1969-74 South African Chrysler 383

It’s interesting to me that the Australian market didn’t go for what Americans would call a full sized car: the Valiant/Commodore/Falcon cars were all comparatively midsize (although I think someone posted photos on FCBO of a bigger Mopar wagon that was sold in Aus), yet there was a market in South Africa for the full sized cars(?) Must’ve been those diamond mine owner/operators!

As an example, in the early 2000’s I think Toyota had in the past developed manufacturing plans that had RHD Camry’s made in South Africa, then would ship those to Australia and return the ships back to the S.A. market with some RHD Avalons built in Aus.
 
It's even more odd to me that since they already had the Dodge Phoenix in Australia, why not just use that?

I know it was previously posted these were built in Windsor, Ontario Canada. And that makes sense for the Dodge Phoenix, because there was probably a commonwealth-country deal that saved some taxation. But not for S.A.

And if this series continued into 1974, even less sense because Windsor was balls-to-the-wall building the only thing people wanted from Chrysler at that time... A-bodies. So I doubt they'd clog up production to build a handful of years-old C-bodies. I think these had to be done as CKD (Complete Knock Down) kits. Crates of parts containing everything that needed to be assembled, with local content on soft-trim, tires, and other smaller value parts.
 
Does anyone remember the HotRod magazine article on the 70's Dodge Challenger, a 440 6.pack IIRC, way back in the late 70's or early 80's that was being converted to right hand drive because that was the import laws for Australia back then. Maybe some of our older Aussie members can comment on this import requirement from decades ago.

It wasn't a big article, a article in the back of the magazine with a limited couple of pictures one being a interior shot of the not completed yet dash & steering wheel similar to this US Charger.

shot0090.png

shot0088.png


(phew I was lucky to find those old unlabeled screenshots)
 
I have a contact in WA that brought back 70's era Ford Fairmonts(?) 4drs from South Africa back after the fall of SA. Very popular car over there with the 351 Windsor engine being the 'Muscle' of V-8's for the Fords back then. "Rhino" name was the badge'ing.
 
68PK21 440.6bbl said:
Does anyone remember the HotRod magazine article on the 70's Dodge Challenger, a 440 6.pack IIRC, way back in the late 70's or early 80's that was being converted to right hand drive because that was the import laws for Australia back then. Maybe some of our older Aussie members can comment on this import requirement from decades ago.

It wasn't a big article, a article in the back of the magazine with a limited couple of pictures one being a interior shot of the not completed yet dash & steering wheel similar to this US Charger.

View attachment 364617
View attachment 364618
Click to expand...

The article I recall was about a '69 Charger Daytona. That car eventually ended up in the states again.

Conversation to RHD was a requirement back then. However, I think some laws recently changed and older vehicles are no longer required to convert.
 
Carmine said:
It's even more odd to me that since they already had the Dodge Phoenix in Australia, why not just use that?

I know it was previously posted these were built in Windsor, Ontario Canada. And that makes sense for the Dodge Phoenix, because there was probably a commonwealth-country deal that saved some taxation. But not for S.A.

And if this series continued into 1974, even less sense because Windsor was balls-to-the-wall building the only thing people wanted from Chrysler at that time... A-bodies. So I doubt they'd clog up production to build a handful of years-old C-bodies. I think these had to be done as CKD (Complete Knock Down) kits. Crates of parts containing everything that needed to be assembled, with local content on soft-trim, tires, and other smaller value parts.
Click to expand...

Carmine, do you know...did/do they pre-paint CKD car “kits”, typically? Or is there too much concern with ‘mutilations’, scratches etc.? I’ve spent much of my life working for OEM supplier companies and always wondered how CKD operations were managed. I’m sure it depends on legal/import requirements of the ‘recipient’ country, OEM methods/company policy, technical capabilities of the receiving country, and plain old economics.

I have seen WW2 ‘flat pack’ crated Jeeps. But “C-body in a box” takes it to an entirely different level! How fun would that be to get a brand new 300, Polara coupe, or Imperial in a crate, ready for “basic” assembly!

The unibody design - as opposed to body on frame- meant you couldn’t ship a bare chassis with an engine (I am thinking of school bus chassis’ that I have seen being trailered), so how they packed those “as a set” is a curiosity to me.
 
If I recall correctly,Chrysler Australia stopped importing the big Dodge's when they closed their old assembly facility in Victoria. The Valiant, Falcon and Holden of the day "Were" big full size family cars down here, I recall a friend of my late father's who had a 70 (?) Dodge Phoenix, and I was amazed when I saw it, possibly had we been a LHD market we would have seen such large vehicles instead of what we had.

Our future vehicles will probably be mainly Asian as American manufacturers seem to have mostly (GM in particular) abandoned the RHD market which I understand- why spend extra $$$$ engineering vehicles for either side steering when (from their perspective) it's such a small potential market?

