(Words by Eric Rood) – The mid-1960s Chrysler Imperial holds a special place in motorsports history for its undisputed demolition derby capability (often leading to outright banning), but as far as we can tell, this is the world’s only ‘64 Chrysler Imperial autocrosser. While the word “agile” hardly springs to mind when watching this video, the Imperial’s driver—who uploader Josh Spangler notes is running her first-ever autocross—wrangles the 5,000-pound land yacht as well as we can.
A bit of digging indicates the driver is Wallis Mead and while we wish this was in-car video of Mead swinging the massive steering Chrysler wheel around like a tiller, we’re happy enough to know that she was making autocross runs with Illinois’ Champaign County Sports Car Club at Rantoul Aviation Center in November 2012. Sure, the Imperial predictably was slowest of all cars, but who needs speed when you’ve got style? At the end of the day, the best race car is the one you can drive home.
By the way, Rantoul Aviation Center resides on the decommissioned Chanute Air Force Base, which was one of several Strategic Air Command bases that General Curiits LeMay loaned to the Sports Car Club of America for road racing in the 1950s before the country had many purpose-built road courses.
You can catch some old home movies taken from Chanute in 1953 toward the end of this video from Etceterini.
