(first posted 11/17/2016) We all know what a sport sedan is, from the ur-BMW 5 series to the legions it spawned. But there was an earlier, American era of the sport sedan, on its last legs when this Chrysler rolled off the line at the sprawling Jefferson Avenue plant sometime in 1967. The times, they were a changing, to quote a recent Nobel Laureate.
The premise of the American sport sedan was simple: Take the body of your smaller, lighter entry-level upper-medium-priced car and put in the engine from your larger, heavier more luxurious model. That was Harlow Curtice’s idea in 1936 when his Buick division launched the Century, a Buick Special’s body with the Roadmaster’s 320ci straight eight.
It was a winning formula. The Century was one of the fastest cars on the market, outperforming many luxury cars at a much lower price, all disguised as a sensible sedan. The Century was the prototypical “Q-ship”, even before people knew what a Q-ship was. Instead, they called it the banker’s hot rod- exactly what BMW became in the 80s.
In truth, it was a move only Buick could pull off. Of the medium priced cars, it alone had the magic combination of two different body shells, and both series using straight 8 engines. The other players all used a single body shell, in straight 6 and 8 cylinder versions. The only difference was a longer front end to accommodate the longer straight 8s. Put an 8 in a Chrysler Windsor and you get a New Yorker.
But the switch to V-8s in the early 50s gave new life to the formula. In 1951, Chrysler was able to fit the new 331 cubic inch Hemi V-8 into the shorter front clip of the 6 cylinder Windsor, and the Sport sedan got a new lease on life. It, along with the trim but powerful Lincolns were kings on the tracks but both petered out as V-8 power spread and luxury began its ascent (or descent) across the market.
Still the sport sedan lingered on. Buick brought back the Century in 1955, with the Super’s 3-ventiport body housing the Roadmaster’s V-8, packaged as a sporty step up. Century begat Invicta which begat Wildcat, but the idea was the same. Chrysler reintroduced the Saratoga from 57 through 61, then switched to our featured model line, the un-lettered Chrysler 300 Sport Series, which ran from 1962 to 1971, a year after Buick put the Wildcat in the stable.
While the 300s lacked the raw performance of their lettered brethren (and the price) they were fast, capable cars, especially before Chrysler began softening its class-leading handling. In truth they were a bit of a pose. They offered a smaller wheelbase with a larger, but no longer the largest, V-8. They were great cruising on highways and gently winding roads, but as the 60s wore on their styling became increasingly conservative, only to flame out in fuselage glory.
But by 1967, the end was near. The full-size American sport sedan was being done in by a perfect storm of cultural changes. First, John DeLorean took the Century/Chrysler formula and dropped it down a notch to even lighter and more affordable intermediates with the GTO. By the late sixties, muscle – and pony – cars were what people drove when they wanted to drive fast. Second, the large car market shifted from wanting sporty to demanding luxury as they moved up the ladder. Speed was out and vinyl tops were in.
And lastly, the growing number of European, and especially German luxury sedans were learning that it was possible to combine decent power, excellent handling and well-finished interiors in a compact body, paving the way for the banker’s hot rods of today.
In the arc of sport sedan history, this 300, spotted in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn a while back, is nearer the end than the beginning. It’s an echo, not a roar. The styling is as conservative as a Brooks Brothers suit – with the exception of the more whimsical-than-sporty taillight and bumper treatment, which probably looked a lot better on paper. Oh it’s got the 300 badge, for sure, but by 1967, that’s all it was – a badge, not a symbol.
This 300 is a seriously good looking car. But with the weights of the full size bodies, there was no way to build a proper sports sedan. It is why the modern full size are so unsporty. Despite the high horsepower and multilink suspensions, there is just too much weight to achieve real agility.
At the same time there is no way for a GTO or a Bavaria to match the smoothness, quiet, or deep power reserves of well tuned large American sedan. It is just a great case for doing what you do best.
“modern full size”….
Is there such a thing? Oh Riiight: SUVs!!!
Charget and 300. Those are big cars!
Oh really? Park a modern 300M next to this
’67 or a fuselage and it will look like a compact
in comparison. The modern ones are a few
inches taller, to be sure.
Wait a year and the styling gets even better. The odd taillight treatment gave way to another odd taillight treatment, but they gave it hidden lamps which really cleaned up the grille area and made the peaked center more noticeable.
