Darrell and Reba's New Yorker Page
This project, and this page, started when our 1964 Chrysler New Yorker found its way to us, on July 24, 2003
I guess I didn't have enough projects around here, so my daughter talked me into another.
My youngest daughter is rapidly approaching the age that the state of California says is mature enough to pilot a potential weapon around the public streets. If you have viewed some of my other pages you will see that I am a bit of a Triumph car addict. So my daughter thought she would be driving a Triumph around after getting that magical piece of paper from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, her drivers license.
She even took over my red 1978 Triumph Spitfire. I got this car as a parts car, but realized after I got it home that it was in far to nice shape to part out. Except for the oxidized paint it turned out to be very nice, with many new parts throughout the vehicle. The morning after I got the car home, she was out at the crack of dawn, washing and waxing it. After that she was looking for the battery charger, to see if the car could be cranked up.
But, I told her no, she does not get to drive a Triumph around until after she has gotten a bit of experience behind the wheel. Even in this day of compact cars a 1900 pound Triumph would probably be the loser in even a very minor fender bender. So, she went to work on my 1974 Ford F-250 truck, and that was going to be what she drove for the first 6 months or so.
But then she found a 1964 Chrysler New Yorker 4 door Sedan parked in a field near a barn where she had been working cleaning out horse stalls in exchange for horse and cart driving lessons. The price was right (cheap, because I am just a cheap kinda guy). Too cheap I thought, when she told me what the owner wanted for the car I dismissed it, "To low, car must be junk" thought I. After a couple of weeks of "Daddy, will you go look at the New Yorker now?", I finally agreed to go inspect the "treasure".
Two days later, it was in
my back yard … DOH! (Best Homer Simpson voice there)
So, this is what we found:
Yes, that is indeed a 1957 Chevrolet 2 door Bel Air in very sound condition, next to the New Yorker. No, I have not been able to talk the owner out of it … yet. I have had a bit more luck with the 1930 Model A Ford they also have, at least they will talk to me about that one .. lol
Basically a pretty sound car, but the driver door window had been shot out at one time, with a B-B gun, so Mother Nature had been allowed to work her magic on the interior.
We are not going to rebuild this car as a show car, just as a good "10 footer". From ten feet away we want it to look good, and we want it to be mechanically sound. We want to be able to jump in it and cruise to the coast with no concerns. My daughter should be able to take it anyplace without requiring a cell phone, "just in case" of a car problem.
Mechanically the car is low mileage, about 55,000 on the odometer and the owner I purchased the car from bought it used in 1967. But the car was parked in 1980 when the transmission quit working. No one has any idea why the tranny quit, they were just driving down the road and then they were not.
We have not yet named the car, but right now "BB-413" is being considered. Our last New Yorker was a 1972 Brougham with a 440 CID motor, and we named it BB-440. Since this car has a 413 CID it makes sense to continue the tradition. For those of you unfamiliar with the "BB" designation, it is the designation assigned to heavy battleships. For example "BB-63". If you have ever driven a full sized New Yorker it indeed feels like a large ship, but it is reasonably fast. In the world of ships large and fast only happen in the military realm, and the largest and fastest are aircraft carriers and battleships. Being an ex-black shoe I tend to think of aircraft carriers (also called CV's) as bomb magnets, so, BB it is!
State of our New Yorker Page.
We got our New Yorker Home.
A little Growth in our New Yorker.
The Interior of our New Yorker needs a little Work.
Back to Darrell and Reba's Home Page.
E-mail me at:
Triumph_TR4@hotmail.com