I met an elderly gentleman who asked me about my 68 Fury convertible when I had it, and he told me he had a lot of older cars. I stopped by his house a few years ago and nobody was home, but there was a 66 Olds 98 convertible there rotting under an awning. I left my business card and he called, we chatted about the 98 but I never prodded about anything else.
On Wednesday I stopped by again as I am looking for a new project, but he was not home and a scraggly looking guy was rummaging through his garage. I introduced myself and turns out the guy was his son, and the gentleman was in central florida looking for a new house to buy. In the gargae was a '70 Camaro and a '70 300 that I could not see because it was covered in so many boxes and parts. All I could see was the grille. The man was nice enough to talk to me a bit about the cars, the Camaro was a true numbers matching big block car, looked to have all the trim taken off. The 300 looked complete and fully loaded. Metallic blue with tan interior, power top, windows, seats, 440 4 Barrel, auto, AC. The man claimed that this was the very last 300 convertible off of the assembly line and claimed to have documentation of Ralph Nader's involvement with this particular car. He told me that they put the tooling back together specifically for this one car.
Anybody know of this oddity? I couldn't find anything online about it. If what he says is true, I might have stumbled upon a very rare and cool project indeed. If he is not asking too much I will pull the trigger but may refer it to the site so someone else can snap it up if t is not too much. His son said he may be interested in selling it because of his buying a new home so I left my number and am waiting to hear back from him. There is also a multiple car garage in the backyard I would like to rummage through.
Joined: Tue Oct 11 2005, 01:33AM
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Posts: 5893
Indeed, most interesting and worth a hard look. Two points, first as far as I know Ralph Nader has never shown any interest in C-Bodies and Chrysler had a fire which burnt all the records for late 60's to early 70's C-Body production. I wrote Chrysler years ago for info on my 70 Fury and was told nothing survived the fire. That being said, regardless of whether it's the first or last one built, a 70 Chrysler 300 convertible is sweet project.
Joined: Mon Oct 10 2005, 06:00PM
Location: 5000 ft above sea level
Posts: 1521
I will simply say its a BS story...... The last Convertibles Chrysler built was the 71 E bodies and Nader and Chrysler certainly wouldnt have been on friendly terms.
All the production numbers are out there in the form of Option reports and sales reports. It would be a monumental undertaking for anyone to put all that information together
Joined: Wed Feb 04 2009, 05:07PM
Location: God's Country
Posts: 5
Don't take too much stock in that statement without documentation. Don't get me wrong, I love 1970 Chrysler 300 convertibles, but I would not pay a premium for the car because someone just says something without any proof -- and even then I don't know if I'd pay a premium.
I might be the Lone Ranger on this topic, but I would pay a premium for a clean, dry, excellent condition car. If it's got any documentation, then great. But condition comes first for me, because this is the most expensive part of cars I like, getting them to that excellent condition deal.
I haven't heard back from him, but it will be interesting to say the least to see any of the documentation that he has to support the claim. The car itself looks to be in great shape- true barn find, what looked to be original paint, no rust, just dusty and covered in boxes. Will let everyone know what I find out.
Joined: Wed Dec 21 2005, 07:34AM
Location: indiana
Posts: 791
I agree with the sentiment that the last 300 'vert isn't worth a premium over any other one. It's a neat talking point, but not much else. And it would be diluted if the last Chrysler 'vert actually happened to be a green bench-seat Newport.
From my ebay watchings a 69-70 300 vert has a hard time breaking $20k; I've seen a few hit $30k but those are the impeccable ones, and requires all the desirable options (TNT, buckets/console, road wheels, great paint in a great color, etc).
The Hurst convertible has been on ebay recently, went out at $150k and no takers, now at $125k I believe - and that car certainly has history that any Mopar collector could appreciate for investment. If this guy thinks he has something on par with that, well, he's mistaken.
I don't think even the last 300 Letter car 'vert would be worth a premium. Well, almost definitely not, as a 65 L 'vert will never sell for what a 62-older one would. The best of the L 'verts seem to struggle to hit $20k.
As for opening up the tooling just for 1 car - I highly doubt it. Maybe they pulled a set of quarterpanels from repair parts and then made another batch, but that's not really the same thing. Tooling would've been mandated as available to meet replacement parts obligation for a certain period of years anyway.
He might have some documentation that there are some unusual stories about the car, but those stories could've gotten morphed over the years, too.
Joined: Tue Jun 19 2012, 04:32AM
Location: Finland
Posts: 29
At Finland had 300 conv pilot car for sale, that was little under 30k euros. It had rare options and pilot markings all over. New Yorker/Newport front bumber etc.