Not the same as an early letter series, but I sure wouldn’t turn one down, especially with the 440 TNT.
Some Chrysler purists tend to decry the adding of the non-letter 300 (especially the 4-door cars) and the subsequent elimination of the letter cars, but it probably kept the marque alive until the brougham era of the early seventies finally killed it off (to be later revived in 2004).
The fact is that the regular 300 looked every bit as good as the letter cars, could be optioned up virtually identically, and performance was more than adequate with the standard, big Chrysler mills that didn’t have any of the special (and more expensive) tuning that set the letter series apart. I’d go so far as to suggest that, with a few exceptions, a later, non-letter 300 might be preferable to an earlier letter car, certainly if one wanted to drive it on a more frequent basis.
Nice article. One nitpick: The Buick Century was the Special (which came with the 248ci straight eight) body with the Roadmaster (320ci straight eight) hood and engine. In 1936, the Super didn’t exist yet.
When it did come around, the Super was the exact opposite, the Special engine and interior in the Roadmaster body.
Fixed that, thanks!
I’ve always thought of the Buick Century’s successors, the Buick Invicta, the Buick Wildcat, and the Buick Centurion as being sort of similar in concept and execution as these Chrysler 300s. Sort of a full-sized sport sedan of a sort.
I think it amounted more to Buick trying to get some of Pontiac’s action. Given the comparative sales, Buick had no specific reason to chase Chrysler and every reason to chase Pontiac.
A very nice car, but even by 1967 with GM leading the way in more modern styling, this still had a touch of class.
I miss the formal styling of large sedans. I guess a Tahoe or Suburban stands in for the “formal” sedan class, now!
+1. While I like cars like the new Continental on paper, I’m a bit turned off by the “Bling Factor” applied to it. I guess it’s a sign of the times, but I’d love to see a modern interpretation of a conservatively styled, clean design like the 68-72 New Yorkers. They don’t scream “I’m big, expensive and ostentatious”, but they’ve got a quiet elegance that really has presence. Alas, nobody wants to spend that kind of money these days on a vehicle that isn’t designed to look like a suburban tract house slathered in plastichrome.
The current generation of Chrysler 300(‘S’ trim and painted black) comes pretty close to the clean-looking sedan motif…
These hit a sweet spot with me. Big and powerful with some sport and style to go along with the luxury. I think the ultimate of this genre (at least in the 60s) was the 64 Ford Galaxie 500 XL 4 door hardtop that could be had with bucket seats and a console.
The problem with these cars is that folks who prized sport usually had very little standing between them and a 2 door car, which did sport better then. The modern “sport sedan” only went mainstream when larger 2 door cars began to go extinct, caused not least by child safety seat laws.
I wonder if any 4 door hardtop XLs were produced with the 427 in ’64? Or was that limited to the coupes?
One of my all time favorite Chryslers, and very possibly a candidate for Peak Chrysler.
I’ve seen a few of these 300 four door hardtops absolutely loaded, and very likely with the rare buckets and console combination.
What you could buy on your object of pure automotive lust………….
“ a candidate for Peak Chrysler”
+1, very well put.
Massive but not ridiculous, edgy but not weird, boxy but not boring.
Definitely on my ’60s Greatest Hits list.
I’ll second that! Great looking car, and that rear end is spectacularly neat
I’ve always loved the boxy, full-sized Chryslers from Elwood Engel’s tenure running ChryCo design. The interiors were gorgeous, too.
A friend’s father had a ’66 non-letter 300 convertible, cream paint with a black top and leather bucket seats. I was completely smitten. Kevin’s father (wisely) rarely let him drive it, but I did get a brief ride once, and that just made me lust after it even more.
The taillamps on that ’67 look like they’re interchangeable with the ones from a Colonnade Pontiac.
The taillights look like those used on the 1976-77 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme coupes. At the time, Motor Trend asked whether Oldsmobile stylists had simply cribbed them from a 1967 Chrysler 300.
I saw early to mid Sixties’ Pontiacs in those taillights and back end treatment.
Car and Driver magazinr observed,( back in 1970,) Chrysler followed and copied the other makes and thus were one full model cycle behind GM, but when they did copy a trend they stomped harder on it than anyone else.
