Chrysler Corporation made a similar decision six years before Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood collaborated on one of the finest spaghetti westerns in movie history, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” Not a Hollywood blockbuster, but one of the 556 Silver Chrysler New Yorker convertibles produced in that year. The New Yorker, which debuted as The Quick, The Strong, and The Quiet, was Chrysler’s premier model for the division bearing its name.
The convertibles were already more appealing than the rest of the range, but less than 3% of the Chrysler New Yorker manufacturing had a retractable rack and a fabric above the seats. Considering what the 1960 models had to offer the American audience, it is actually saying something.
The Forward Look design paradigm implemented by Virgil Exner – Chrysler Corporation’s head of design – matured and strong in the first year of the sixties but still held on to some reminiscent elements that glorified the second half of the previous decade. Tailfins – a signature of automobile design in the Eisenhower era – were gradually getting out of style.
Consequently, they were getting smaller – but Exner had other ideas. Instead of going like the rest of the Detroit crowd to a flat-panel fashion for the body, Chrysler kept the air-plane-tributing design. The rear fenders had crests that extended not only upward but also outboard. Seen from behind, the taillights of a 1960 Chrysler New Yorker look like boomerangs.
The looks might have been a memory of the 50s, but the cars were changing dramatically under the skin. The body-on-frame platform was getting dated, and the Unibody construction was credited with sound rigidity and strength. Perhaps sound isn’t the most appropriate attribute here since Chrysler boasted of the lack of it. Thanks to the single, robust, and rattle-free unit, the ride was exceptionally deprived of squeaks and squeals.
Advertisements for Chrysler claimed that while driving a 1960 Chrysler car, the occupants would only be able to hear their heartbeats, valuing silence as a heartfelt experience. Considering the New Yorker and its hulking big-block V8, this is a prime example of public relations exaggerations.
The 413 cubic inch (6.8 liter) “Golden Lion” engine, which had been introduced the year before, was not exactly quiet. You can really hear it in the film when a surviving example of a rare convertible immediately fires all eight cylinders. At 350 horsepower and 470 pound-feet (355 PS, 637 Nm), the wedge motor was Chrysler’s second-most potent engine after the renowned dual four-barrel cross-ram in the 300F.
The owner of this car has been the happy proprietor of this extraordinary rarity for the past two decades – being a Mopar guy since he first started to tell cars apart when he was a little boy. His vehicle looks finger-snapping good with magnificent looks inside out. The big Chrysler was just as enticing to sit in as it was to look at.
The three-speed automatic transmission and the rest of the instrumentation paid homage to the jet age while bowing to the booming sensation of the world in the seventh decade: the space-going adventure. Pushbutton everything, a three-dimensional AstraDome Panelescent instrument panel, and eight-way front seats – what more could one ask for in 1960?
Some viewers of the video – make that “everyone” – would take this Sheffield Silver New Yorker over any of the contemporary offerings from any automaker. And who can argue against this choice? How many cars today have seats that greet the driver and passenger and swivel outside to make getting in easier?
Chrysler did that six decades ago; the seats would automatically turn toward the door when it was opened. Alternatively, a manual mechanism would do the same, with a simple push of the lever (see it in the video at the 5:30 mark). The automatic swivel seats came later in the model year, so this early build has a simple system.
With the 1960 New Yorker, Chrysler’s designers may have exceeded themselves, but they lacked the sense of when to quit (or got carried away in the frenzy of designing and clay modeling; they didn’t want to call it a day). The convertible in this image has a fake trunk lid depression that resembles the spare wheel cover, which is completely useless but otherwise stylish.
Although it is neatly tucked away in the cargo area, the sixth wheel is not fastened to the “Flight-Sweep” deck lid. The ‘Continental kit’ ornament was more likely intended to serve as a reminder to customers that the New Yorker could transport four passengers and their luggage and make a 500-mile (800-kilometer) stop later that day, something that this particular vehicle may have done at some point during its 78,514-mile (126,330-kilometer) lifespan.
Truth be told, only the Imperials sat above the luxurious New Yorker, but they were a class above everything in their range.