Quick Trip and a ride in a dream car!

[norgeway]

About a year ago I bought a 56 Norge Wall oven and cooktop from a very nice lady in Arlington Va, Well, to make a long story short, we finally got a free day to go get it, so we made a VERY quick overnight trip,I had some range manuals to send Jeff, "Moparguy" so he graciously invited us to spend the night at his house in Maryland, talk about being in heaven !!! stoves of all kinds!, then to make it even better, he took us for a ride in one of my all time favorite cars!, a 60 Chrysler!!!

 

[norgeway]

Back when!

REAL cars were built!

 

[norgeway]

Pushbuttons!

And factory Airtemp AC!

 

[norgeway]

Hopefully..

We can make another trip and not be in a hurry, it was 385 miles from our house to his,! Robyn,the lady with the Norges, needed her garage space for her dads 55 Olds, so I knew if I didnt go this weekend we might not get to go until after January, so my long suffering Donald said lets go, we had fun even if it was quick!

 

[norgeway]

Its been a LONG day,,,,

That is a 61 , not a 60!!!! LOL!

 

[hydralique]

Is that . . .

a Vauxhall in the background of the first pic? If so it's very, very rare in the US. GM tried to sell Vauxhall through Pontiac dealers like they did Opel with Buick, but unlike Opel that sold tolerably well Vauxhall didn't do well at all so was soon dropped.

 

My favorite of the '61 Chryslers was the Town and Country wagon because they kept the '60 boomerang taillights for the wagon only. Thus, the '61 Town and Country was the only Chrysler to ever have both boomerang taillights and the canted headlights, a nice combo IMO. I will admit to being a sucker for canted headlights regardless of whether they're on a '61 Chrysler, a '63 Bentley SIII Continental, a '59 Buick, a '58 Continental or a '52 Fiat 8V . . . love 'em all!

 

[supersuds]

Is that a Newport?

My uncle had a '62 Newport, which was shorn of the fins but otherwise similar. Love the Astra-Dome instrument panel... And the electroluminescent speedo lighting is amazing at night!

This was the first car series with an alternator, rather than a DC generator, a great advancement.

Did you have trouble getting used to the full time power steering? That's the one thing I think might be hard to live with about these cars.

 

[fido]

That is interesting about them trying to sell Vauxhalls in USA. Some of them certainly looked more like American cars than British cars but I suppose the same applies to the larger Fords of that era.

http://www.classicandperformancecar.com/front_website/octane_interact/carspecs.php/?see=3678

 

[norgeway]

Full time power steering!

I LOVE it, I used to drive old Chrysler products all the time, nothing has ever driven right since, you have so much more control of the car than you do in GM or Ford products, you can have 1 finger on the wheel and hit a pothole and never lose control, not to mention parking with 1 finger, the first car I had with this power steering was a 68 Fury, most people who drove that car said it was too sensitive, but i loved it!

 

[MikeS]

62 Chrysler

I have fond memories of our family's 1962 Chrysler Newport sedan. My parents bought it used in 1965 (they traded their '56 Chrysler Windsor wagon for it), and it served us very well. It was white with a blue cloth and vinyl interior, and had power steering, power brakes, air conditioning and the inevitable push-button TorqueFlite automatic. We went on several long trips with the Chrysler, and both my sister and I were quiet comfortable. It was also quite reliable. Sadly, my parents traded it in on another Newport. That '69 model was also comfortable, but was built during Chrysler's worst quality control period. The transmission went out twice; parts fell off; and it overheated when you turned the air conditioning on. But the '62 was a great example of what Chrysler could do when it tried.

 

[rp2813]

Back in the very early 70's, the boyfriend of a girl I knew "inherited" a 1960 Chrysler Golden Lion sedan.  It the paint was an oxidized pale mint green with similar scheme on the interior.  Apparently the car hadn't been driven regularly for quite a while.  This guy didn't have a license but was driving it anyway.  He let me get behind the wheel and take it for a spin and I was impressed with its handling, smooth acceleration and ride. 