So I’m not surprised this 300 was the ultimate expression of full size luxury performance when everone else moved to mid-size youthful performance models.
+1: As an example, check out the taillights of both the ’64 and ’69 Dodge Polara.
To the untrained eye, these look like they could be a couple of lost unknown mystery years of the Chevrolet Impala…
Sorry, I never got the point of a 1960’s giant American sport sedan. It is kind of like a sport coat. What sport do you play wearing it?
Same with the AMG S Classes or Alpina 7s-wouldn’t a smaller, lighter less bulky car make a much better “sporty” car? Likewise, if you want a really big car, doesn’t it make more sense to have more refinement and comfort?
Back in the day the well dressed golfer wore a sports coat, complete with collar and tie:-) I have never tried to play golf dressed in that manner but, as I understand it, this would have been the height of fashion a century ago.
I have some 16mm video of my grandfather doing just that. He also wore suits on the weekend, but with an open-collared shirt, unless he was going to church or dinner.
Lots of things are deemed “sporty”⚽: Yrs. ago I bought my wife a Bernina 802 Sport sewing machine. Maybe it’s the carrying handle on top.?
How about Ritter Sport chocolate bars? I fail to see what’s sporty about a chocolate bar, but maybe it’s just me…
Good, I forgot that one. Even program schedules have been called “sporty” if they’re considered too optimistic (which is almost always the case).
I’d ask the same thing about the name, “Sport Utility Vehicle” aka SUV. Stupidest name ever. Call it a Minitruck.
In 1969 I bought a used 1968 Chry. 300 2dr HT I kept it for a few years.
Dark green with a black vinyl top, it was big, stylish and fast with the 440 engine.
I rem. I could only achieve 17 mpg on the HWY. ..terrible by todays standards.
I had to have the Torque Flite trans replaced once. Also I replaced the starter twice before buying a stronger beefed up starter with more windings to fix the problem.
My brother owned a 1968 Newport 2dr at the time with a 383 eng.
I thought it was a better looking car overall, my car was faster from the start but his was just as fast once it got rolling on the open road.
Your comment reminds me of a feature in the ’66 Chrysler 300 my friend’s father owned.
There was a fuel economy gauge on the dash, probably just a simple vacuum gauge, and if I remember correctly it was color coded, red on the left and green on the right. Just touching the accelerator pedal pegged the needle to the left.
Did the 300 get a stiffer suspension than the other full-size Mopars? I have experience with a ’67 Monaco (383 2V) and a ’67 Imperial (440, of course). Both handle better than you might expect… but “sport”? Nope.
Not as standard equipment, although you could order a heavy-duty suspension package that was similar to what you got on the last letter cars. (It was not nearly as stiff as the early letter cars, but it was still firmer than, say, a Windsor.)
Love me a true Q-ship, like when Grandma buys the V6 Camry LE.
True American sport sedans have always held my interest, but I think that’s because they are faster than people expect – as long as you keep the visual cues subtle. (NOT like a 1990s Impala SS, that was subtle as a brick through a plate glass window.)
Q-ships were not widely known for obvious reasons. Success in surprising wary U-boats required considerable daring & even stagecraft (such as faking a General Quarters with clumsy deployment of lifeboats). Cmdr. Gordon Campbell accounted for 3 of the 12 U-boats sunk by RN Q-ships during the Great War, but they were not deemed an especially effective solution.
Not to mention that it would seem to give the Germans license to blast away at anything afloat for fear of it being a military vessel in disguise.
Kind of a moot point by then, I’d think.
CC Effect? Saw a ’68 Chrysler in my neighborhood last weekend. I’ll have to see if it’s still there.
I don’t remember the taillights of the featured car. Were they unique to the 300’s?
Yes, they were. The big Chryslers had unique grilles and taillight treatments by model during the Engel era, but these were the most extreme. I think they used the Dodge trunk deck with unique rear quarter clips, lights and bumper.
As I said, I think it looked better on paper than in real life. The ’68 was a better design, a statement you could arguably make across all the C-bodies. Cleaner, better integrated.
I’m not sure about the Dodge trunk. The closest I could find would be 1968, and it’s not an exact match (the 300 lid goes all the way to the bumper, while the Dodge stops at the top of the taillights). If anything, they put the 300 trunk on next year’s Dodge, and not the other way around.
