Subtract two decades from this morning’s ’91 NYer and we arrive at this indubitably collectible, elegant, extremely present 1971 I spotted a few years ago not far away. With standard-issue licence plates, yet!
CC Capsule: 1971 Chrysler New Yorker – Whale, That’s More Like It!
– Posted on January 22, 2023
Refreshing, and unique, photo. So many ’70s domestic luxury car ads portrayed them in the most serious, and baroque settings. Especially, during the early 70s. Even in the ‘disco-nightlife’ era, full-sized luxury cars were very rarely marketed with such dynamic ‘citylife’ lighting. Great work!
Yep! At a country club where the wrong kinds of people aren’t allowed except as servants. At a tennis court, on a golf corpse, at a posh horsey-stables-and-grounds place. Outside a busy Wall Street office building. Outside the kids’ very expensive boarding school. Pffft.
As to the photo: Thank you! I don’t recall how many years ago I took it; I think it was around 2016, after dark, with an iPhone 6. At the time I couldn’t pull a satisfactory image out of it, so I set it aside. The other night I decided to have a go with newer software tools, and got this much better result.
Rain droplets add a nice, subtle ‘crystalized’ quality to paintwork, and overall scene. Those typically barren slab sides, make a wonderful large reflected colour, and shape, palette here.
Refreshing, when people explore potential. Extremely rare, to see the fuselages photographed, portraying such visual energy. Various appealing details, and very commercial. Nicely done!
The expansive metal surfaces and loop bumper, do offer interesting cityscape lighting and reflection possibilities. Your pic reminds me of some of the Imperial scenes in Mean Streets with Harvey Keitel.
Huh! I have not seen (or heard of) this film. Perhaps I should go find it.
The best looking New Yorker to ever roll down a Chrysler assembly line.
Ooh, that’s a toughie. I mean, yes, I think the ’71 is probably the nicest of the fuselage New Yorkers, but I also really like the ’65, and the ’64.
With over 50 years of New Yorkers produced, there were many fine looking examples.
Can we touch this one or is it priceless like the KNew Yorker?
Love the “coolie hat” wheel covers on this one.
Any other type jest wouldn’t look right, eh!
Nice colour! Nothing says the 70’s like brown with a tan vinyl roof. Good looking car; too bad their interiors cried “cheap!”.
And the cheap-and-spiteful seatbelts.
If there’s a car that defines “presence”, this one is it.
A pretty car in a great curbside setting–though I hardly remember seeing them on the streets back then. Here’s a dealer-promotional postcard image from eBay that looks (in terms of ad industry vogues) really 1960s-to-1970s transitional; I’d forgotten about those dual-stripe whitewalls:
I think this car wears its heft very well.
I remember ours.
Best forgotten.
Why’s that? Was it poorly built or something?
YES.
A handsome lemon all the way.
Always been a fan of the Fuselage Chrysler products. This New Yorker indeed has presence on the outside. One of the periods where they were a styling leader and not just offering GM designs a few years later. Now, about that interior. Made GM’s acres of molded plastic look luxurious.
Sure didn’t last, eh! What is that, is that a ’74 Dodge Monaco, or a ’72 Buick Centurion?
Truth be told, the 1969 Chrysler fuselage products weren’t technically clean-sheet cars. Engel and Townsend were still using last model cycle GM styling cues (loop bumpers, for one thing). It’s just that the fuselages went ‘way’ further than any of the previous GM clones to the point they looked almost completely new.
Unfortunately, as stunning as they might have been,
more than anything else, the typical Chrysler downward spiral in quality did them in.
Daniel, it’s good to see you back.
To me, these (the ’69 through ’73 full-sized Plymouths, Dodges, Chryslers, and Imperials) were always the “whale” Chryslers. I saw them called “fuselage” Chryslers just a few years ago, and thought it a much more complementary term. But my first thought is still “whale”.
Well, there’re whales and whales and whales. I’ll take the Chrysler, please and thank you.
I remember first seeing one of the big aero GMs while running to work c. early 1991. I was absolutely appalled – my first thought was that GM had made a Ford Taurus clone, and made it even uglier than the Taurus. (I know … contrarian that I am, I thought the 1st-gen Taurus was absolutely hideous. I thought it looked like a cockroach, and predicted it would be a sales flop.) Because I saw the big GMs as Taurus clones, I assumed they were FWD. Was surprised to learn that conventional mechanicals lay beneath the swoopy sheet metal.
That first one I saw was a sedan; I never minded the wagons as much. Thought they looked much better-proportioned. The Olds version with the Vista Cruiser roof had a certain appeal.
Years later there was an article about these cars in our local paper’s auto section. A Texas Chevy dealer was quoted as saying “Yeah, they nailed the front end – great styling. But from the back? It looks like a football player wearing ballet slippers.”
I saw a similar-vintage Imperial in Port Dover, Ontario a few years ago. Other than a few rust bubbles under the vinyl top it was in nice shape. That said, I hadn’t seen a fuselage Chrysler in a long time and I’d forgotten how HUGE they were. It dwarfed pretty much everything else in the parking lot.
Between the prior posting and this one, I only see one Chrysler New Yorker. THIS is a Chrysler New Yorker. Every now and then I see one of these and wonder if my reluctance to devote that much garage space to an old car is as reasonable as I think it is.
Best stick fingers in ears and run away if you should happen to see one of these whose owner has just got in it; if you hear that starter, you’re doooooooooooomed!
Beautiful photo.
Somewhere around here I have a few of the metal letters that spelled “Chrysler” from the front of the family’s ’71 Town & Country. Now I’m going to have to find those.
My favorite of the fuselage Chrysler’s are the 69-71 New Yorkers. Especially the grill and headlight surrounds on the ’71. Good looking. The 70 and 71 were the better of the group as they had wider tracks, better suspension and weren’t first year models like the ’69.
Great picture and lovely car.
Like it! usual shipping address.