Glitter On the Highway: Setting Sail In the 1965 Chrysler 300 Convertible
Unloved for decades, this no-name Chrysler feasts on its just desserts.
[This story first appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of MotorTrend Classic] Sing it with me: “I got me a car, it’s as big as a whale, and we’re heading on down to the Love Shack. I got me a Chrysler, it seats about 20, so hurry up and bring your jukebox money.” Of course you know the lyrics. Everybody knows those lyrics. But perhaps you’ve never seen the video, the one where Fred Schneider pilots a turquoise and chrome 1965 Chrysler 300 Convertible. B-52s guitarist Keith Strickland’s in the front seat riffing away (he’s probably got a combo amp in the footwell—there’s room for it), while the quartet’s twin beauties Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson sit perched upon the rear seatback belting their sweet hearts out. “Glitter on the mattress, glitter on the highway.”
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Chrysler began making the performance-oriented 300 in 1955 with a model known as the C-300 (sometimes incorrectly referred to as the 300A). Why 300? To signify how much power the monster 331-cubic-inch Hemi made—300 gross ponies. That same year, the 300 set a production-car speed record at Daytona Beach traveling at 127.6 mph around the hard-packed sand course. Chrysler finished 1, 2, and 3 at that year’s event, with the next closest car barely cracking 120 mph. One year later, in 1956, the 300B made 355 gross horsepower from a larger 354-cubic-inch V-8 and went 139.4 mph on the beach at Daytona. In 1957, the even more-powerful 300C produced 390 gross horses from a still-bigger 392, though, because of a failed return run, a Pontiac beat the Chrysler at that year’s Daytona (the two were tied after the initial run).
And so went the progression of the Chrysler 300 “letter series” cars. Larger engines, more power, mas torque, faster speeds, and bigger, Virgil Exner-penned fins. By the time 1961 rolled around, the 300G sported a 413-cubic-inch wedge motor that, thanks to ram-induction, produced right about 400 horsepower and 500 pound-feet of torque. Remember, the musclecar wasn’t “invented” by John DeLorean until 1964. But in 1962, something curious happened to the 300, besides the fact that it lost the fins. There was suddenly a base model, a non-letter car. It was just called a plain, old Chrysler 300.
Not only was this new model missing the suffix, but it was missing the take-no-prisoners performance mantra of its forebears. The 300H might have been pumping out 405 horses and Lord only knows how much torque via its twin, four-barrel carburetors and dual ram-air inductors, but the new, base 300 model made only 305 horsepower from its single (granted, still a four-barrel) carb. That’s only 5 ponies more than the original 1955 car. Talk about sacrilege! Chrysler got the last laugh, however, selling 25,020 versions of the lesser 300 to just 558 high-falutin’ 300Hs. In fact, the slightly over 25,000 300s sold in 1962 is a greater sum than all the letter cars sold—total—over an 11-year life span (16,856).
As they were selling in such small numbers, everyone who wanted a Chrysler 300 letter car was buying them, but the smaller 1962-1964 non-letter 300s were simply flying off the shelves. Combined non-letter production in 1964 was 26,887 cars. And even though their once-rigid suspensions had been softened and their once-dominant engines (slightly) detuned, the 1964 300K also sold in relatively huge numbers: 3022 hardtops and 625 convertibles—the best letter-car sales year of them all. The real problem with the 1962-1964 cars, however, wasn’t the lack of performance brio, but rather that they were suddenly shockingly ugly.
“Hop in my Chrysler, it’s as big as a whale, and it’s about to set sail. I got me a car, it seats about 20, so c’mon, and bring your jukebox money.”
Enter 1965, and the suddenly quite good-looking C-body Chrysler 300 came on the scene. Sure, there was now less and less to differentiate the entry 300 from the 300L, especially since the 413 wedge motor could be had as an option in the base car. In truth, everything on the 300L save the badges was a factory option on the lower-level 300.
The fact is that the cheapest 300 you could get was the Newport, and the priciest was called the New Yorker. Sad to say, the once fabled Chrysler 300 letter car was in reality now just a trim level. So much so that Chrysler ended the whole notion of letter cars right then and there, until the 300M showed up in 1999.
But have you taken a good look at this Spanish Red beauty? “I just love the lines,” says owner and restorer Scott Doucette. One of just 1418 convertibles made in 1965, its lack of a tire-incinerating engine and racy shocks just doesn’t trouble him. Or me, as the gorgeous 300 is obviously a cruiser. “Compared with my 1964 GTO, it’s very comfortable,” says Doucette. And it’s not like this 300 can’t get out of its own way, what with a 383-cubic-inch V-8 producing 315 horsepower and 410 pound-feet of torque burbling under the long hood. So what if this car vibrates at a slightly lower frequency than the 300L? Once again, just look at it!
Or better yet, as the B-52s and I did, drive one. On a beautiful, cloud-free late summer day, I find myself wearing a funny wicker hat and sitting next to Doucette as we bop down the stereotypically SoCal six-lane Huntington Drive near his home in San Gabriel, just south of Pasadena. I’m fairly certain he and I talked at length about his car, but all I really remember is the feeling of gliding down that big, fat boulevard in the wondrous, gloriously American convertible. The kind of ragtop they not only don’t make anymore, but that no other country could have produced in the mid-’60s, even if it wanted to. It’s the vehicular personification of freedom. Close to it, at any rate.
