A Lineup of Big Mopars
 

Our favorite annual local car show was yesterday, September 20th. The 15th annual Shermerfest car show in Northbrook, IL. My father along with two good friends enjoyed a nice cool sunny day under the trees for the annual show with our quad of C-Body Mopars all together!

(From L to R: 1972 Plymouth Fury III, 1971 Plymouth Fury III, 1970 Chrysler New Yorker, 1965 Chrysler Newport)

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5784/...f027b567_h.jpgIMG_20150920_162145421c by drh4683, on Flickr

Nice!

That's a lot of iron! Awesome!

My Uncle's best bud was the Mopar dealer here in Greater Bugtussle, so Karl had quite a few of 'em. The earliest was a 1961 300, the next was a '66 Newport, then a '73-74 BIG Chrysler, & finally a Gran Voyager. The '61 was Tres Kewl, at least me, as a 4-5 yr old squirt thought so. The instrument pod was this huge "Globe-shaped affair" that had all the gauges lit up at night. Real Sci-Fi lookin' stuff !

Very nice!

Thanks for the picture.

Makes me wish I'd kept my 1970 Fury III convertible.

You need an Imperial to complete the lineup :) I have a '69 Newport, but its been sitting a long time..

That's a great picture. It brings back memories of Driver's Ed for me, in a 1971 Plymouth Fury I. All four of these nice cars look to have the turn signal monitors up front that so many Chrysler Corp. cars had back in the day.

Another memory is the unique sound those Mopar starters made when cranking. Some likened it to a Dominecker Rooster crowing. We had a 1964 Dodge Dart and that sound is very familiar to me.

Yup - Often while watching old tv movies & shows I would yell out "That's not a Dodge
Starter !" when they dubbed in a sound while editing, and it was the wrong type of
sound for the car in the scene.....

Nice fleet of cars you guys got there !

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It depends on the year and spec of the car. Most mopars in that era had the reduction gear starter that was so distinctive, but some models, especially ones with manual transmissions sometimes had the older style direct drive starter that was used by Chrysler in the 50's. , at least up until the early 70s, according to factory manuals. That one sounded more like a GM starter.

Down here they called it the "Highland Park Hummingbird..."

I have an '83 Dodge van with a slant 6. The starter looks the same as all the other Mopar iron I have driven, but it sure sounds different. I figure it must have something to do with how the sound moves through the different shape engine block. The previous rigs had 318, 360 and 440s and they sounded pretty much alike. The slant has gone through at least half a dozen starters in the last 300K+ miles and none sounded anything like the starters on the V8s.

My first "real car was a 1963 Plymouth Fury with a 318 Torqueflite. At 55 mph it got 20 mpg. Solid and dependable. They just don't make them like that anymore!

My Grandma had a '63 Fury 318/2bbl-BBD/727. Great car, except I never liked the pushbutton shifter. IIRC, it had a single brake master cylinder. Didn't bother me 40 years ago but the idea sort of scares me now. 4 wheel drum brakes too. Even so, it was a great car

HOWEVER....take a look at some of the specs on those old cars. I do NOT think ANY of them could out-run my malibu with it's 3.1 V6..and it will get DOUBLE or BETTER fuel economy while doing so !!

I have driven , or at least been in, a few of those old cars. My mom had a 78 dodge Magnum XE. at the TIME...I thought it was a powerful car, with the 360V-8 and all. But NOW...I look back and wonder what i was THINKING? That old crate had TROUBLE going over 80 or so and it did NOT get good fuel economy. worst of all...it was about DONE...at LESS than 100 k. The specs on it? VERY POOR...by today's standards. About 13 sec. 0-60. Almost ANY car today will beat that !! The malibu will beat that ..even if you give the Magnum about a five car head start !!

In the early 70's...my dad had a Chrysler 300./ It had some large V-8 in it. I doubt it could beat maybe 8s 0-60...a figure that MANY cars today can beat..with LESS than HALF Of the displacement...and go a LOT farther..before they die.


Another thing about those old cars....they really did NOT have NEARLY as much horsepower as stated...since it was rated as GROSS HP... a figure which often is at LEAST a THIRD over rated !! This would mean that an engine with 350 HP GROSS...could REALLY be as LITTLE as 240 REAL HP !! Going the "other way" my Malibu would have at LEAST 225 HP...if rated that way today...Instead of the 170HP is does have...

I just to NOT have the same sentiment for cars...as I do for old tv's, radios and hi-fi stuff....

I can see the potential for this to degrade into a big nasty "new vs old" foodfight, but I'll try to avoid that.
I do prefer the older cars, but I agree the new cars can do some cool stuff, especially when you compare MPG in the 70s to MPG today. And you were right on the horsepower ratings, but I think today the ratings are the best possible under perfect conditions, while the horsepower ratings 45 years ago were pretty mellow to keep the insurance companies off of their back. A 440 six-pack could make more power than rated if you un-detuned it.

13 seconds 0-60?! Something must have been out of whack. I had a 360/727 in my 74 B-100 van and it was doing 7.9 seconds with 150k miles on it. It did have headers and stubby little glasspacks on it so that may have helped a little bit. Got 16mpg cruising on the interstate but with my foot in it I burned more fuel than a 747. I am not going to reveal how fast I got it to go.

I think the style of cars between the late 50s and early 70s was the best. By the mid 70s those horrible 5mph bumpers made almost all of the cars look like crap. It seem that todays cars all look pretty much the same. Perhaps that's because they have figured out a shape that works aerodynamically. A lot of the old cars looked really cool but had the aerodynamics of a sheet of plywood.

Having spewed all of that let me say this about the picture at the beginning of this thread: AWESOME!!

When one of the little crackpot nations that are getting atomic bombs decides to drop it in your region if you are far enough away not to be dead you WILL be walking to wherever you want to go since your computerized ignition and fuel injection system will be ruined by the EMP from the explosion...Most of those folks with 70's and older cars should still be able to drive after an EMP...

I'm thinking about getting a pre-dura-spark distributor (to keep as a spare) for my 78 Lincoln for such a contingency. I'll probably need to figure out a voltage regulator, and what to do about the alternator too.:scratch2:

Distributors HAVE left ME walking a FEW times due to problems with them...at least ONCE was in the pouring RAIN !!!

I WILL take the PFI, and coil-pack type of ignition systems ALL of my current vehicles have...including the not-currently-running 89 trofeo. I know ALL about EMP's..but I figure ...if that happens...driving will be a LOW thing to worry about on the list of priorities anyway... and I hope the NK'ers do not YET have a delivery system for their nukes...that can get them here..

I'm more concerned about the 9.x earthquake we're due for up here in fungus corners. There won't be a hunk of road longer than a few hundred yards left for us to drive on. Still, it might be nice to get the motors to run so we can make heat and electricity. Anyone ever heat a can of soup on the exhaust manifold?