As it was mentioned during the recent 1979 Newport post, the Chrysler R-body lacked both the station wagon and 2-door coupe body styles of its predecessors and competitors. Given Chrysler’s lack of funds and diminished interest in the R-body, additional body styles beyond the 4-door “pillared hardtop” sedan were out of the question. They probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference in R-body sales either. But it’s always fun to imagine what could of been, so I present to you, my interpretations of R-body station wagons and coupes.
The first picture is of the Newport wagon. Chrysler already was making the LeBaron and Diplomat wagons at the time, but these M-body wagons weren’t as roomy as those from GM or Ford. They also lacked a third row seat, limiting their passenger capacity to six. An R-body wagon would have been a viable competitor to the B-body and Panther wagons. The M-body wagon’s roofline served as the basis for making this Newport sedan into a wagon.
Or if a Newport wagon was too plain, a wood-trimmed Town & Country was always a step above. The di-noc pattern on this one pays homage to the original Town & Country from the 1940s. If there had been a woodgrained R-body Town & Country, it likely would’ve used the New Yorker’s front clip. I left the Newport’s here simply because I like it better.
As for the 2-door coupe, I played around with several different treatments. For the first, and most basic, I used a Plymouth Gran Fury. This would’ve been the standard window for the 2-door R-body, and it’s pretty self explanatory.
The New Yorker, with its more intricate features likely would’ve had its own roof treatment. This first photoshop I did is a little busier, including both a small rear and opera window. It may be a little too much, but I rather like it. Chrysler was already applying similar treatment to the Mirada and Cordoba LS, so I don’t think it would’ve looked too out of this world.
I decided to also play it safe with this New Yorker coupe. The opera window is larger, making a middle window unnecessary. I don’t like it as much, but multiple vinyl roof and window treatments were still common among coupes in the early 1980s. This could’ve been the standard New Yorker roofline, and the previous picture the Fifth Avenue.
Interesting, that Grand Fury coupe is pretty nice.
NIce reworks! I also like that blue club coupe. It has the same proportions as Chrysler/DeSoto club coupes of the ’40s.
Great ideas! I really like the wagon concepts. I also find your brown New Yorker coupe very well done proportionally! I think that would have sold quite well.
It’s a shame that the R-bodies didn’t sell better – I think Chrysler’s take on downsizing was a good effort, considering their condition at the time. The lack of a coupe and wagon didn’t help matters any, and your ideas are a look into what might have been. With those on the dealer lots, they could have got a few more years out of the R-body, and they would have offered more choices besides the K and M body derivatives.
Really like the woody wagon concept. Also like the third coupe rendering, the New Yorker version in rose colour. Reminds me of the ’74-’76 Riviera, which I also liked. Don’t really care for the rendering of the blue New Yorker coupe, the B-piller treatment is a bit too busy.
Nice ‘shops, but even if Chrysler had made them, unless they became out-of-the-park homeruns (which wasn’t likely), it simply wasn’t money they could afford to spare at the time. As it was, the R-bodies were weak, desperation Hail Marys built around ancient chassis’. It was far too little, too late. If not for the wizard Lido, Chrysler would have been history long ago.
These would have made fantastic wagons. Their interiors were particularly roomy, especially in the front seat, with that fall-away instrument panel design. Chrysler may even have been able to use a bit of tooling from the prior generation big bodies. Nice work on the photoshops.
A bit indeed, I can only imagine a “Dodge St. Regis wagon” being the Magnum front on an otherwise unchanged Coronet/Monaco wagon. Hard to imagine it lasting even as a sad and desperate placeholder until the minivans were ready.
These are all shockingly good. My favorites are the Burgundy New Yorker with the large rear window and the Gran Fury Coupe–very clean–although they all look good.
It even works as a station wagon. Who knew one of Chrysler’s most unloved cars could have spawned these varieties?
Coupe and wagon sales of the B bodies in their waning days (save for the Cordoba) was probably the biggest reason for the lack of such versions of the R body. Safe bet that Chrysler couldn’t spend the resources for cars with limited sales potential at the time. Too bad, the coupe renderings presented here look quite good.
In what seems to be an ironic twist, Chrysler would get their revenge for not being able to produce an R-body station wagon a few years later when the minivan would single-handedly create a new market segment that would virtually wipe-out the Ford and GM full-size station wagons in short order. The last ones from Ford were in 1991 (the infamous ‘Wagon Queen Family Trucksters’) before the ‘aero’ Crown Victoria sedan came out in 1992, and the 1996 Impala and Roadmaster wagons (which were actually rather nice, particularly the ones with the LT1 Corvette engine).
I know Iacocca cleaned house when he came in, but you have to wonder if there were a few Chrysler old-timers left who watched with glee as this happened.
Very nice retouching Brendan. My fave is the cover pic wagon. Not sure about the T&C, though.
