Car of the Week: 1969 Chrysler 300

I'm a total car guy. I'm not sure why so many of teh gays are car guys, but I was bitten with the bug at an early age. My dad was a car guy who traded cars almost every year, usually for some totally cool convertible for my mother to drive. She loved looking good in a good looking car, including her 1969 Chrysler 300 convertible, like the one pictured above, although Mom's was green, not red. Here's the hard top in the appropriate color:
Beautiful, no? Sleek, sweeping lines. I know, I know, it's as big as a whale and it's about to set sail, but when Mom dropped me off at grade school in it, I felt very cool.

18,000 Chrysler 300s were sold in the 1969 model year of which 1,933 were drop-tops. The convertible was the most expensive model at a whopping $5,060.00. It had a 440 cubic-inch V-8 rated at 350 horse power.

In 1970, in a fit of male menopause, my father traded an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon on a brand new Dodge Challenger. That car was rolling sex, and will be the subject of a future post. Right after he ordered the Dodge, we went on a family vacation to Florida to see my grandparents. On the way out of town, Dad needed to stop at Bill Jones Dodge City to sign some papers (or so he said), and at the precise moment Mom stepped out of her Olds 98, a salesman drove up in the new 1969 300 with the top down. It was unsold from the previous model year and was priced to move. Next thing I knew, we were taking the bags out of the 98 and putting them in the trunk of the Chrysler and heading to Florida in a spur-of-the-moment new car! Make that 2 new cars, because Dad had just ordered the Challenger. I was 10 years old and so excited I could hardly contain myself. So you see, I come by my car fetish naturally. I inherited it.