Cars - Chrysler 300 letter series

Home > Listing Index > Cars > Chrysler 300 letter series

	Cars - Chrysler 300 letter series

The Chrysler 300 "letter series" were high-performance luxury cars built in very limited numbers by the Chrysler Corporation in the United States between 1955 and 1965. Each year's model used a new letter of the alphabet as a suffix (skipping "i"), reaching 300L by 1965 after which the model was dropped.

The 300 "letter series" cars were the vehicles that really rekindled interest in performance among major US manufacturers postwar and thus can be considered the muscle car's ancestors, though much more expensive and exclusive.

Chrysler has recently started using these designations again for sporting near-luxury sedans, using 300M from 1999, and continuing the 300 series with a new V8 300C, the top model of a relaunched Chrysler 300 line, a completely new rear wheel drive car launched in 2004 for the 2005 model year. This is disliked by some fans of old Chryslers who do not approve of the reuse of a 300 letter series designation. Unlike the first series, the second does not have 300 hp engines, except for today's top-of-the-line 300C V8.

1955 C-300

This first of the letter series cars didn't actually bear a letter; it can retroactively be considered the '300A'. The 'C-' designation (later dropped) signified 'Coupe', while the 300 originally stood for the 300 hp (220 kW) engine. The C-300 was really a racecar sold for the road for homologation purposes, with MOPAR's most powerful engine, the 331 in³ (5.4 L) FirePower "Hemi" V8, fitted with twin 4-barrel carburetors, a race-profiled cam setup, solid valve lifters, and a performance exhaust system. This was the first US production car to top 300 hp (220 kW), and the letter series was for many years the most powerful car produced in the United States by a fair margin.

The car's "Forward Look" styling can be attributed as much to the Chrysler parts bin as designer Virgil Exner. The front clip, including the grille, was taken from the Imperial of the same year, but the rest of the car did not look like an Imperial. The midsection was from a New Yorker hardtop, with the Windsor donating the rear quarter. Exner tweaked the design some to integrate these elements, including fitting base-model Chrysler bumpers, and the exterior mirrors were deleted for reduced drag at speed.

Measured at 127.58 mph (205.32 km/h) in the Flying Mile and doing well in NASCAR, the C-300 aroused a lot of interest that was not reflected in its modest sales figure of 1,725 built.

1956 300B

1956's car was fairly similar externally—distinguished by new a new tailfin treatment, but with larger engines, two models of 354 in³ (5.8 L) Hemi V8 with either 340 or 355 hp (254 or 265 kW). Only 1,102 were sold. Performance was a little better than the previous year's, being measured at almost 140 mph (225 km/h).

1957 300C

1957's Chrysler 300C is generally considered the classic year of the 300 "letter series". New styling was brought in, with a yawning wide front grille and fins; the Hemi engine was upgraded to 392 in³ (6.4 L) and 375 hp (280 kW), or as a very limited edition 390 hp (290 kW) version (18 built). A convertible model was available for the first time. The car had a number of red, white and blue '300C' medallions on sides, hood, trunk and inside. 1,767 coupes and 484 convertibles were built.

1958 300D

1958 was to be the last year of the old FirePower Hemi in the 300. This year's engine was still 392 in³ (6.4 L), but tuned to 380 hp (283 kW) as standard. 35 cars were built with electronic fuel injection and delivered 390 hp (290 kW), but the fuel injection equipment was troublesome and most cars soon had it replaced with the standard twin-quad carburetor setup. A 300D was driven to 156.387 mph (251.680 km/h) at the Bonneville Salt Flats that year, but only 618 hardtops and 191 convertibles were produced, partly thanks to recessionary times.

1959 300E

1959 saw the Hemi engines replaced by Chrysler's new Golden Lion wedge-head V8 at 413 in³ (6.8 L) displacement. Power output remained about the same. The loss of the Hemi and the late-1950s recession meant for poor sales of 522 coupes and 125 convertibles.

1960 300F

1960's 300F introduced a new, higher power 413 in³ Wedge engine delivering 375 bhp in standard form. To boost power at lower and mid rpms, a special "cross-ram" intake manifold was derived. Instead of the normal V8 central intake manifold with carburetor(s) on top, the cross-ram consisted of two pairs of 30" (760 mm) long tuned pipes that criss-crossed so that each set fed the opposite side of the engine. The carburetors and air cleaners hung off the sides of the engine over the fender wells. These long tubes were tuned so that resonances in the column of air helped force air into the cylinders at those engine speeds.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Chrysler 300 letter series ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Chrysler 300 letter series; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay