With the demise of the high-performance "Letter Series" Chrysler 300 after 1965's 300L and its Golden Lion 413 cubic inch V-8, the non-letter 300 continued on as just the most sporting variant of the full-size Chrysler lineup. It was more upmarket than the Newport, but zoomier than the New Yorker.
New with the '65 model year was a long, clean, chiseled body style by Elwood Engel, replacing the more baroque Virgil Exner lines of the previous generation.
A 1966 Chrysler 300, like the Ivory hardtop sedan in the photos here, would have had a Chrysler Firepower 383 4-barrel V-8 rated at 325 SAE gross horsepower as the standard motor with either a 3-speed manual or Torqueflite automatic transmission. Optionally, a buyer could order a Firepower TNT 440 V-8 instead, which bumped output to 365 SAE gross and came with a mandatory 3-speed automatic.
Car Life's road test of a '66 300 hardtop coupe with the 440 motor returned some impressive acceleration numbers for a 4700-pound car that cast an eighteen and a half foot shadow. Zero-to-sixty only took 7.7 seconds and the quarter was put away in 16.1 at 88 mph. The big Firepower TNT motor shoved that boxy grille through the air to a redline-limited 120mph.
The one in the pictures was snapped in Los Alamos, NM in October of 2015 using a Nikon Coolpix P7000.
I can hear that Mopar starter from here!
ReplyDeleteThe Highland Park Hummingbird, by Bendix!
Delete