While the GM products of the late 1950s seem to dominate the thoughts of many people when they consider cool cars from that era, Chrysler was really building the hot stuff. The “Letter cars” of the late 1950s were brutal performers for their time and stylistically they were as bombastic as anything anyone else was making. Don’t believe us? This 1959 Chrysler 300E is a prime example of both the performance and panache that these cars offered. They were expensive and pretty exclusive for their time so production numbers were low. That means the remaining cars are worth a mint, especially when they are absolutely flawless like this one.

1959 was a bit of a transitional year for the letter cars. It was the first year that the 392 hemi was not sitting between the fenders, in its place was a 413 Golden Lion wedge engine. The horsepower rating remained the same as the previous hemi engine and the performance was nearly identical to the previous model as well. Looks wise, the front end got a little more aggressive and the grill grew to near Kenworth proportions, letting anyone and everyone on the road know that this thing meant business. Outside of some specialty cars of the era, there wasn’t anything on the road that was touching a letter car, especially when the straights got long and flat.

The pushbutton shifted Torqueflite handled power transfer duties and while there was a manual transmission option for these cars very, very few people took it. These were luxury hot rods and luxury hot rods shift themselves.

The interior of this car is beautiful as well. The engine turned dash is pretty stunning and the gauge layout has a very European feel to it as well. Interior colors are classy and how about those stainless steel bows that run across the top of the roof to hold the headliner up.

About 500 of these cars were made and according to the seller, there are less than 120 known to exist anymore.

This is one awesome car and it has one awesome price tag. Got about $130,000 we can borrow?

Link: This 1959 Chrysler 300E was the baddest thing on the road six decades ago