well hello this is Adam and welcome back to rare classic cars on this well I think the best day of spring so far it's about 60° in sunny here in the Midwest and going to talk about my 1972 Chrysler New Yorker because it's the Talk of the Town well this is obviously a fuselage era Chrysler and we're getting to the end of the Run for the fuselage era cars that were really launched in 1969 and continued on through 1973 but the 1973 model had kind of a funky front end particularly on the Chrysler that wasn't overly attractive to try to accommodate the 5 mph bumper standard and then in 74 the car styling changed but this fuselage era of style from Chrysler I think is one of the best in terms of how the cars look look at this car is massive it's huge and it's long which is true for a lot of 70s air cars but this one visually looks longer I think because it's considerably taller than vehicles from Ford and GM it's a couple inches taller both the cow height and the roof height than a contemporaneous GM or Ford car and consequently when you walk up to it in the parking ladder in a driveway here it just looks massive because the Belt Line kind of hits you mid torso as opposed to considerably lower you can see I'm 6' 1 in tall and the car is pretty tall particularly for a vehicle of this era nonetheless this 1972 new New Yorker in the penultimate year for the fuseler styling it really was not a good seller they came in the hard top Coupe four-door hard top as well as four-door sedan which is what this body style is and they only sold in the New Yorkers about 25,000 units in 1972 New Yorker bromes they sold maybe 35,000 on top of that so really wasn't a great showing for Chrysler and I think one of the principle issues that they had was that this car was really expensive the base price on this New Yorker the base New York not the brome was about $5,000 so it's about the equivalent to $45 50,000 today and for that money you could get not just a base SS mobile 98 or Buick Electra you could almost get an s's 98 LS or a Buick Electra limited it's pretty tough and remember this is just a base New Yorker not the New Yorker brome so they kind of priced the New Yorker above the base SS 98 and Buick Electra I don't know that that was a great strategy and consequently I think Chrysler discounted these pretty considerably on their new car lots and that hurt the residual value of course the more you're discounting the car front the more the residual value is hurt because somebody could just buy the car for a price much lower than MSRP to begin with and it kind of started a bit of a doom loop I think for Chrysler this was not great times for Chrysler and then of course in 1974 they came out with their new fullsize lineup which was the absolute worst time to redo your full-size cars right after the OPEC oil embargo so Chrysler really started well having some challenges in this time frame and didn't really get better until the kar and the minivan in the early 1980s but I will say it's a very handsome car uh I love this one this is a factory slick top no vinyl roof but painted top that is on the original Factory order I found the build sheet underneath the front seat where it typically is on some of these Chrysler so if you're looking for one you can find it there and it's got this really nice olivey green I can't remember the exact name of it but it's a great color for the car and it's got kind of a gold cloth interior so let's take the camera off walk around and I'm going to talk about some of the strange features quirks and idiosyncrasies of this car too cuz there are quite a few all right so let's talk about this fuselage era New Yorker and some of the quirks and strange features and idiosyncrasies and whatever you want to call them the first is let's talk about the front here cuz there's a lot of things on the front end you notice that you have this Loop bumper and that was pretty popular during the time frame Chevrolet even had it on some of their late 60s vehicles but here Chrysler had it and they advertised it as being well quite protective that you hit something on the sides or in the middle and it's really going to protect you and that was the philosophy in the rear when we get along there too but I don't know if it was that as much as it was really just decorative and I love the front end of this car I think it looks cool and it was kind of a crime what ended up happening to this car in 73 when they had to put the 5 mph impact standard bumpers on it but the other thing that Chrysler advertis is that this is a diecast Grill this is not plastic so even Cadillac for 1972 was a plastic Grill and Lincoln was too but your Chrysler was a diecast Grill so good hearty piece of metal on there there and you'll notice that you have the turn signal indicators here on the fender tops Imperial would have that too other chrys would have that these are actually lights they're not fiber optic and they're kind of Handy although it's hard to see in the daylight they're a little bit useless in the daylight and of course you can see the Chrysler emblem right in the middle here with I guess those are Griffins kind of a sweet look now turning around to the side you can see on the wheel cover you have those Griffins as well pretty tasteful wheel cover I would say now out back here it's humorous this car has a fender skirt but this is it that's the entire Fender skirt I don't know why they did that it looks really goofy but that's what they have on this car and of course you get the little Griffins back here too now strange Quirk of the Chryslers is everything is kind of opposite from a GM vehicle if you were to open the trunk lock cover on a GM you'd rotate it counterclockwise here you rotate it clockwise the pivot point is here on a GM the Pivot Point would be here and you'd go like this why Chrysler did that I don't know you also put the key in upside down compared to a GM vehicle with the cut side facing up as opposed to down but that's what they did I do like how they integrated the