The racing might be the front and center spectacle at the March Meet, but it isn’t the only thing going on during the week of automotive overload at Auto Club Famoso. There is a car show that takes place in “The Grove”, a stand of trees that each have a dedication to an individual notable in the sport of drag racing, and out at the far end of the right-side of the track is a swap meet. To be honest, we didn’t really poke our heads into the swap meet until Mother Nature decided to give us the middle fingers on Sunday, so we can’t say with any certainty that this Chrysler was the best deal going. By the time we were traipsing through the swap meet, most people who weren’t directly involved in racing were packing up and heading out for home. But just when we were about to write off the swap meet and move on, this big black sedan came into view.
If you park a 1960 and 1964 Chrysler New Yorker together, you will have one hell of a time convincing yourself that they are the same generation of vehicle, but that is a fact, and if you look at the area around the front windshield, you’ll see the last trace of Forward Look on a Chrysler product. After getting a major re-skinning in 1963, the 1964 model only got minor updates, but overall, this is every bit a big American sled as there ever was. Unfortunately for the purists, the 413ci V8 was long gone for this particular car, but I doubt anybody would have any real concerns about it being replaced with a 440. Overall, though, this New Yorker came off as a stocker, a car that survived more than it reasonably should have. The styling wasn’t a killer when new, but there is something pretty neat about the overall shape, one that would look even better slammed in the weeds with some Mopar cop wheels and wide rubber instead of the skinny steel units and caps. So long as the engine would fire and the car would move under it’s own power, the $4,500 asking price would fly all day long. What would you do with a New Yorker like this, besides fill it full of friends and go cruising?
Want to see a nice one? The Swopes Auto Museum in Elizabethtown, KY has a georgous ’64, gold, with a 440 instead of the 413, and baby moons on chrome reverse wheels for sale for less than the cost of a normal used car! If I weren’t so damned cash strapped, I’d have already bought it!