 

He was willing to part with it for little money, and I may not have even bought my first car yet at that time, but my dad was a Lincoln man and probably would have kicked me out of the house if I brought that car home.  It also seemed like way too much car for me to maintain, and while I have an appreciation for the styling now, back then these cars looked like real dinosaurs on the road, particularly with their huge rear ends and tail fins.

 

I agree with Hans about full-time power steering.  It's just a matter of adapting to it.  I've been driving variable assist power steering cars since the mid-80's and I had no trouble handling our '64 Continental convertible when taking out for a drive up until we sold it in 2006.  My dad's '69 Continental Mark III was even easier to steer using the one finger method Hans mentioned above, while it "loafed along" (thank you Special Interest Autos) at 70 mph.

 

[tomturbomatic]

A friend of my father's drove Chrysler New Yorkers all the time. One day the power steering belt broke on the highway and the loss of the power steering left him off the road in a field. Daddy was always afraid of Chrysler's power steering after that. We would go to the Chrysler dealer to look at new cars, but he could not be talked into one.

That bank of lights and gauges under the dome came to mind the first time I saw the spaceship?space-city? on Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. The Chrylser dome looked like a magical game with all of those tiers moving up and back from the driver, sort of a cross between a model train layout and a pin ball machine.

 

[ovrphil]

I posted a picture of the dash of these unique and well-made cars. I got a peek at a red or maroon one(it was kind of dark and the tarp covered the car a lot)...and the dash had me thinking that THIS was the future of styling....back when I was 12 years, and building AMT models.

Excellent looking machine!

 

[davey7]

As I recall, the 60's full size Chrysler's were better handling than average full sized sedans (in the 70's the Chicago police drove Newports I think). I remember my uncle had one in the 70's (don't remember much beyond metallic green, 4-door hardtop and probably a Canadian model) - it had the most fantastic acceleration noise, so smooth. He obviously didn't like the mileage because his next car was a Mazda GLC.

Ford didn't import as many of their European models as GM did, outside the Capri and sporadic Cortina's (probably via Canada).

 

[supersuds]

Davey, I think I know what you mean about the "acceleration noise" on older Chryslers. The TorqueFlite had a very distinctive whine in first gear. I always thought it sounded so cool, almost like a spaceship. The kind of soaceship on Saturday morning TV shows, anyway!

Ralph, I know you had a '64 Lincoln. I had a '64 sedan! To me, the Lincoln power steering is different from the Chrysler products because there was a definite on center feel. That's what seems missing from the Chryslers. Maybe the Chrysler steering just takes some getting used to.

 

[arbilab]

~60s Chryslers were conservative exteriorly compared to De Sotos. If you wanted REAL tailfins there was no other car than a DS.

Stylish (some might say garish) Chrysler Corp bodies of this era tended to fall apart under the influence of gravity. But they were fun while they lasted.

1959 Firedome Sportsman image copyright John Filiss

 

[davey7]

Yes, that whine is it exactly! Always loved that sound. I always thought it would be fun to have one of the late 60's models (like a black Imperial 4-door hardtop) to drive around in, but they won't fit through my driveway.

 

[norgeway]

RE Old Chrysler products..

To me, they have a feel all their own, the powere steering, along with the torsion bar suspension, and the Torqueflite, all work together to make the most responsive car ever, when you drive one enough to get used to the steering and brakes, getting into a new car feels like driving a wagon, no new car has the ease of handling and quick response, I have never understood this "Feel of the road: stuff, I dont want to feel the road, and with full time power steering you do not have that road feel, you just point it where you want it to go and it goes, one finger is all it takes, even in parking, the steering feels alive, not numb and dead like newer cars.The real difference is when you hit a pothole or run off a low shoulder, the wheel never gets jerked out of your hand, even if you only are using one finger.

 

[petek]

I agree Hans. I loved how my full sized Buicks drove, so easy and surprisingly parallel parking them was easier too. For one thing you could see all 4 corners of the car and it was a one handed operation with your right arm over the back of the seat. I can't even do that in my little Mazda 3 really.