There is a certain aura to a car that has managed to survive thirty, forty or more years on the planet and yet still looks so close to new that you’d swear you were being lied to. Low mileage doesn’t matter as much, but if the interior looks showroom-good, the paint shines, and under the hood doesn’t resemble the Alaskan coastline after an oil tanker ran aground, the trend seems to be that a collector will freak out and do their best to hermetically seal said car off in a plastic bubble in the hopes that in an auction down the road, that their investment will pay off tenfold. Forget restorations, survivor cars are the way to go, it seems. 
But is it? We’ve discussed many times here the difference between rare and desirable, and what defines “desirable”. If we stumbled across something like, say, a 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator sitting in a barn with a light layer of dust on top of the paint and 80,000 miles on the clock, yes, we’d completely understand. But take into consideration this 1979 Chrysler LeBaron Salon coupe we found on eBay. Is it in great condition? For a thirty-six year old piece of the pre-loan Chrysler Corporation era, it is in stunning shape, and having only fifty-something thousand miles on the clock is a bonus. But is it valuable? Hell no, and I’m a known fan of these cars. Selling a late 1970s Chrysler product as a collectible is still a pretty hard pill to swallow for the market. Ask the speculative owners of Volaré Road Runners, Aspen R/Ts and Super Coupes how the market has treated them sometime. The hi-po F-bodies are the upper crust…the closest thing to desirable this LeBaron could ever hope to be is one of the maybe ten 360/four-speed equipped Dodge Diplomat coupes of the same era. That means that underneath that excellent chrome, Spinnaker White paint, and factory-fresh looking metal is every beater Fifth Avenue you’ve ever seen: a smogger 318 V8 with the absolutely craptacular Lean-Burn System, hooked to a 904 TorqueFlite, running power out to a 7.25″ rear end. Whoopee. I’ll even bet that this Chrysler is saddled with a gear ratio like 2.21…a slug on a salt bed accelerates faster than this barge.
Now, I don’t want to be truly negative about this deal. Visually, time has actually made this LeBaron look better than what I’m sure most people thought of it when they were new, it’s in fantastic condition, and has potential. You can bet your ass that I’d be locating a cop-spec Diplomat or Gran Fury for suspension parts, putting in an order to Firm Feel for new torsion bars and a new steering box to eliminate that “breathe on the wheel” Chrysler Corporation power assist, and would be prepping a 408ci stroker small block, 727 with a Gear Vendors overdrive, and a 8.75″ rear out back with gears and a SureGrip. I’d make sure the 408 looked as clean and stock as the 318, sure, but that would be the concession. Widen the rear Road Wheels, and put in subframe ties, and you’d have an awesome alternative to listening to some dork tell you about how special his overpriced ‘Cuda shell is. I wouldn’t be bothered about the Chrysler Camp bitching about hacking up this car, and that would go for a majority of vehicles ever produced. What do you think…if you found a car this nice that had never been molested, could you keep yourself from hopping it up?
(My apologies to The Brougham Society for going 100% against the grain for this one…I know someone is cursing my name right now!)
eBay Link: 1979 Chrysler LeBaron Salon
Gasser!
Sell all the pristine parts you can, then fit a straight axle, some vintage Halibrands or some Cragar 5 spokes, some ladder bars and a blown Hemi.
Then take it to the Brougham Society’s next meet and perform burnouts in front of them – the sound of those staid and boring hearts exploding in sheer anger would drown out even a blown Hemi!
I like the looks of the LeBaron except the nose, it is so fugly! I would find what only nose fits on this car and change it quick!
And no its not worth saving as a survivor IMHO.
Not worth it as a survivor car , I’d do the same modifications that you mentioned Bryan.
Not really worth it as a survivor but your suggested mods sound great. I would just mod up the 318, add the overdrive and go for the updated suspension/wheels and drive the daylights out of it.
No, none of you would do any of those things. If this car plopped into your laps for free you would do just as its owner is doing — flip it on eBay as a “survivor” and put the proceeds into your love car project.
you could be real sneaky by hiding that 408 stroker under the lean burn air cleaner, that bench seat would be sooo much better with the white ball in the middle…..
Id go with what you said. Keep it kinda stock looking but put all good stuff under it. The guys at the Brougham society need to cool off sometimes. No matter what its still better than it being in a junkyard.
I’ll have to go against the grain here. I’m not saying for a second that this is a VALUABLE car, its not and probably wont ever be, but how many have survived in this condition? I remember a few years ago when Jesse James hacked a very original model T for Monster Garage. Model T’s were super common at one time, and back in 1950 would be pretty much like this car is today. I say let the weenie collecters have the nice (by nice I mean survivor, not necessarily desirable) cars, and let us gear heads have at the less original ones. I will say though, I wouldnt have as much of a problem making a survivor car look like a rare option, or even one-of-none type car.
Sure but not that thing