My father’s 1965 300 in dark turquoise was one beautiful boat. Not too soft on the highway, but definitely louder than GMs of the day. It had the standard 383 and a reclining passenger semi-bucket seat (unusual). Held up well, but eventually lost out to rust in the trunk well.
Loved these. I thought it was the best looking Chrysler of the 60s. Grille, tail lights, presence, all of it. 67 was a peak year for a lot of other makes as well.
The raised white letter tires look out of place on that car……A set of whitewalls would look more appropriate……along with installation of the missing wheel lip moulding on that front driver side fender.
Gosh, those taillights don’t even look slightly familiar to me.
The car’s color being almost exactly the same as those of the red taillight lenses probably has an impact on perception.
First car I ever paid money for was a 1967 Chrysler 300 two door, with those waterfall tail lights and a very sweeping roofline, not at all like the four door roof line, was probably the fastest car I had ever owned up to my buying a used c5 corvette, the 440 with a holly four barrel and single exhaust was a strong runner.
It bears noting that the sport sedan concept initiated by Harlow Curtiss’ ’36 Century also was accompanied by another GM entry stuffing a potent engine into a smaller, lighter body: the 1936 Cadillac Series 60. Sharing the same Fisher bodies as the Century, on a 121 inch wheelbase, powered by the all-new first year monoblock 322 cu. in L-head V8, 125 hp in a 4010 lb sedan, it was a banker’s hot rod for $1,695.
I swear I saw one of these four-dours with bucket seats and a floor shift. I think it belonged to one of the elementary schoolteachers at my public school.
I swear I saw one of these four-doors with bucket seats and a floor shift. I think it belonged to one of the elementary schoolteachers at my public school.
Sports sedan? Muscle sedan more like. I can’t imagine any big American car from the 50s or 60s having “sporty” handling…
Didn’t read all the preceding comments, but I’d say the Impala SS or Merc Marauder would qualify as the last of that ilk.
I’m not so sure about the Impala SS. It wasn’t in the same price class as a Mercury or Chrysler.
But the Buick Wildcat was. The Marauder, 300, and Wildcat would be the final hurrah of the ‘sporty’ full-size, up-market car.
Chrysler made plenty of mistakes, but I thought the transition from the 300 letter series to the non-letter cars wasn’t one of them. Sporty? Well, as much as a full-size sixties domestic car could be. It was more of a ‘cleaner’ looking, upper-tier car without so much chrome.
Well the OP said “Requiem for the Big American sports sedan”, not “up-market” big American Sport Sedan, though the ’67 Chrysler certainly was aspiring to be that. Nor did he specify a particular vintage, only the last big US sports sedan. I was referring to the mid-’90s Impala SS and Merc Marauder, not the ’60s Impala SS which depended strictly on options for performance. I would submit those big ’90s versions fit the poster’s original supposition to a “T”.
I would also disagree with the statement that the milquetoast non-letter 300s were not a mistake. Having owned a ’57 300-C convert and being a former member of 300 Club International, I feel it was akin to Packard introducing it’s 6 in the ’30s, the dilution and cheapening of an image of, in this case, performance, and eventually rendering it meaningless.
Detroit’s concept of a sport sedan was a full size car in medium high line trim, that had the bigger motor that was usually reserved for the top of the line luxury model. Consider the Impala by the mid ’60’s, it was available with a straight six and several V8s from 283 all the way to the 396. While you could probably get any engine in a Biscayne, most buyers wouldn’t choose to put the big engine into anything besides an Impala or Caprice. The small V8 engine equipped Chevys were adequate, but with the big blocks you would have a car that could run with a Cadillac or a Chrysler. That was the performance standard that they were trying to emulate. That was the attraction to cars like the original Buick Wild Cat, the Ford XLs, non letter Chrysler 300s, and Pontiac Venturas. They were available with buckets and consoles, even as sedans, and carried distinctive trim so that the owner got the props. Of course Detroit watered down the concept over time until these hot sedans were just badge jobs. But they could still be optioned up just right. These are real surprises when they turn up occasionally, as someone’s Mom or Aunt’s car.
That front end, bumper/grill duo; a precursor to the “energy absorbing” front ends of the “1970’s”.