This four-door Chrysler may not look like much in the photos, but being equipped with the Salon trim package meant that this was the top-of-the-line New Yorker available from 1963-1964. The story behind it is a sad one though. The last owner passed away and left it to his wife, who has had a stroke and now needs money to pay the mounting medical bills. Her grandson has stepped in to assist with the sale and has listed the car here on craigslist. It is located in Gaston, Oregon and they are asking $2,500.
Here is a shot of that uprated interior. It is deteriorated now, but when new, this was a nice place to be. The passenger side seat reclined for weary passengers during those long road trips. It wasn’t the biggest Chrysler available, but with 340 horses under the hood and a push button automatic transmission, we bet it was a great highway cruiser. Notice the push buttons there on the dash to the left of the steering wheel. The climate control buttons mirrored the layout on the other side.
Unfortunately, we don’t have much hope for this old New Yorker. The seller isn’t sure about the year, or the title… We can’t make out the fins on the back, so we are going to guess that this is actually a ’63. As far as the title, it shouldn’t be too hard to get if the family is willing to work with you. These cars are not highly desirable and this one has been sitting for around 30 years, so it will have to be a labor of love. Sourcing some of the parts will pose a challenge and any rust would be a deal breaker. Still, we have some hope that after a good cleaning this big luxury car will regain some of its former luxury luster.
im gonna say 64 Chrys New Yorker Salon
rust should not be a problem with a car from the Portland area unless they drove it on the ocean beaches a lot.
Looks like a ’63 – quick hint: the New Yorker emblem on the 64’s is mounted lower on the front fender, where the 63’s were level with the top of the wheel well.
I am with AMonFM on this. The 64 came with small blade fins on top of the rear fenders that don’t appear to be on this one.
The 63 also has 6 horizontal chrome bars located beneath the New Yorker script/emblem and lettering(salon) on both fenders. The standard New Yorker sedan script is a lot lower. You are correct that on the Salon it is located higher near the top of the wheel well. I just googled the images for these cars and you can see the distinctive difference. I use to own a 64 New Yorker 4 dr. hardtop sedan, and I currently own and drive a 64 New Yorker Salon that I purchased almost 3 years ago and am restoreing.
Pretty rare round steering wheel. Came only with the tilt column option?
No. The tilt/adjustable steering wheel was one of maybe 4 options for this car. All else was standard. The car I own and drive has a square steering wheel. Non-slip rear differential, passenger side rear view mirror and power antenna were the ONLY other potions for this model car. All else was standard. It was advertised as having everything on it the Imperial had. So much for truth in advertising.
The sad thing about this car is that it will never be financially worth restoring. A good, running and driving example can be had for not too much more money and so this is just an expensive parts car. If it had a title and the engine was a known runner or the price was lower then the numbers may tell a different tale. Why do I bring up numbers? Well, they don’t matter as much when you are emotionally attached to a car but they do when you are searching for a purchase.
If it were mine though… what would I do with it? First off, I would pull it from the garage and pressure clean it. Then I would see if the engine turns manually followed by changing the fuel hoses, cleaning the tank, rebuilding the carb and trying to make it run. You would want to change the oil, prime the oil pump and squirt oil in the cylinders before trying to turn it on the starter though, just to give it the best chance of running again. The Torqueflite 727 transmission might need a rebuild, but these are simple beasts that should be within the scope of the home mechanic to go through. The hardest parts to source though will be some of the items specific to these cars such as the parts to make the power options work again. I imagine the electric motors would be a standard Chrysler part used in more popular cars like the GTX, but the switches and any vacuum motors may be specific to the New Yorker and hard to find in working condition.
If this was mine the first thing I would do is chase all the living furry things out. But I’m not much of a Mopar guy.
Could be fun to hot rod up just a little,get it cleaned up and running. I bet with a little effort it could be a really nice cruiser.
Someone who was moving from Los Angeles to Florida for final retirement gave a 1963 New Yorker to me a few years back. It is a hoot to drive. Truly enormous, it makes a Lincoln Navigator look small. With the extremely long wheelbase, and more than ten feet of car behind the driver, you have to carefully rethink the approach to corners. The nose of the car has to be well into an intersection before you turn the enormous square steering wheel.. The ride is soothingly gentle, the power drum brakes take some effort to stop, and it has never seen a gas station that it didn’t like, as it gets circa six or seven miles per gallon of gas. It may not have much collector value, but it certainly does get attention.
I agree with Jim-Bob. It would likely be a glorified parts car and little more than that. Unless someone fell in love with the car itself and was determined to restore it. It sure wouldn’t be something to flip because they would never recover the expense of restoration, and it would be very unlikely to get your money out of it now.
Jay Leno had a former Hollywood producer call and offer him his nearly-perfect 1967 Imperial for purchase because he was 93 years old old and coudn’t drive it any longer. He bought it new and had it serviced every month by an Imperial specialist who came to the owner’s garage. The owner bought two of every spare part his dealer could get his hands on just in case something broke on the car. Jay wasn’t in the market for a ’67 Imperial but just couldn’t resist the car, which came with all those spare parts.
Jay did a TV show on the car and described how cool it was to drive the car. For example, the car has both front and rear A/C; that, and it’s about a block long.
http://www.forcbodiesonly.com/mopar-forum/showthread.php?5315-Jay-Leno-s-67-Imperial-Crown-Coupe
Jay didn’t say how much he paid for the car and parts, but no matter how high the cost was it was a way better deal overall than this poor Chrysler New Yorker would be.
