STORY LINE: Chrysler 300F Special

A few months back, while at the Jerome-Duncan Ford swap meet earlier this year, I picked up a whole collection of CLASSIC SIXTIES. It’s an old DOBBS PUBLICATION that was the forerunner to MUSCLE CAR REVIEW that Tom Shaw was the editor of. Anyway, both magazines pretty much covered big motored American cars of the ‘60s/70s … muscle cars. CLASSIC SIXTIES magazine is a collectors item to me ‘cause Terry Boyce was the editor and I been readin’ his ‘stuph’ since dirt was invented. Not that Terry is old, he has just been around and knows the inside of a fast stable cart … and really appreciates it too.

I in turn have always enjoyed reading about and now driving big motored touring type vehicles, and one of the CLASSIC SIXTIES from 1983 covered a virtually unknown 300F Special convertible with the Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed and 400HP/413 engine. Important, yeah… since only 1 was ever built, convertible that is. Seven 300F, 400HP 4-speed Special hardtop cars were built. So that means … only eight, exist in the world. Hmmm, same number as the 1969 T/A convertibles and they are in the stratosphere of  car pricing, like 150 thou plus. I’ll take the Chrysler 300 Special. It’s cooler.

Diverting a bit, what seems interesting also, is that I keep running into these cars-letter series 300’s, and have just appraised a concour restored G model convertible and hoping to write up a road test  on one of these behemoths. It keeps coming back too … in the fifties when I was a kid the family doctor, Doc Kulaski … drove new letter 300’s. Carried a fifth under the seat too, good doctor.

These Special Chrysler 300F cars were assembled and sold in late 1959 to selected sportsman drivers who agreed to ‘visit’ the Daytona Speed Trials in January of 1960. They did it right with Greg Zeigler hitting 148 mph in the flying mile and setting the flying mile record at just shy of 145. Andy Granatelli mounted a pair of Paxton blowers on the seventh coupe, ran in the experimental class at Daytona and Bonneville in ’61, and did 189.990 in the flying mile at Bonneville with a two way average of 184.049.

Well, it was thought that only the seven Special 300F cars existed, then, in a northern Michigan estate near Duck Lake, the convertible was discovered in 1978, languishing in a garage and showing only 11,040 miles.

A little history about the car. It had the 400HP RAM-INDUCTED 413. That’s 2x4 barrel Carter AFB carburetors on what appears to be the long rams. Actually they are the 30-inch manifolds split in the middle internally with 15-inch open runners and 15-inch closed or divided runners, which increases the rpm where the power comes on … as in upstairs. The standard 375HP letter engine used hydraulic lifters, the Special was fitted with solids and a high lift performance camshaft with larger 2-1/2 inch exhaust manifolds.

The transmission was a French built Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed manual with floor console shifter. It was said to be used as no other 4-speed manual transmission of that time could handle the torque of the 400HP Special engine.

Fully documented with bill of sale from the Edwards Motor Company of Milwaukee the car had a sticker price of $7,158.30, of which $1,000.00 paid for the Special 400HP package. … it is the only 300 Special convertible in existence … and only a couple of the hardtops are still live. 

Hmmm. A modern Duesenberg. Guess I’ll just have to go look for a ’66 Buick Wildcat GS convertible  with the 425 dual quad engine and 4-speed. I wonder if any of those still live. Me thinks maybe though, I’ll go look into these old magazines a little further and jog some of my old memory banks. This is really good ‘stuph’ Terry Boyce.  Thanks.   

TOP HAT JOHN can be contacted for story leads, vehicle appraisals, or questions at: P.O. Box 46024, Mt. Clemens, MI., 48046-6024; or call 586-465-1933