+1. From the C-Pillar back that lovely big glass area reminds me of the XD-F Falcon wagon.
As much as I like these, it’s hard to question a decision made at that time that would have cost Chrysler money without being applied to one of the core surviving models.
I love the Gran Fury coupe, though, much as I’d like a Delta 88 coupe.
Very Nice “what if” work! I like the last New Yorker coupe best though perhaps narrow the quarter window by broadening the C-pillar.
How about a R-Body New Yorker convertible?
Isn’t Photoshop a great thing? I used to have to use tracing paper to get the cars from the road test panels from Road & Track (back when it was worth reading) to acheive the same idea.
Nice work, those are some interesting takes on what could have been. I especially like the T & C wagon and the maroon colored coupe posted last, but would have deleted the half vinyl roof.
Too bad, really.. as usual, Chrysler’s timing sort of sucked in regards to new programs during that era.
Not near as nice as the 79 Caprice Coupe or LeSabre sport coupe
True, but the R-body coupe renderings don’t look any worse than the Ford Panther 2-doors and might have gotten some conquest sales from that car (particularly the nice looking New Yorker with the single, large opera windows).
The Gran Fury Coupe would look stunning in brown with a paisley patterned full vinyl roof with matching paisley interior trim. Ahhh…. I could see it now !
It is a vicious circle when the lower-volume variants can’t be justified because it then reduces the total volume for the platform and plant, the same situation applied to the Australian Falcon when the long-wheelbase sedans and wagons were dropped. For years prior they had been done ‘on the cheap’ (little differentiation from the standard sedan, and carry-over body structure for the wagon), which reduced buyer appeal and also put them on a downward spiral.
It is easy to see why they didn’t build a coupe when the Cordoba had one, surely if they were going to the car would have to be more of a Lincoln Mark competitor rather than just a 2-door sedan?
Does anyone know what proportion of sales the GM B-body coupes & wagons represent?
So glad you’re here, Brendan. It is so nice to have some company on the R body parade float. 🙂
I really like the wagons. Unfortunately, Chrysler wagon sales had been in the dumpster for years. Still, these could have been the most appealing big wagons since the 73 model.
Not a fan of that Fury coupe, it looks too much like the roofline on the 74 Fury coupe which I found to be uninspired. Besides, this was the era of the opera window, which is why that New Yorker you did looks so good. This would have been so much more appealing than any 2 door Panther. But again, sales of 2 door Chryslers had been terrible for years, so it is hard to fault them for not investing in the cars.
There are a few of us on the R-body wagon. While I love the M-body, I love the R-body even more. Now, I just need to find a police package R-body for a write-up.
That wagon is sharp. If Chrysler had done a little better job on the bumpers, this would have been a standout in ’79. Much better looking than the new Fords and Mercurys that year.
It would be neat to see the two door as a true hardtop, but, you are right about this being the Opera / Landau era. Better bumpers, introduce this in ’77, and this might have been a hit for Chrysler….
Brendan, these are all terrific. In fact, you have tamed my biggest beef with the New Yorker where the vinyl is covering half the back door frame. The two-door (either one) is delightful.
However, my favorite of the pack is the Gran Fury. It is so clean in its lines, and is such a natural extension of the four-door. Very good work.
I very much like the 2 door coupes. These could have captured the “Personal Luxury” category of drivers and appealed to men who did not want to share their car with the rest of the family. The dark blue New York is especially sharp looking and would have appealed to some type of professional.
Nice work. I think I prefer the last NYer coupe with the larger opera window to the one above it. Of course, I also prefer the maroon colour, and those wheels. Those were only available in 1978-79 Mopars, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them pictured on a NYer before.
> If there had been a woodgrained R-body Town & Country, it likely would’ve used the New Yorker’s front clip.
I don’t know about later versions, but the mid-60s T&Cs were based the Newport, not the New Yorker. So there is certainly a precedent for your version.
Kudos on the wagon interpretations. The “M” body liftgate likely would have worked very well at the rear of the “R” body. It certainly would have resolved the tail light issues, particularly if the “M” body T&C liftgate was used and carried the lighting across.
I agree that the blue dual side window New Yorker coupe is a bit too busy. The light blue Gran Fury coupe on the other hand works quite well.
I believe your rendering of the red New Yorker coupe is the perfect adaptation of the St. Regis roof style of the outgoing “C” body cars. In fact, that entire area aft of the “B” pillar looks like the perfect place to section the car to add a limo style rectangular rear door to give Chrysler a viable competitor to the Fleetwood 75 limos, but also to honour the long gone, but not forgotten Ghia limos.
Well done.
Great job!! I think another reason the two door coupes were not production cars were that personal luxury cars were dead by then. The Gran Fury looks right at home. Wagons on the other hand would of helped sell more units and put a dent in Impala and Crown Vic/LTDs.
I will take a wagon and a Gran Fury coupe, please. Wow, what excellent renderings/imaginings of what could have been. I’ve never seen a real R-Body that I can remember so these are doubly cool.
Fantastic and nicely done. I realize their wagon and 2 door sales had suffered in recent years, but I really think the lack of a full-line offering helped reinforce the dead-end nature of these cars.
I do like the T&C option, but I’d extend it at least to the rear quarter. Oh heck, let’s go full LeBaron.
I love the wagons, great Photoshop skillz!
The biggest thing that would have made the R-bodies noncompetitive would be the lack of four speed automatic. GM and Ford both had them and by 1985 Ford even had fuel injected V8s.
The Torqueflite was an excellent transmission but let us not forget that by the mid to late 80s, M-body buyers were paying a gas guzzler tax on those cars. The tax bill for a 3 speed auto R-body would have been even higher.
I doubt the bill would have been higher. While the M’s were smaller, they weren’t more efficient. My brother had an M body 5th Avenue that got no better gas mileage than my St. Regis and he had less back seat room and trunk space without the extra fuel economy to show for it.
When I first looked at the pictures without paying attention to the title, I thought these were images of cars that had already been produced. Nice job.
On the subject of R-body mods, here’s something y’all might get a kick out of…
Sorry it’s not higher-res, but that’s all I could find.
Oh, BTW, great job on those photoshop jobs. It’s cool to see some ideas of what could have been. A few years back, I took a pic of a New Yorker, and gave it a stretch in the rear door area, to make the rear window more “proper” sized. I thought it improved the proportions of the car considerably, but to actually build it that way would have most likely added about 10″ to the wheelbase and overall length of the car. NOT something you want to do in that fuel-conscious era!
I think these cars would look great as a convertible, as well. The windshield on the R-body was already pretty rakish for the era, moreso than a GM B/C body sedan or Ford Panther. FWIW, the Panther “coupes” were really 2-door sedans, sharing the same windshield and roof stamping as the 4-door models. The 2- and 4-door models were both the same height. GM’s B/C-body coupes were lower and a bit slicker than the sedans. But, the R-bodies were a bit lower and slicker, still. In some ways, I guess they sort of bridged the gap between the old 4-door hardtops of yesteryear and these “4 door coupes” that Benz, VW, BMW etc pass off nowadays. Some of these “4-door coupes” even sport the frameless door windows, just like an R-body, or ’80-85 Seville.
One other thing I just thought of…I think the low-slung roofline of the R-body would have limited its usefulness as a wagon. They were only 54.5″ tall, versus 56.7″ for a GM B-body sedan. I think the old boxy Panthers were around 55.3″ tall, although to me, their boxy lines made them look even taller than the GM cars.
So, an R-body wagon would have most likely have needed a raised roof towards the back. But that’s not beyond the realm of possibility. GM raised their wagon roofs a bit towards the back, IIRC. Can’t remember if the Panthers did or not.
I like these What If’s and want to join the others in commending you. I’d say your impressions were quite accurate.
Being an R-body fan myself and having owned my ’79 St. Regis for 20 years and owned by my dad the previous ten, I’ve often imagined what a 2 door R-body might have looked like. Love the photoshop renderings. The low roof line as part of a station wagon would not have bothered me because it would have been the ancestor of the Magnum wagons we had not that long ago. The roofline looks impractical on the LX wagons but i gather once the hatch/tailgate is lifted there’s more room than it would first appear. I can see an R wagon being similar. As far as the original four doors went, I wish they had gotten frames around the windows or else been true four door hardtops. While I’m busy wishing, I also wish the R’s had continued instead of the M’s which don’t get any better gas mileage and are not quite as well packaged as the R’s.
I would have also loved to have seen the R’s live past 1981 and get fuel injection and four speed automatics and a few other refinements that would have addressed things like door and window seals and stronger window regulators on crank window cars. Or actual window frames. But then my ’80 Cordoba didn’t have a frame around its windows and I didn’t have the wind noise problems I have with my St. Regis. I had to improvise some replacement seals because unsurprisingly, no one makes them new. But, in spite of it being less than perfect, it’s a fun car to drive thanks to the front and rear anti-sway bars and cop sized wheels and tires. It’s been one of the most reliable cars I’ve owned so far because my dad rebuilt it in 1985 and we’ve kept it up since then. I wish the cosmetics were as good as its mechanicals but I’m working on that this spring. The attached picture is what a 253,000 mile R-body St. Regis looks like in the southern part of the salt belt.
If they kept making these as Chevy kept making the Caprice Classic, Buick made the Roadmaster, etc. and as FoMoCo made their models, how do you think they would look? (I’m sure the 5.2 at it’s peak of 230 horsepower and the 5.9 at 250 would have been well appreciated…and yeah we all can say HEMI all right!)