The solution would be (my opinion) for LHD countries to pay (or subsidize) the conversion costs, then any vehicle could easily be sold here. Maybe the current POTUS will offer, another Market for American vehicles?
 
LeBaron1973 said:
If I recall correctly,Chrysler Australia stopped importing the big Dodge's when they closed their old assembly facility in Victoria. The Valiant, Falcon and Holden of the day "Were" big full size family cars down here, I recall a friend of my late father's who had a 70 (?) Dodge Phoenix, and I was amazed when I saw it, possibly had we been a LHD market we would have seen such large vehicles instead of what we had.

Our future vehicles will probably be mainly Asian as American manufacturers seem to have mostly (GM in particular) abandoned the RHD market which I understand- why spend extra $$$$ engineering vehicles for either side steering when (from their perspective) it's such a small potential market?

The solution would be (my opinion) for LHD countries to pay (or subsidize) the conversion costs, then any vehicle could easily be sold here. Maybe the current POTUS will offer, another Market for American vehicles?
Click to expand...
I think electric cars may offer an option which, from an engineering perspective, makes the RHD/LHD economics more palatable. But... that’s another can of worms. A lot of people like electric cars... and a lot of people don’t. And autonomous cars will make all of that irrelevant! No steering wheel and no driver!
 
MonacoBlue said:
Carmine, do you know...did/do they pre-paint CKD car “kits”, typically? Or is there too much concern with ‘mutilations’, scratches etc.? I’ve spent much of my life working for OEM supplier companies and always wondered how CKD operations were managed. I’m sure it depends on legal/import requirements of the ‘recipient’ country, OEM methods/company policy, technical capabilities of the receiving country, and plain old economics.

I have seen WW2 ‘flat pack’ crated Jeeps. But “C-body in a box” takes it to an entirely different level! How fun would that be to get a brand new 300, Polara coupe, or Imperial in a crate, ready for “basic” assembly!

The unibody design - as opposed to body on frame- meant you couldn’t ship a bare chassis with an engine (I am thinking of school bus chassis’ that I have seen being trailered), so how they packed those “as a set” is a curiosity to me.
Click to expand...

With no historical reference, I could do nothing more than speculate, with some idea of the most practical way to do it from a production standpoint, and knowledge of how it's done now...

You'd want to have a "body-in-white", and just to give you an idea what that is, and show that it's still (rarely) done, here's a drag-pack Challenger:
upload_2020-4-1_7-23-57.png


This is everything that welds together, plus the bolt-on sheetmetal. One of the most expensive aspects of production is the "body shop" where all the panels must be welded together in jigs. Even in the day of our C-bodies, there was some level of automation here. Not quote robotics, but still too expensive to replicate elsewhere. From here they move to dip-tanks, then they are prepped for paint. There are "spur" lines here that allow cars to be moved off the regular production line for metal repairs if a defect is found OR they could be trucked on their carrier to another part of the plant with a forklift. I'm guessing that's where these Monaco's/nee Chrysler 383's would have been removed from the line. I say that because of the unique teal color that doesn't look like anything offered here. BUT they could have been painted in-house, using the 999 paint code. It would be VERY interesting to see what a build tag looks like on one of these cars.

When Ghia created their Imperial Limos, the cars were shipped semi-finished with parts inside.

upload_2020-4-1_6-58-3.png


Something similar was probably done for these cars, since the interiors would have been done locally. I would guess they were shipped in truck-able crates without any suspension, trim work, glass, etc. Basically anything that would be added after the paint shop probably traveled withing the car. Perhaps the engine/trans/stubframe were shipped in car-position, but not fully bolted in place.

Another interesting question... Since these appear to have been sold for years after the bodystyle went away in the US, either the BIW were stockpiled years in advance, or the tooling may have eventually been shipped to South Africa. Even the engines present an another question... Since the 383 ended in 1971, were the post-71 Chrysler 383s actually 400 cubic inch units? Engines generally aren't fully built that far in advance because of issues with dry-starts. But would the Trenton engine plant periodically re-set their machining for an occasional run of 4.25 bore after running thousands of 4.342-inch (400) engines? That's a potential recipe for disaster.

It would be really interesting to hear from someone around at that time, who worked on this program from either the US or S.A. side.
 
Carmine said:
With no historical reference, I could do nothing more than speculate, with some idea of the most practical way to do it from a production standpoint, and knowledge of how it's done now...

You'd want to have a "body-in-white", and just to give you an idea what that is, and show that it's still (rarely) done, here's a drag-pack Challenger:
View attachment 365056

This is everything that welds together, plus the bolt-on sheetmetal. One of the most expensive aspects of production is the "body shop" where all the panels must be welded together in jigs. Even in the day of our C-bodies, there was some level of automation here. Not quote robotics, but still too expensive to replicate elsewhere. From here they move to dip-tanks, then they are prepped for paint. There are "spur" lines here that allow cars to be moved off the regular production line for metal repairs if a defect is found OR they could be trucked on their carrier to another part of the plant with a forklift. I'm guessing that's where these Monaco's/nee Chrysler 383's would have been removed from the line. I say that because of the unique teal color that doesn't look like anything offered here. BUT they could have been painted in-house, using the 999 paint code. It would be VERY interesting to see what a build tag looks like on one of these cars.