reverse lights there and these are the tail lights into the bumper very Tastefully and as I mentioned the front has a loop bumper kind of a similar theme here with the rear a pseudo Loop bumper that Chrysler advertised at the time because this goes up into the rear quarter panel was going to protect you and help save you some money and insurance in the event that you hit something I don't know if that's true cuz this would be a pretty expensive bumper to replace if you ended up hitting something in the rear but that's what they advertised and I've had this car for about 10 years now I just put a new historic license plate on it for the state of Michigan which you do every 10 years and maybe I'll end up selling it so if it's something that you're interested in I've had it like I said for 10 years I have a 72 Imperial and I have tons of C cars probably time to thin the herd a little bit it's a nice car but once you have the uh 72 Imperial the New Yorker doesn't quite compare it's still a good car now take a look on the inside and you'll notice it's kind of a plain interior again remember this was priced higher than an s's 98 they did put the Griffins here on the front door panel after not having them in 1971 I think it just looked too plain like the backs The Cost Cutters got to those emblems in the rear but they wanted I think a little flare and they put those in for 72 to give the door panel a bit more Pizzazz cuz it looked just a little bit too pedestrian and you've got a huge back seat one thing Chrysler always did well was packaging there's tons of Headroom in this car and look at how big the rear door is even compared compared to the front door if I open it Chrysler door is generally opened much wider too that opens almost perpendicular to the body and the front seat is all the way back for somebody who's 6'1 driving it and you have tons of room so again Chrysler did a really nice job I would say the GMS and the Fords of the era did not feel this roomy on the inside and let's open the passenger door here you know not an overly great door panel especially for an expensive car relatively well this is soft touch but I don't know not my favorite one annoying Quirk is that if you don't have the seat belt buckled this is as far as the belt retracts into the receptacle here and what H tends to happen as you go over bump sometimes it goes there so it kind of chatters sometimes on this trim piece on the seat not a great design but these cars the buckles are also interesting this is how far out the the Buckle comes and so it's like a GM or Ford you'd get at least another inch so you really have to pull hard and hopefully you're not well too corpulent because it's hard to puckle the seat belts otherwise this is not a firm firm seat belt with a plastic guide it's just kind of here but it's pretty short it needs about another inch on it but that's how the belts are in this car I do have some I'll call it mod top floor mats that are not Chrysler brand but are definitely aftermarket period correct and I got my GPS there too I love this glove box door this is fun because this is metal it's grained metal and it's kind of graining to match the instrument panel which is obviously padded although the padding on the instrument panel in the New Yorker is not nearly as great as the Imperial even though it's pretty much the same Dash you don't have all the gauges that the imperial has or the Sentry signal but you do at least get an alternator charge discharge gauge a fuel gauge no temperature gauge and you do have this rear defogger which is the blower style defogger that if I turn on you can hear it back there just blows air over the rear window it's literally a defogger it is not a defroster that's not going to help clear ice off of the rear window it's just spewing some air on the back window in the event that you want to clear some condens ation some other cool things about this you have the little pole vents here that open the vents in the kick well of course you have dual ashtrays one here one here so you can smoke your way to the hospital this does have the remote trunk release which is vacuum operated and you just push this button here and you hear the trunk release so not electric and you can activate that at any time another interesting thing is this little map light that you this is the switch for it and of course it's on cuz the door is on but kind of a cheap plastic piece that feels like it's going to break off as you move it and especially being 50 years old 50 plus years old old now it's probably more brittle than it was originally so I'm always careful when it comes to that the HVAC system in these is an interesting piece this does not have the Auto Temp too which you could get in these Chrysler which was an autot temp system that Mercedes even bought during the time this is the manual one but the air conditioning interestingly will always run on this car even if you don't have it on AC unless you have passed this little detent listen for it hear it right there so there's a little switch that'll kick the compressor on to make sure that your windows don't fog even when you have the heat button depressed I don't know if anyone else who did that but that's what that's there for and that's what that clicking noise is you do only get a three-speed fan and there are only four air Outlets here and then of course there's one on the other side and this is obviously an air conditioning equipped car you do get three-speed wipers and a cool three-spoke wheel that is actually kind of pulled out quite far and you sit like a race car driver with the wheel very close to your chest in this it gets well it takes a little getting used to but I kind of like it you end up liking it and the car is drives almost like a big go-kart does have three-speed wipers and a cool fabric headliner here not fabric I guess woven maybe nylon or something and of course the quirkiest thing of all the Chrysler starter that you get on this vehicle which let's see how it starts up no foot on the gas