Hemmings Classic Car – October 2019

Hemmingsclassiccar october 2019 I Hemmings.com

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Chrysler’s 1955-’65 300 “Letter Car” series may have had

the best American all-around performance cars of the era

ByJeffKoch•PHotograPHyfromHemmingsarcHives

i

t looks like your grandpa’s New

Yorker at first blush, but the noises

coming from under that long hood

are strictly Super Stock.

The 300 “Letter Car” had the

American motoring press, and its grow-

ing preference for spindly little Euro-

pean sports cars, in a lather for nearly

a decade; the notion that a car so large

could handle with the power and preci-

sion they desired seemed anathema to De-

troit, yet here was a machine that proved

that someone really understood.

And the power! Massive gobs of

torque, which no little four- or six-cylinder

could possibly manage, the luxury feel

of a larger European sedan, and corner-

ing that nothing else made in America

(barring a Corvette) could approach. The

Chrysler 300 was a one-man-band of

automotive enthusiasm, all wrapped up in

one premium-priced package.

It’s tempting to call the Chrysler 300

the forebearer of the muscle car, but this

is not quite true. No one will doubt the

power available at the driver’s right foot—

its numerical nomenclature stemmed from

Gentleman’s Express