bigmoparjeff
Senior Member
Greetings Ladies and Gents. 
Grab a bowl of popcorn, 'cause this is going to be a long one.
I'm sitting at home on New Year's eve by myself because it's too cold outside for the old diesel Suburban to start, so I can't go to my friend's house for New Year's like I usually do. Misfortune brings opportunity, so it's the perfect time to re-do the posting that I had on Dry Dock several years ago. This time there will be more info and lots of additional pictures. Most of the older pictures are scans of 35mm slides or photos, so the quality isn't the best, as I didn't get a digital camera until 2004. For some of the cars, I just never took many photos, so I may add new ones next time I have everything out to re-shuffle the car barn. I would also like to add fender tag pics for all the cars when I can.
The C-Body bug bit me very early, somewhere around ten years old. In the mid 1970's there was a TV show on one of the major networks about stunt driving. They used two cars throughout the show, I think a 1966 Chevy Bel Air and a 1966 Newport coupe. Of course, neither car fared well by the end of the show, the Chevy going up in flames, and the Newport jumping what seemed like a couple hundred feet into a lake, but the style of the Newport made a lasting impression. Some years later a '67 Newport coupe parked at a local repair shop caught my eye, and I was really honing in on the '67s. Back then, I hadn't yet found much reference material, so I wasn't even sure what years the cars were that I liked. The book I had, Tad Burness' infamous American Car Spotter's Guide, stopped at 1965. It wasn't until 1980 that I found the Consumer Guide Car Spotters Guide that covered the late '60s and '70s, and then the Standard Catalog of American Cars in 1981. I then knew that a 1967 New Yorker 4 door hardtop was what I wanted. It was love at first sight when I saw the picture. Though it's black and white, I believe it's the gold car that Chrysler used in some of their advertising.
I started car shopping at age 14 and did manage to look at a couple '67 New Yorkers for sale, but my father was too slow on the green one and it sold quickly, as it should have with an asking price of $300. We test drove the blue sedan, but my father didn't like the way the transmission shifted. That one was at a small used car dealer that specialized in C-Body Mopars for $795.
Another year and a half passes, and no more '67 New Yorkers for sale. I looked at some fusies and formals, but none of them did the trick. It's now December, 1982 and my 16th birthday is less than four months away. The plan had been to get a car sooner, so that I would have time to fix it up, but the pickings were slim. You young guys probably think these cars were everywhere back in the 1980's, but that really wasn't the case, at least not on the east coast. The people who had the good ones were still holding on to them, and much of what came up for sale was fairly rough, just old used cars that people just didn't want to spend any more money on. My Sunday morning ritual was to tear into the classified section of the two Philadelphia papers as soon as I got home from Church, and this time there was a new add for a 1966 New Yorker coupe. Not exactly what I was looking for, but it said it was "Loaded", and that was enough to make it worth calling about. The car was about 15 minutes away, sitting at an Arco station in Trevose, PA. After breakfast we met the owner there to look at the car. We were in a warm spell and temps were in the '60's, which was nice for doing anything outside. The car was on the rough side, black with one green fender, a surface rusted hood, and ripped vinyl on the left C-pillar. I would have walked away if it wasn't for two things: This car was loaded with options that I never saw before, including the TNT engine with dual exhaust, which sounded cool, and boy did it scoot. Normally, my father would have said "no way" based on the appearance of the car, but I think he was even more enthralled by how quick the car was than even I was. His current car was a 1981 Olds Delta 88 with the 3.8 V6, which was brutally slow, and you can spot our Pinto in many of the pics too. $400 changed hands and it was mine, $395 for the car and $5 for factory service manual. The New Yorker had been sitting in the previous owner's back yard for seven years, and was going to need a thorough go-through before being ready for service.
My Chrysler had a rough life before I purchased it. The previous owner's wife was responsible for the green fender. The rest of the front end was off of a silver car from another accident in the past, so the green fender may be the third left fender on the car. The quarters and right door had plenty of plastic, filling up various scrapes and dents. You could see the shadow of a hose clamp on the steering column, where there used to be a tachometer mounted. When I cleaned the engine, I was pleasantly surprised to find a set of factory chrome valve covers hidden under the muck, along with a "Holley flanged" intake and larger AFB off of a 1967 HP engine. I think the guy I bought it from was responsible for the go-fast goodies, and it's likely that it started collecting dents while it was pretty new. Combining the power of Google with the Certicard, we get a good idea of why the car had a hard life.
The original home for my car would have been where the car with the blue cover is parked. The narrow streets of South Philly, aren't the safest place for a car to be if you want it to stay nice. It then went out of the state for a while and was re-titled in PA in 1975, so it's unknown how many owners it's had, but all that damage was done in only nine years on the road before the PO parked it in his back yard. Pretty much everything still worked when I got the car, but it didn't take long for the seven years of sitting to start taking it's toll, as the power window motors died one by one, the speedometer broke, the HVAC mode doors were jamming up, and eventually the oil pump failed. I didn't drive the car much because there was no gasoline that would satisfy it's need for octane. Once the engine got warm, the pinging was terrible, even with the timing backed off and two water injectors installed. Later on, disassembly of the engine showed a thick layer of carbon on the pistons, raising the compression ratio and glowing red hot all the time. The New Yorker was relegated to short trips, and the rest of my driving was done in the yellow Pinto wagon until I bought a '76 Cutlass a couple years later.