When Ghia created their Imperial Limos, the cars were shipped semi-finished with parts inside.

View attachment 365055

Something similar was probably done for these cars, since the interiors would have been done locally. I would guess they were shipped in truck-able crates without any suspension, trim work, glass, etc. Basically anything that would be added after the paint shop probably traveled withing the car. Perhaps the engine/trans/stubframe were shipped in car-position, but not fully bolted in place.

Another interesting question... Since these appear to have been sold for years after the bodystyle went away in the US, either the BIW were stockpiled years in advance, or the tooling may have eventually been shipped to South Africa. Even the engines present an another question... Since the 383 ended in 1971, were the post-71 Chrysler 383s actually 400 cubic inch units? Engines generally aren't fully built that far in advance because of issues with dry-starts. But would the Trenton engine plant periodically re-set their machining for an occasional run of 4.25 bore after running thousands of 4.342-inch (400) engines? That's a potential recipe for disaster.

It would be really interesting to hear from someone around at that time, who worked on this program from either the US or S.A. side.
Click to expand...
I love all this new garnered attention. In my Facebook group, I have a few Chrysler 383 owners (as mentioned in the first post). Possibly need to get their insight and information on them.
 
Walter Joy said:
I love all this new garnered attention. In my Facebook group, I have a few Chrysler 383 owners (as mentioned in the first post). Possibly need to get their insight and information on them.
Click to expand...

Thank you! And... it’d be great if you could get them to join here as well.
 
Carmine said:
With no historical reference, I could do nothing more than speculate, with some idea of the most practical way to do it from a production standpoint, and knowledge of how it's done now...

You'd want to have a "body-in-white", and just to give you an idea what that is, and show that it's still (rarely) done, here's a drag-pack Challenger:
View attachment 365056

This is everything that welds together, plus the bolt-on sheetmetal. One of the most expensive aspects of production is the "body shop" where all the panels must be welded together in jigs. Even in the day of our C-bodies, there was some level of automation here. Not quote robotics, but still too expensive to replicate elsewhere. From here they move to dip-tanks, then they are prepped for paint. There are "spur" lines here that allow cars to be moved off the regular production line for metal repairs if a defect is found OR they could be trucked on their carrier to another part of the plant with a forklift. I'm guessing that's where these Monaco's/nee Chrysler 383's would have been removed from the line. I say that because of the unique teal color that doesn't look like anything offered here. BUT they could have been painted in-house, using the 999 paint code. It would be VERY interesting to see what a build tag looks like on one of these cars.

When Ghia created their Imperial Limos, the cars were shipped semi-finished with parts inside.

View attachment 365055

Something similar was probably done for these cars, since the interiors would have been done locally. I would guess they were shipped in truck-able crates without any suspension, trim work, glass, etc. Basically anything that would be added after the paint shop probably traveled withing the car. Perhaps the engine/trans/stubframe were shipped in car-position, but not fully bolted in place.

Another interesting question... Since these appear to have been sold for years after the bodystyle went away in the US, either the BIW were stockpiled years in advance, or the tooling may have eventually been shipped to South Africa. Even the engines present an another question... Since the 383 ended in 1971, were the post-71 Chrysler 383s actually 400 cubic inch units? Engines generally aren't fully built that far in advance because of issues with dry-starts. But would the Trenton engine plant periodically re-set their machining for an occasional run of 4.25 bore after running thousands of 4.342-inch (400) engines? That's a potential recipe for disaster.

It would be really interesting to hear from someone around at that time, who worked on this program from either the US or S.A. side.
Click to expand...
The more questions you ask, the more question arise! We need some history here! Good insights, Carmine, thanks for sharing. Maybe we’ll draw some “first hand” subject matter experts to the thread...
 
Not sure, but I would assume that the main problem was that there were no stamping tools in Australia to produce identical body panels there. If there were, these would most likely have assumed a different look anyway. So I guess there were boxes imported from the U.S. each containing a dozen or so (unpainted) fenders, roofs, quarter panels etc. And these panels were then welded together in Australia as I would assume that this could easily be done by trained Aussie craftsmen. The resulting bodies were then painted before the imported engines were dropped in, etc.

LeBaron1973 said:
The solution would be (my opinion) for LHD countries to pay (or subsidize) the conversion costs, then any vehicle could easily be sold here.
Click to expand...
I think the solution is to finally come to and switch to drving on the right side of the road :poke:
 
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