But I hope the seller finds someone to buy the car so he can help his grandmother pay her medical bills.
To fully restore the car (looks like it’s all there) as an investment, well no. However, to restore it, as a hobby/project and drive it, you’ll have had the pleasure of preserving a piece of American automotive history. Priceless!!!
the amc twin stick sold for $2275 and it was running.
Looking like a 1964 Chrysler New Yorker Salon based on the dash pics matching at the Imperial Clubs online site.. http://imperialclub.org/IML-specific/Spotlight/Jan03/index.htm
My pop had a 63 Newport. I remember the push button system well.
The car was a tank and looked like a mafia ship finished in black with red interior. They don’t build them like that anymore.
OK, I can identify with the plight of the seller, and the need for cash. But anywhere near the ask is in reality a charitable contribution to the family.
It does not take too much looking at the photos to see how poor the condition of this car really is. The windshield appears to be shattered. In a barn or not, the environment is wet where it sits, and I’m thinking that there was an open end, making this like a 3-wall building. Looks as though leaves have blown in and around the car, likely it is sunk into the dirt floor. See the moss growing on the passenger side, and the rust between the beltline trim and the right headlight. The interior…. Besides a likely critters issue, the fabric is age shot, and I’d be concerned about mold. As a guess, the underside is probably as crusty as the anchor from an 18th century sunken ship.
Time and storage conditions have not been good to this Chrysler. Reality says it is no more valuable than scrap, unless it has something really rare about it, like a dual quads hipo motor, or something. Just the way it is, that the same investment in a different car when this one was new would now be worth a hundred thousand, even in worse shape.
I betting that this beast would clean up really well and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was still life left in the paint! The interior is toast, obviously! It’s too bad there isn’t a grandchilden, nephew, or somebody in the family that had an interest that it could be passed down to because any proceeds from the sale of a car like this isn’t going to pull anyone out of a financial crisis. I’d love to have something like this and enjoy the fantastic ride, but without 35 cent per gallon gas prices, my dream boat would be sunk! I hope it doesn’t end up with a metel scrapper!
This is indeed a 1964 New Yorker Salon. I presently own one and am in the process of restoreing it to its original beauty. It is my daily driver and currently has 69,000 original miles. Yes, it is a labor of love. It is truly a wonderful car to drive. I purchased my car in April of 2011 for $1800.00. For approx.two and a half years the car was being worked on at two different repair shops to get it roadworthy and to pass inspection.Like the car in this picture,it needed a lot of TLC. In the next few months I plan to start on the cosmetic work. New vinyl roof, paint job and reupholster the interior. Oh, I noticed the car in this picture has the tilt/adjustable steering wheel. Mine has the square steering wheel.
In my opinion, having graduated from college in l963, and having almost bought a used one in l968 (I bought a ’54 Corvette instead) it (the ’63, even more than the ’64), are Chrysler’s best looking cars of the l960’s. AND, it was a great road car, AND, on the highway it got about 15 mpg, which for l963 with cheap gas, was OK. And a four door hardtop makes it worth a lot more than a four door sedan. Or it should anyway.
It’s a ’63, and IMHO one of the nicest, cleanest full size car designs of its era. As I understand it, this was Exner’s last design for Chrysler after his excesses with fins and tortured sheet metal that started off with a bang in ’57 and then nearly put the company on a cold slab. He was out shortly after, and Elwood Engel, of ’61 Lincoln Continental fame, was brought in to clean up Chrysler’s styling. That is why the ’64 Imperial and ’65 full size Chrysler products are so reminiscent in ways of the Continental. The ’63 Chrysler was done on the old Chrysler body shell, but shorn of all fins. Why Chrysler put vestigial fins back on in ’64 I don’t know. Change for change’s sake I guess. It was Detroit, after all.
I followed the link and contacted the grandson of the owner that’s handling the sale/auction of this and approx 20+ other cars that his grandfather had collected over the years. He agrees with me that this particular car is a 64, not a 63! One of the photos he posted shows a partial view of the front of the car and you can see the headlight bezel which is correct for the 64. The 63 has a “figure 8” style bezel. This car was last driven in 1992 and has no rust. The odometer displays 92,000+ original miles. He planned to try to start the car and move it out of the barn.The car is not sitting on the ground. He was not aware of the rareness of this particular car(only 2,214 made in 2 years). I did suggest that he list it and the other cars in Hemming’s Motor News(which he was not familiar with). I sincerely hope something good will come of this. I presently own a car that is almost identical and am in the process of restoreing it.
My family owned a 62 Chrysler 300 four door. Different body style, but probably much of the same running gear. It was a nice road cruiser from what I remember.
A couple of those pics show what looks to be some serious rust issues. I hope it gets saved, but like previous posters wonder if anyone will think it is worth the time and money to do so.
sweet car and cheap
I owned a 63 Newport 361 cu in .I had to leave it at a motel in 68 it was still like New only 37000 mi on it .I hope who ever ended up with it loved driving as much as I did. it was dark green with fabric intrerior l drove it from Conn.to Seattle wash and was getting 15 mi per gal .
A really solid car I still miss it