysler New Yorker

It's hard to believe it took me the better part of a decade to get this car onto the blog. I first sighted this 1963 Chrysler New Yorker in San Francisco while on a road trip around California with friends in 2007. At that time it was parked in the Inner Richmond neighborhood and sitting on American Racing directional sawblade wheels. I only got a couple of snapshots of it that day, and spent my entire college years exploring the city with that Chrysler on my list of vehicles to find and shoot in depth. It was only after a day trip in which I covered the entire road grid of the Sunset District that the car turned up again. The first time I located the New Yorker it was very late in the day and my shoot came out poorly, half of the car in the shadow of the houses across the street. I came back at a later date and did much better.

Danville Street Sighting - 1952 Chrysler New Yorker

That thing got a Hemi? Yep.

Danville Street Sighting - 1979 Chrysler New Yorker

The R-platform cars are not often regarded as a high point in Chrysler's history. To some observers, it's a miracle that Chrysler has survived this long, what with a long succession of great cars, terrible cars, apathetic cars and a lot of strange decisions in design and marketing. In the latter half of the 1970s, Chrysler was in deep trouble. General Motors rolled out an all-new fullsize car platform for 1977 that was shared across all of its core passenger car brands. Chrysler management often used a wait-and-see approach for market trends -- if something worked for GM and Ford, Chrysler would usually follow. In 1978, Chrysler dumped their Dodge and Plymouth C-body fullsize lines, leaving only luxury-minded Chrysler to peddle big cars. In '79 the R-body appeared, a reworked midsize B-body with smaller engines, a three-inch stretch and over a quarter ton of weight loss. The platform was old, the engines were old, but the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and did their best with a small budget. This car would serve as Chrysler's big sedans for all three divisions through 1981.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1979 Chrysler 300

September 11 is a bittersweet day for Americans. This is the day when we remember the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. We also remember Flight 93, which went down in rural Pennsylvania after a number of the passengers fought the hijackers aboard that plane to prevent it from hitting its target. One of those heroes on Flight 93, Thomas Burnett, lived in my town of San Ramon; there is a freeway overpass here dedicated in his memory. Some Americans also remember this day for the more recent 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. To many, September 11 is Patriot Day, when we remember how we all came together as a country thirteen years ago. Beyond that, this is a car blog, and I generally try not to get overly political here.
So today in honor of Patriot Day, we're looking at a 1979 Chrysler 300.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Chrysler 300 Convertible

One of my very first street sighting posts on this blog, #6, was a 1966 Chrysler 300 two-door hardtop in San Francisco. Now we're approaching five hundred. Here's another '66 Chrysler 300 in San Francisco, but this time it's a drop-top.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1957 Chrysler New Yorker

One of my favorite cars on the Island that Rust Forgot, also known as the city of Alameda, California, is this excellent 1957 Chrysler New Yorker four-door hardtop. Chrysler Corporation was really at the top of its game when Virgil Exner unveiled his Forward Look lineup of dramatic yet graceful new cars for '57. The fanciest four-door Chrysler that year (apart from the Imperial, which was its own luxury brand) was the New Yorker. We've already looked at a base-model '57 Chrysler Windsor pillared sedan, now see how the other half lived.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1964 Chrysler 300K

Chrysler's 300 letter cars are some of their best-known historical models, a range of high-performance luxury muscle cars that proved themselves on the NASCAR circuit. The traditional logic for a performance car in the 1960s typically called for a relatively light vehicle with bucket seats, a large-displacement V8 and a four-speed manual transmission on the floor. The traditional logic for a Chrysler by this point was a huge, heavy car with a big lazy V8 and an automatic. The 300 was more of a powerful highway cruiser for executives looking for a sportier car than an Imperial. The 300 letter series was the ultimate 300 with more power and more sport touches. And for a select few who wanted to row their own gears, a four-speed with Hurst shifter was available. Chrysler sold 3,022 300Ks in 1964, but only 82 customers bought a 4-speed. This is one of 450 coupes known to survive, and one of just fourteen known 4-speeds left. I contacted Bob Merritt of Golden Lion Grrrages, a Chrysler 300 enthusiast who believes that this car is one of the fourteen in his records.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1962 Chrysler 300

Sometimes when searching for cars I'm very lucky, and sometimes my timing is very poor. I happened upon this 1962 Chrysler 300 on a day when the owner was about to meet with a prospective buyer. As in, literally within minutes. He walked outside shortly after I began photographing the car and we chatted for a while. Then the buyer arrived and I decided it was time to let them discuss business.