look at that that's what happens when you put AC Delo plugs in your Mopar instant starts I'm not kidding by the way I do have AC Delo copper plugs in the car oh the trunk just flew open cuz it's windy and I released it so let's take a look at the trunk and then we'll take a look under hood and look at that trunk this is definitely a large trunk that's the original spare here's the vacuum I guess Servo to activate the trunk when I push the button inside but yes huge trunk in these absolutely huge this car is in really nice shape I pulled the mat back and the trunk is like new on either side it does have kind of a tiny sound when you shut it it just it's counterbalanced of course like most trunks of the era the hinges look a little spindly compared to others from GM and4 of the era but they're fine and there you go of course you get the great Chrysler warning buzzer oh yeah and if you have your head ramps on at the same time here you go you get two warning buzzers let's pop the [Music] hood and take a look at the standard 440 cubic inch V8 in here that made 225 horsepower had a single exhaust during this time frame I put dual exhaust on it so it's probably making 240 something like that maybe 250 but this Chrysler V8 great great product you do have a Rochester products or GM evaporative canister setup here of course the Chrysler air temp v twin compressor and icy cold air in these heater cor is an interesting setup it's not a blend door this is kind of the old school style where it's cable operated and it just controls the amount of water flow into the heater core so this little cable moves back and forth and then you have the heat on full last it pushes more of the coolant through the heater core than if you have it off I believe this was the first year in the Chryslers that they made electronic ignition standard that's what that box is there that's the Chrysler you can see it says electronic ignition that is still the original box amazingly that is functioning you also have the infamous ballast resistor there that tends to go out on these Chryslers I've replaced that one you can see it's kind of shiny new they tend to go out in humid weather and the symptom for that is that the car will start but as soon as it starts it dies so it's not your balance resistor if it won't start at all the car again kind of starts it's almost like you instantly shut the key off that's the symptom for the ballast resistor and good news is just carry one in your glove box and you'll be fine like I said they tend to go out on rainy days now the other thing you're going to see is why these cars were so popular in demolition derby look where the radiator is and it's a big heavy duty radiator and look at the air gap between the radiator and the grill I mean there is a ton of room there definitely more than the GMS and Fords of the era crazy amount of room and these are unibody cars but they're very solidly built you can see that you have the bumper support here that's relatively beefy of course the build plate and I have like I said I have put you can see there's new wires and uh cap on there but I did put AC Delo spark plugs these cars are one of the worst you think that with all this room the tuneups would be easy but it's not there's the power steering gear right there and of course that interfered with you executing the job I find it's easiest to change these from under the car but uh I would have hated to have been a mechanic during this time frame because you try to do it from the top or even the bottom and these exhaust manifolds are hot and they're hard the plugs are hard to access but this car runs great with Delo copper plugs I use Delco copper plugs in every vehicle I've had no problems they run wonderfully I think they're just better quality than Auto lights or ngks are pretty decent too this does Have a Holly four barrel carbur stock Holly four barrel carburetor that's what they came with from the factory and we'll start it up here and you know anybody who's had a chist of this area you know that these cars don't start with your foot off the gas unless you've got something special going [Music] on look at that perfectly [Applause] [Music] smooth couldn't run better and it sounds great [Applause] too oh yeah [Applause] oh yeah just a great sounding 440 and the 440 and 727 transmission in this vehicle are Stellar one thing Chrysler did well was engines especially during this time frame in fact Chrysler really didn't make too many bad engines they use some bad engines like the Mitsubishi 2.6 L 4 cylinder but but by and large their engines were pretty good even their four cylinders eh you know the 2.2 some of them were not necessarily that great but they weren't as bad as others from other automakers so there you have it the 72 fuselage era New Yorker all right let's take the New Yorker for a little bit of a spin here oh yeah gotta love your Chrysler starter I love the view out of the hood of this vehicle here's by the way the turn signals you can see see it blinking out there I don't know if you can see that one that's kind of tough to see but it is blinking oh yeah all right well here we go we'll get out to the main road first thing you notice too in this car is the ride is much stiffer than a 70s AA car from GM or Ford and the steering has higher effort too Chrysler definitely put the emphasis on handling in these vehicles override I do love the cool speedometer there there let's take it out on the road oh yeah 440 power definitely has tons of torque it's got some good pep too good horsepower but yeah definitely stiffer ride than the GMS and Fords of the area and also considerably less body lean too so just depending on what you like this Chrysler may be for you and as the B-52 said it is as big as a whale although that was I think a 65300 l convertible in Love Shack pretty rare car so this is a few years after that any case hope you enjoyed this Spotlight of the 1972 New Yorker and some of its strange features quirks and idiosyncrasies thanks again for watching
