This 1947 Chrysler Three-Passenger Coupe was waiting for the evening ferry to cross Bass Strait from Melbourne to Devonport in Tasmania with its new owner, who was returning home after swapping it for a hot rod.
Other than having been lowered and painted in what must be a non-original colour I gather that the car is largely original.
One thing that is extraordinary about this car is the length of the trunk! With no rear seat it just goes on and on; it doesn’t even appear that Chrysler knew what to do with it all.
Further reading:
Cohort Sighting: 1947 Chrysler Town and Country – The Termite Taxi
Those three window Mopar coupes of the late 1940s were not those cars’ most appealing style. Some of the more graceful prewar designs pulled off the three window coupe better. This car’s basic styling is too blocky to really make it work, IMHO.
I am guessing a six cylinder Windsor? That was the most popular line. The hood does not look long enough to be one of the eights.
I think it was a Windsor JP, but I can’t remember exactly
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess with that huge trunk that this is a business coupe. Chrysler offered a Club Coupe and Business Coupe in all it’s trim levels during this time period.
While the Club Coupe was quite rare, the Business Coupe sold at a fraction of the Club Coupe’s numbers….in some trim levels it barely broke into 3 digits in a model year.
The Club Coupe was a 5 window coupe. Chrysler called this one the 3 Passenger Coupe. I think that the 5 window style is much more attractive on these.
I really like the looks of this 3-window coupe, with the trunk seemingly nearly as long as the hood. As far as I know, Chrysler Corp. was just about the only manufacturer to carry this style into their postwar lineups.
Correct about its being a Business Coupe. The idea was that a traveling salesman would not need a back seat but would need a huge trunk in which to place his samples and demonstrators, away from prying eyes.
In an offering of one for sale, the description includes:
“Only a few hundred of these were made, one of 20 known running examples left in existence.” If it is this rare, then that hot rod it was traded for must have been something really special.
The Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975 list the quantities by series for the three model years since Chrysler considered them undifferentiated by model year: Royals: 1,221; Windsor: 1,980. With its shorter front clip, it’s of one of these two series. The eight cylinder Saratoga and New Yorkers have a six inch longer front clip: Saratoga: 74; New Yorker: 699.
The three passenger coupe was carried over from the pre-war selection. They were very popular with saleman fleets and rural customers (who not infrequently used them as pickups!). Mopar was the last holdout with the Dodge Wayfarer and Plymouth Concord for 1952. Heck, even Studebaker dropped them after 1951!
It is interesting that only Chrysler carried this body style after the war, and not surprising that the lower-priced cars that you would expect to be used by a traveling salesman lasted longer. I suppose that some successful salesmen would spring for a nicer car, it still happens now. Although it is quite a few years ago now my uncle used to put 50,000 miles a year on his M-B’s or BMW’s.
There is just something about a 3-window coupe that makes me smile, particularly when it’s a big car. There’s a vagabond component, something socially uncommitted that speaks of cinema noir. Driven by a guy who only checks in with the supplier when he runs out of stock, and calls collect. Six weeks unreachable. Rollin’ down that long lonesome highway. Chatting up whomever at a series of bars stopped in every year at the same time.
“Mr., Can you take me out of here. I’m sick of this place?”
“Sure, Beautiful… meet me at the edge of town…at midnight.”
Then, the world spins out of control…
You could freeze a barbecue’s worth of ice cubes in that grille, and smoke a pig in the trunk. It’s ridiculous to the point of being sublime.
See the first traveling salesman film character I think of is John Candy’s character in Planes, Trains and Automobiles; not quite the same thing!
Don, surely more than one body in that trunk!
Just…..
_Beautiful_ .
I’m with Barko here , trundling across America in this would be a dream .
-Nate
Three passenger goombah-style: two in the cabin and one in the trunk.
Stack ’em up like cordwood in there .
-Nate
I love it. The unconventional modern color works very well on it. If it were mine, I would get the ride height back up, don’t care for the lowering. And I agree with Barko, there is indeed a vagabond, vaguely antisocial air about these enormous business coupes. Early postwar Chrysler products hit me just right as my brother had a beautiful ’46 De Soto, all chrome and mile-deep black paint.
These three-window coupes with their long trunks always look to me like they should be utes. I know back in the 30’s some coupes could be converted with basically a slide-in bed replacing the trunklid–I wonder what the last one of those was?
They still do this in the really poor areas of mexico. They use 70s vintage and even 80s vintage large rear drive American cars. The strangest one I ever saw was a VW Beetle with a pickup bed added to the front! It looked like a drivable wheel barrow.
If you’ve ever seen one of these up close and personal, you would be impressed – they were huge! There used to be one owned by a person a block from my parent’s home at the bottom of our street. This was in the early 1960s, it was black and rusted to pieces!
What’s really funny is that I’ve seen a convertible in this style, though not sure what make it was.
have one in the netherlands
Sweet, Ed .
-Nate