@Marnet i.think this has your name on it.
Wow, I’ve not seen one of these in almost forty years. Nice!
My parents’ 1965 Olds 98 had B pillars and a few minor exterior differences that the model with B pillars had. Ours had gold paint and matching gold toned interior with fabric seats. Classic 60s land yacht soft ride. We called it the Boat.
It and the 1973 Corolla were the two cars in which I learned to drive. What a difference between that big yacht and the econobox in handling and engines. Big ponies under the hood versus anemic hamsters.
Despite its size, that '65 Olds handled surprisingly well, had good acceleration, and was actually fairly easy to maneuver into tight parking spots and to parallel park. But oh was it a thirsty gas guzzler!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Here’s a picture of a picture that I have on my wall at home:
I too had a 65 Ninety Eight, though I was in my early 20’s and the car was 25 years old. Mine was white with green interior. I bought it from an old man who had a stroke and could no longer drive.
In this age where the family sedan comes with 18 inch tires, it’s hard to believe that a car that big rode on 14 inch wheels.
@asemaster Very cool! I still think that particular car was one of the best looking of that land yacht era. It was also a comfortable car to ride in and to drive.
I don’t recall for certain, but weren’t those 14 inch tires bias-ply (if that’s the correct term) rather than radials like have been on cars now for many years?
Yes, indeedy, that is the correct term and they were bias ply tires. Radials didn’t start showing up on domestic cars until about the mid 70s or so.
Way back in the day, cars rode on 28, 30, or even 34 inch wheels with narrow tires. The smaller wheels were fitted with “balloon” tires that were wider and had lots of sidewall to make the ride soft and cushy. Then we went back to the big wheels to get big brakes and sidewalls got short and stiff.
It would have been, but by the time I got that Olds it had radial tires installed. But…
Sometime around that same time (1991?) I got a hold of a true “barn find”, a 1965 Chrysler New Yorker with 77,000 miles. Car was loaded with all the options like cruise and A/C, and still had a set of bias ply tires. Around 2am on a stretch of highway between Bellingham and Seattle I just stood on the gas and at 105mph those bias plys were screaming and picking up every groove in the road. Not long after I “upgraded” to a set of newer 15" wheels and radial tires. I did keep the original wheels and hub caps to go along when I sold the car.
There have been very few cars I regret selling but as soon as I saw that New Yorker drive away I knew I would always miss it.
Did your New Yorker have the vinyl “cheeks” on the C pillars?
Yes it did, and they were still in good condition with minor fading at the time. Dark blue with the black sail panels, light blue interior with no tears in the seats. It had the clear lenses over the headlamps, a reverb for the radio, the “Auto Pilot” cruise control, ice cold A/C, and that 413 would pull like crazy. During that same time my buddy bought a pair of 65 Continentals that didn’t run. We weren’t going to spend any money on tow trucks, we waited until traffic died down and used tow ropes and the Chrysler to tow those Lincolns 20 miles home. One at a time, of course.
I wish I could find a picture of that car.
For several years, the standard patrol cars on both the NJ Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway were New Yorker Six-Window sedans, like this one.
On “regular” state highways, the NJ State Police used Fords, but on NJ’s toll roads, they used those New Yorkers.
One of my friends owned a '65 New Yorker like this one:
It was sort of an old man’s car, but it was really comfortable to ride in that barge.
A deceased uncle of mine would buy and drive nothing but Chryslers after he got out of the Army following WWII. His favorite one was a 65 New Yorker with all options but when the front wheel drive NYers came along he gave up on them.
I had a 1960 New Yorker once and wished I still had that finned ocean liner back. I gave 10 dollars for it; running great and with a clean/clear title. Drove it from CA to OK and never even needed to add motor oil along the way.
That first pic is the same color as mine, though mine wasn’t a six window. It had the black sail panels like the second car. The headlamp covers were a nice touch, and I remember those wheel covers too.
My uncle owned a white 1960 New Yorker convertible, with red leather upholstery. That was a really nice looking car–right down to the domed instrument cluster.
I don’t recall what type of problem he had with that car when it was new, but he took it back repeatedly to the dealership, only to get it back without the problem being resolved. The last time that he took it there, he placed a pebble on top of one of the tires, and when he returned to pick-up his supposedly-repaired car, that pebble was still there–thus confirming his suspicions that they had never even bothered to pull his car into the shop. He said that this dealership provided “curb service” because they left his car parked at the curb, rather than driving it into the shop.
He found a different Chrysler dealership, which resolved the problem on the first visit. And, because of the vastly different experience at this other dealership he wound up buying a '62 Imperial from them, and then a '64 Imperial. The “bad” dealership went out of business a few years later, so apparently he wasn’t the only customer who they tried to screw.
The 1960 New Yorker and the lesser Chryslers had the most beautiful instrument panel ever, the “Astradome”. It was lit by electroluminescent lighting, a big thing in 1960.
Back in the mid 1970s a friend had a mid 1960s Chrysler New Yorker. We fairly easily could fit twelve of us college students in his car for an outing with girls sitting on the guys’ laps.
The 60 NYer I had was just a 4 door sedan; nothing special and in kind of a putrid yellow color. The dash was beautiful though. It had a 413 and got 15 MPG on the road but in town it took a lot of gas to get that thing rolling.
On a related note, there is a retirement community here. There is an elderly couple (both about 90 or so) who have 2 cars. One is a late model Cadillac. The other is a 1948 New Yorker just like the pic below. They drag that thing out ever so often and go tooling around town at 30 MPH. The car looks like it just came off the showroom floor but with a sun visor. Very cool couple I think and I love to see that car being used.
@Barkydog Oh my, I’d forgotten about that car. I’ve not seen one in many decades.
I once had a 64 Dynamic 88 Holiday Hardtop. Blue on blue. I was always surprised how well the 394 2-barrel moved that big car. I bought that car probably around 2001. I had the original bill of sale and all the records. It had 85,000 miles and I bought it through an estate sale.
It didn’t take long to get all the mechanicals in order. The interior was in good shape other than the carpet. But the left front fender had been replaced (poorly) and I took too long figuring out what to do about it. After taking up space in the garage for 2 years my wife told me to spend the time and money to finish it or get rid of it. I sold it to a coworker, who gave it to his dad to drive in his retirement.