The 1962 Chrysler 300 is a mixed bag of car design. The '61 cars had received slanted headlamps and a trapezoidal grille, which continued into 1962. The new cars lost their tailfins for a more modern look. It also marked a partial decline of the 300 letter series begun in 1955 with the NASCAR-winning C-300. The 300 was now available in non-letter form as a mass-market coupe, convertible or even a four-door hardtop with an options list that included most of the formerly exclusive 300 letter-car content. This heavily eroded sales of the 300H. Even the 300H's 413 cubic inch "Wedge" V8 was optional on the regular 300 in place of its standard 383 engine.

I seem to recall that this was a Wedge car. It had had an interesting life, including but not limited to a replacement right front fender to fix crash damage (the paint was a different color on the inside when the owner opened the hood to show me the engine). Much of the trim still had blue painter's tape covering it as evidence of a quickie spray job, and the owner told me that almost all of his cars had recently been attacked by some hooligan breaking windshields. (Note the Mercedes W123 behind it.) The Chrysler had been fortunate to escape further damage. The car also employed an anti-theft device - a purposely deflated right front tire when not in use.

The interior was in surprisingly good shape aside from worn and torn leather seats. I think this car has the push-button automatic transmission. The body was still a bit beat-up and rusty, but I'm hopeful that whoever ultimately purchased the car saved it. I hate seeing complete and running vehicles parted out.

Note to readers: This car was photographed in July 2013. Please don't ask if it's still for sale; I don't know but the answer is probably not.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1966 Chrysler Newport Convertible

Car spotting is very much about luck. You can do all the planning and research you want, but ultimately a car is a mobile object and they tend to go places that aren't always the same place you go on the day you go there with your camera. I used to see a big old vehicle under a car cover sometimes while doing my delivery route. One day the cover was off. After work I stopped by and there it was, a 1966 Chrysler Newport convertible.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1983 Chrysler Executive Sedan

I never thought I would geek out over a K-Car.

In the late 1970s Chrysler Corporation was in deep financial trouble. A government bailout kept the doors open, but only if the Pentastar could source some profitable product that could pay back the loan. The Chrysler K platform arguably saved the company with a wide range of FWD sedans, coupes, convertibles and wagons mostly powered by frugal four-cylinder engines. This platform gave rise to the first Chrysler minivans and the larger E-platform sedans, and darn near everything else they made in the '80s and to an extent, even into the '90s. But perhaps the oddest K-Car variant was the Chrysler Executive.

San Jose Street Sighting - 1971 Chrysler Newport Royal

For a long time now I've had a "Fuselage" bodied Chrysler product on my list of vehicles to look for. I had one in mind: a beautiful copper New Yorker coupe with a black vinyl top that I once saw at a red light in San Francisco. I've never been able to catch it parked, so I will take what I can get.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1967 Imperial Crown

I have long thought that the latter half of the 1960s and early '70s was a great time for Chrysler Corporation styling. This wasn't true in all cases across all brands and models, but the Pentastar produced a lot of really handsome cars during this time period. And before they dipped into an awful rut of desperate-looking "luxury" cars during the Malaise era that lasted even into the 1990s, Chrysler made some impressive luxury cars. Among them is the 1967 Imperial Crown four-door hardtop.
In the '50s and '60s, if you wanted a luxury sedan, you often either got a proper limousine or a 4-door hardtop. The hardtop allowed all four frameless windows to roll down for a feel like the open touring cars of old; or like a 4-door convertible with none of the sunburn risk.

Santa Cruz Street Sighting - 1963 Chrysler 300

In the summer of 2010 I was returning from Santa Cruz's silly tourist trap, the Mystery Spot, and happened upon a white 1966 Dodge Monaco 440 station wagon parked on the street. It would have been an awesome subject for a street sighting feature, but I passed. One photo from the driver's seat of my car and away I went, promising myself that I would go back someday and shoot it properly.
Two years passed. I went back. The car was gone. In its place was this, a 1963 Chrysler 300 coupe. The owner walked outside while I was photographing it and I asked what happened to the Monaco. He told me he had sold it, but one day while Googling for 1966 Monaco wagons he had found a picture of his wagon, posted on a car blog called California Streets. Small world, indeed!

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1957 Chrysler Windsor

There is something wonderful about a classic car that gets driven. I can appreciate a low-mileage car as much as the next guy, but there comes a point where one wonders, why did I never drive this thing? It almost seems like a waste to have a nice car and not use it for its intended purpose.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Chrysler Newport

It was a gloomy, wet day when I drove three friends around San Francisco looking for filming locations from the atrocious Tommy Wiseau film "The Room". For whatever reason they love the movie, and came up from Los Angeles to see the places where certain scenes were filmed. One such building, a flower shop which appeared briefly in the film (the establishment is now a pizza parlor), was located in the Mission District. Some time before, I'd heard about a small collection of old Chrysler products in the area. I hoped that I'd be able to find them that same day. As it were, my friends and I drove right past the small alley where the cars reside.
Some time later, when the weather had improved, I took a walk in the Mission to try to find them again. This time I got lucky. Being that the alley is paved and has a name on a sign installed by the city, I assume that makes it a public street and therefore fair game. The first vehicle I saw from this collection, and possibly my favorite, was this Daffodil Yellow 1966 Chrysler Newport sedan.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1960 Chrysler Saratoga

If you've seen the previous feature in the series, feel free to skip the following paragraph.It's that time again, time for another weekly series. This one comes to you courtesy of Fifties Guy in San Francisco. Frequent readers will know who that is, but for those of you just joining us, Fifties Guy is my nickname for a collector of 1950s and early '60s cars in SF who parks them on the streets around his home and drives them daily. Most are big, heavy, massively-finned and usually overstyled late-'50s Chrysler products. So here you have it, folks: Forward Look Week. The "Forward Look" was stylist Virgil Exner's baby, and was the design language for most Mopar cars from 1955 to 1961. Take a look at an early-50s Dodge or Plymouth. Pretty boring, right? Maybe some chrome gingerbread and a snazzy grille but not much else to liven up an otherwise stodgy car. Then Exner came along and made things interesting.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1956 Chrysler Windsor 250 wagon

This is one I really wish I could find again. Another member of Fifties Guy's menagerie of vintage tin in The City, this 1956 Chrysler Windsor 250 station wagon appeared on eBay shortly after I photographed it. It's a rare (one of 2700), unrestored example with low mileage for its age. The owner was present when I first saw it, and was working on his 1959 Plymouth Fury in the garage at the time. Because he was there, I didn't want to wear out my welcome and decided to make the photo shoot a quick one. Unfortunately the Jeep parked in front made it impossible to get a decent front or 3/4 angle. Sad day.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1956 Imperial Southampton

It used to be that Cadillac and Lincoln had a serious competitor in the top-line domestic luxury segment. That competitor was Chrysler's Imperial division. Promoted to brand status in 1955, Imperial had long been the top model in Chrysler's lineup. Now it was its own division to further set it apart from "lesser" Chryslers.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Chrysler 300

Ah yes... nothing quite like an Earl Scheib paint job to spruce up a 40 year old land yacht. Well, if you don't plan on winning the Concours d'Elegance, anyway. This 1966 Chrysler 300 looks pretty darn good from across the street, and wears its pool-table green pretty well.