Suddenly, it’s my turn to climb behind the thin, solid, and meticulously restored steering wheel, and it’s like slipping into an old T-shirt. I remember all this: Gas pedal makes the 300 go, brake pedal stops it. And because there are no pretensions of hammering it at 9/10s on the edge of the envelope, I’m simply free to float—no, waft—down the avenue, becoming one with the road in a way that a swift-moving, hard-chassis’d sport coupe never could. The 300 Convertible offers a lounge worth of elegance mixed with just the right amount of Detroit-style egalitarianism. I not only see, but can feel why Doucette makes it a point to drive her every weekend.
“Tin roof, rusted!”
Fine, there’s no tin anywhere in Doucette’s Chrysler 300, and there wasn’t much rust when he found it, either, as this particular two-owner 300 lived its entire life in California and Nevada. That said, when Doucette purchased the car for $2000, it was on the bad side of beat. Last registered in 1980, its odometer stopped rolling at 98,000 miles. The “roof” had long since done anything to keep the elements out, and Las Vegas area sand was stuck into every crevice you can imagine. Starting in 2006, the self-described hobbyist began a meticulous, four-year, frame-up restoration. When he couldn’t source a NOS part, he fabricated it himself, like the one-year-only badges.
Since he completed the rebuild last year, Doucette has driven about 2400 miles, weekends only. This 300 Convertible was always intended to be a driver because, honestly, they’re just not worth very much. Last November, a 300F Convertible with a four-speed sold for $437,250. But that’s a letter car. How much for just numbers? Doucette figures he’s put north of $30,000 into this car, but it’s worth only around $25,000. This particular 300 Convertible was originally ordered as a showroom model to attract customers into the dealership. That’s why it has almost every option—including the rare AM/FM radio with rear-seat speaker, ultra-rare power vent windows, center console with performance gauge measuring the mercury index, vacuum-actuated trunk release, power bucket seats, and a fully reclining passenger seat—but not the bigger, available 413 wedge engine.
The results not only visually speak for themselves, but this 300 Convertible captured a first-place trophy at the recent Van Nuys-based Spring Fling Mopar event. This car took down all comers in the 300 and 300 Letter Car category, a huge victory for a non-letter car. Now, few car folks are as hyper-anal and insane about the details as Mopar guys. They like seeing chalk marks on engine blocks and cigarette butts crammed under intake manifolds. But Doucette snuck a fast one by them. The dash does contain all the original pieces, but he thought it would look better with vinyl trim laid over the top to give it an engine-turned look. “Unless someone is really into 1965 Mopars, they’ll think it’s factory,” he says. In fact, they did. Talk about a class victory. Talk about a great old Chrysler.
“Sign says, stay away fools. Because love rules, at the love shack.”
Ask the Man Who Owns One
Scott Doucette is a distributor rep for DirecTV with a fondness for American cars from the mid-1960s.
Why I Like It: “I just like its style. When I first saw it, I thought, ‘Those are some clean lines.’”
Why It’s Collectible: “They made only 1418 convertibles in 1965, and this one is among the most highly optioned.”
Restoring/maintaining: “Maintenance is easy—it’s a 383 with a Torqueflight 722. Finding some of the one-year-only parts is difficult. Some of the trim pieces simply aren’t available.”
Beware: “These are rare cars with low value. So few were made that new old-stock parts just don’t exist.”
Expect to Pay (COUPE/CONV): Concours ready: $4600/ $18,600 Solid driver: $2000/$9800 Tired Runner: $950/$5475
Join the Club: Chrysler 300 Club (chrysler300clubinc.com), Walter P. Chrysler Club (chryslerclub.org)
Our Take
Then: “If you’re blasé about performance ghoulies and long-legged beasties and air cleaners that go oooomp under the hood, don’t fret. There’s a Chrysler 300 built for you. It has a quiet and unobtrusive engine that gets 325 hp from 383 cubic inches.” John Ethridge, Motor Trend, January 1966.
Now: There’s a place in the world for a whale of a convertible that excels at putting smiles on faces. That this car is somehow less desirable than a “letter car” shows how silly the whole car-collecting game can get.
When I was just one-year-old and newly walking, I managed to paint a white racing stripe down the side of my father’s Datsun 280Z. It’s been downhill ever since then. Moral of the story? Painting the garage leads to petrolheads. I’ve always loved writing, and I’ve always had strong opinions about cars.
One day I realized that I should combine two of my biggest passions and see what happened. Turns out that some people liked what I had to say and within a few years Angus MacKenzie came calling. I regularly come to the realization that I have the best job in the entire world. My father is the one most responsible for my car obsession. While driving, he would never fail to regale me with tales of my grandfather’s 1950 Cadillac 60 Special and 1953 Buick Roadmaster. He’d also try to impart driving wisdom, explaining how the younger you learn to drive, the safer driver you’ll be. “I learned to drive when I was 12 and I’ve never been in an accident.” He also, at least once per month warned, “No matter how good you drive, someday, somewhere, a drunk’s going to come out of nowhere and plow into you.”
When I was very young my dad would strap my car seat into the front of his Datsun 280Z and we’d go flying around the hills above Malibu, near where I grew up. The same roads, in fact, that we now use for the majority of our comparison tests. I believe these weekend runs are part of the reason why I’ve never developed motion sickness, a trait that comes in handy when my “job” requires me to sit in the passenger seats for repeated hot laps of the Nurburgring. Outside of cars and writing, my great passions include beer — brewing and judging as well as tasting — and tournament poker. I also like collecting cactus, because they’re tough to kill. My amazing wife Amy is an actress here in Los Angeles and we have a wonderful son, Richard.Read More