Grab a bowl of popcorn, 'cause this is going to be a long one.
I'm sitting at home on New Year's eve by myself because it's too cold outside for the old diesel Suburban to start, so I can't go to my friend's house for New Year's like I usually do. Misfortune brings opportunity, so it's the perfect time to re-do the posting that I had on Dry Dock several years ago. This time there will be more info and lots of additional pictures. Most of the older pictures are scans of 35mm slides or photos, so the quality isn't the best, as I didn't get a digital camera until 2004. For some of the cars, I just never took many photos, so I may add new ones next time I have everything out to re-shuffle the car barn. I would also like to add fender tag pics for all the cars when I can.
The C-Body bug bit me very early, somewhere around ten years old. In the mid 1970's there was a TV show on one of the major networks about stunt driving. They used two cars throughout the show, I think a 1966 Chevy Bel Air and a 1966 Newport coupe. Of course, neither car fared well by the end of the show, the Chevy going up in flames, and the Newport jumping what seemed like a couple hundred feet into a lake, but the style of the Newport made a lasting impression. Some years later a '67 Newport coupe parked at a local repair shop caught my eye, and I was really honing in on the '67s. Back then, I hadn't yet found much reference material, so I wasn't even sure what years the cars were that I liked. The book I had, Tad Burness' infamous American Car Spotter's Guide, stopped at 1965. It wasn't until 1980 that I found the Consumer Guide Car Spotters Guide that covered the late '60s and '70s, and then the Standard Catalog of American Cars in 1981. I then knew that a 1967 New Yorker 4 door hardtop was what I wanted. It was love at first sight when I saw the picture. Though it's black and white, I believe it's the gold car that Chrysler used in some of their advertising.
I started car shopping at age 14 and did manage to look at a couple '67 New Yorkers for sale, but my father was too slow on the green one and it sold quickly, as it should have with an asking price of $300. We test drove the blue sedan, but my father didn't like the way the transmission shifted. That one was at a small used car dealer that specialized in C-Body Mopars for $795.
Another year and a half passes, and no more '67 New Yorkers for sale. I looked at some fusies and formals, but none of them did the trick. It's now December, 1982 and my 16th birthday is less than four months away. The plan had been to get a car sooner, so that I would have time to fix it up, but the pickings were slim. You young guys probably think these cars were everywhere back in the 1980's, but that really wasn't the case, at least not on the east coast. The people who had the good ones were still holding on to them, and much of what came up for sale was fairly rough, just old used cars that people just didn't want to spend any more money on. My Sunday morning ritual was to tear into the classified section of the two Philadelphia papers as soon as I got home from Church, and this time there was a new add for a 1966 New Yorker coupe. Not exactly what I was looking for, but it said it was "Loaded", and that was enough to make it worth calling about. The car was about 15 minutes away, sitting at an Arco station in Trevose, PA. After breakfast we met the owner there to look at the car. We were in a warm spell and temps were in the '60's, which was nice for doing anything outside. The car was on the rough side, black with one green fender, a surface rusted hood, and ripped vinyl on the left C-pillar. I would have walked away if it wasn't for two things: This car was loaded with options that I never saw before, including the TNT engine with dual exhaust, which sounded cool, and boy did it scoot. Normally, my father would have said "no way" based on the appearance of the car, but I think he was even more enthralled by how quick the car was than even I was. His current car was a 1981 Olds Delta 88 with the 3.8 V6, which was brutally slow, and you can spot our Pinto in many of the pics too. $400 changed hands and it was mine, $395 for the car and $5 for factory service manual. The New Yorker had been sitting in the previous owner's back yard for seven years, and was going to need a thorough go-through before being ready for service.
My Chrysler had a rough life before I purchased it. The previous owner's wife was responsible for the green fender. The rest of the front end was off of a silver car from another accident in the past, so the green fender may be the third left fender on the car. The quarters and right door had plenty of plastic, filling up various scrapes and dents. You could see the shadow of a hose clamp on the steering column, where there used to be a tachometer mounted. When I cleaned the engine, I was pleasantly surprised to find a set of factory chrome valve covers hidden under the muck, along with a "Holley flanged" intake and larger AFB off of a 1967 HP engine. I think the guy I bought it from was responsible for the go-fast goodies, and it's likely that it started collecting dents while it was pretty new. Combining the power of Google with the Certicard, we get a good idea of why the car had a hard life.
The original home for my car would have been where the car with the blue cover is parked. The narrow streets of South Philly, aren't the safest place for a car to be if you want it to stay nice. It then went out of the state for a while and was re-titled in PA in 1975, so it's unknown how many owners it's had, but all that damage was done in only nine years on the road before the PO parked it in his back yard. Pretty much everything still worked when I got the car, but it didn't take long for the seven years of sitting to start taking it's toll, as the power window motors died one by one, the speedometer broke, the HVAC mode doors were jamming up, and eventually the oil pump failed. I didn't drive the car much because there was no gasoline that would satisfy it's need for octane. Once the engine got warm, the pinging was terrible, even with the timing backed off and two water injectors installed. Later on, disassembly of the engine showed a thick layer of carbon on the pistons, raising the compression ratio and glowing red hot all the time. The New Yorker was relegated to short trips, and the rest of my driving was done in the yellow Pinto wagon until I bought a '76 Cutlass a couple years later.
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