With the recent crappy news about Chrysler forsaking its historical archives and allowing people to literally walk out of the building with pieces of it, we decided to feature a vintage Chrysler from our own personal collection of old press photos and releases. It’s the loud and proud 1957 Dodge Custom Royal.

The Custom Royal series cars were the top of the line Dodges. They didn’t come any more decked out than these. Among the special outer features that made this car a cut above were six vertical bumper bars between the bumper and grille bar, the Dodge name, gold in color on both the hood and trunk, and the words Custom Royal on the front fenders.

The cars were assembled in both Detroit and at the long dead Dodge factory in Los Angeles. The four-door you see in the photos here would have sold at a retail price of $2,846, one hell of a bargain if you ask us. The base engine was the 325ci Red Ram V8 which made 260 hp in the Royal Series cars. Production of the Royal series came in at just over 55,000 units for the 1957 model year.

1957 marked the first year of torsion bar front suspension for Dodge and it was obviously something they liked as it became standard for all Mopar passenger cars for years after. 1957 was also a kid of peaky year for Chrysler as horrible quality control problems and a suffering reputation led to them sliding hard in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

We could look at this baby all day!