General Information
I found it back in 2011 or 12. It was on the side of a Mitzubishi car dealership sitting among a bunch of newer cars. I was driving by when I caught a quick glimpse of a fuselage body in the perifery of my eye. I hit the brakes and did a quick u-turn to check it out. Turns out it was a two dr Newport coup with 383 big block power under its hood. In 71' Chrysler started putting 360 cu in motors in some c body cars; Ive never thought a small block was proper motivation for a c body - just too much heft IMHO. So I was very happy this was a '70 model. Most of these cars end up as crunchy rust buckets of their former selves, but this one was a pretty decent survivor. The car once belonged to an old lady who was recently deceased, and as with most senior citizens she kept all the maintainence docs, sales receipt and other literature connected to it (I dunno why... they just do - - everything! ) The grandson was trying to sell it and I learned from him he was going to junk it if he couldn't get it sold and off the lot soon. Yup, right place, right time.
There was no way I was letting this car go to the crusher (or let someone else buy it). So I bought it a week later after giving him a hundred bucks to shoo other potential suites away.
I have ALWAYS loved the fuselage design. These are unique cars that were ahead of their time (fuselage design language) and yet still attached to the era they were introduced (large size). I love how there's almost no extraneous doodads, fins, gun sights or other unneeded acoutraments tacked on all over the body.. just long flat straight and wide sheet metal. All those kinds of things obviously appeals to some people and that's ok; I'm not knocking anyone's tastes...but I just can't stand all that stuff ona car (or anything for that matter).
Of course this Newport has had a little work done. It had big drum brakes all the way around, I installed pwr disks upfront...chronicled right here: Fuselage - Drums to Disc Brake Conversion
(Never would've gotten it done w/o the expertise of many people here either).
In addition to that I've gone into the motor a little bit; swapped out the rear end, added stiffer leaf springs, had the transmission tuned up and a few other little things her and there. It needs a new htr core and hopefully I'm going to dive into that at the end of the summer. This is no show car, meaning I not going to win any trophies and I'm cool with that. This isn't any investment item or retirement plan for me. I get more fun and satisfaction wrenching on it and driving it, and not nessicarily in that order. I'm just happy to have a fuselage coup car. I never see any outside of car shows...and it seems even at car shows the two dr cars are getting rare. It's nice to get recognized at gas stations and complete strangers will strike up conversations with you about how they had "this car" back in the day and wish they'd kept it. That's always fun. Every now and again someone will put a note on the windshield but I'm not selling my Chrysler.
