hopefully this wont be too rambling or disjointed but here goes :
i now own the last Canadian market C body, or at least the last Canadian assigned VIN C body.
ive known this car for about 10 years and never thought it would be mine 1 day.
in 1977 the 1st owner ( i am the 2nd) heard that 78 would be the last year for the c body new yorker and specifically wanted the last one, and chrysler canada agreed to build and sell it to him; and wrote a letter confirming it is the last CDN VIN assigned.
it was ordered dec 10 77 with a requested delivery of august 16 78.
it has a ton of documentation from day one, the original dealer order, original customer sales contract, window sheets, shipping paperwork, and even paperwork from ASC when the car was delivered to them to have the sunroof installed.
it was built / MDH june 13 1978, then sent to ASC and was finally shipped june 26th.
it is also a Salon, most likely the last one, the Salon was a limited edition package of which about 1200 were made.
i will sum up the Salon package later.......
there was a delay in completing the work at ASC, they ran out of the Salon specific Silver Elk grain vinyl and eventually had to use a light gray vinyl that i have not seen on other mopars and not used on 78 mopars. i have seen it used on some GM products.
ASC did all the sunroofs for Chrysler, GM and Ford Lincoln Mercury.
the 1st owners were not happy with the delay and vinyl substitution but were glad to finally get the car and signed off on delivery on aug 15 1978. i have a copy of the delivery slip to customer.
now heres some cool stuff :
graham (
@Dobalovr ) researched the selling dealership, Binkley Motors in Brandon, Manitoba, and Manse Binkley from the dealership who wrote a letter to the buyer confirming the car was the last Canadian car.
graham found Manse alive and now running a (Honda) dealership here in BC, in Kelowna in the Okanagan !
Manse was in his 20s working at the family dealership and is the one who wrote up the order for the car.
His family and the buyers were good friends. the buyers were a family named Allen who own pharmacies (still do) in Manitoba, Alberta and BC. they also own health care companies and a hotel here in Victoria, BC - the James Bay Inn among other things.
I will let
@Dobalovr tell how he tracked Manse down......
i had told graham about this car quite a while ago, at 1 point we thought it might have been the last C body.
it was abit exciting as we learned more,
the owners thought it was the last c body period, but we now know it is the last canadian market one.
which makes sense, since canadian cars had to have metric speedos among other things.
something CDN 78 nybs didnt have was the front bumper corner edge guards that were used on US nybs.
I was in Kelowna about a month ago and i met Manse and in the future i plan to drive there in the Salon, he has offered to write up the history of the car and wants to pose for a pic with it and me.
the car is in very good shape and has 69k kms, about 43k miles.
it has always been in a heated garage, and was last on the road in 2017.
options include 440, power everything, sunroof, HD pkg, 3.23 suregrip, CB radio, auto level,
working ATC II !, and the Salon package.
base price $9324, options and shipping brought it up to $14,877.10 not inc taxes
it was brought to BC in the early 1980s and kept at a summer home here, until the owners made Vancouver Island their main home base and moved here in the 2000s.
this car is my 3rd sunroof Salon -
i have to admit i feel its kind of weird that this is my 3rd sunroof Salon, another member of this site owns my 1st one.
at 1 time i owned 2 sunroof Salons at the same time, i had 1 car in vancouver and 1 in victoria.
kevin mccabe was also aware of this car and gave his advice.
bill watson noticed the Salon package had been typed in on the shipping order, differently printed than the shipping memorandum, probably due to the delay in the the roof material.
ASC would have installed the vinyl top and headliner when they installed the sunroof.
most likely they also installed the smaller Imperial back window plug at the same time as well.
i didnt buy the car because of it being the "last" canadian c body, that doesnt add a huge amount of value as far as im concerned, some yes; its an interesting story as far as im concerned.
i bought it because its the lowest mileage, most loaded sunroof salon in the nicest shape i could find and i did pay a premium for it.
to me the history is interesting, and i really enjoyed getting to know the owners - the Allens better and meeting Manse Binkley. the Allens were great friends with Manse Binkley's parents, they even owned a plane together -
Mrs Shirley Allen today is a little spitfire, shes in her 80s and still has a hand in some of the family businesses, still has her dark green 72 Eldorado convertible.
im sure my jaw dropped when she was talking about the plane they had, how the wives also had their pilots licences and how the husbands would get annoyed when the wives would head off in the plane with out them......
i have had the car less than a week, i havent even washed it yet.
i hope to have time to wash the car this week end and take some good pics.
i also still have finish scanning the car's paperwork.
i did the deal about a month ago but i had too much going on to pick it up sooner.
i have new 1.6" ww to go on, and the a/c needs to be recharged; the ATC works much to my surprise. the red velour interior is like new.
everything works except for the horn, so today i bought a new relay and hopefully that will fix that.
the lean burn has been replaced with a mopar performance ignition/distributor kit.
the wiper linkage is busted like all 78 nyb intermittent wipers but i think i have a fix for that.
heres a couple pics of it at the moment and some of the paperwork
and a pic of shirley and me ( im the fat one on the left)
mark
you can stop buggin me now graham !
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