Note, the dates in the description below may change as I learn more about the history of the car.
I purchased this 1960 Chrysler New Yorker Town & Country station wagon at an auction in Michigan City, Indiana on October 14, 2019. The car was advertised as just coming out of 40 years of climate controlled storage and the seller had told me personally that he had bought it out of San Diego in 2011. I traveled to the auction to inspect the car before bidding and the condition was worse than described. The car obviously had not been driven in a long time and the seller told me that he sent the gas tank out to a shop to be cleaned and that they lost it. When pressed, he told me that it was actually the previous owner that lost the tank. After purchasing the car, I was sent the title and it turns out the car had an Indiana title from 1976. Basically what he told me wasn't true but that's what you get sometimes when buying classic cars.
From the information on the title, I was able to contact the person who owned it from 1973 until about 2015. He and his dad had bought it from Kline's Motor Sales in Plymouth, Indiana in the summer of 1973 for $1200, which would have been quite expensive for a 13 year old car at the time. He said his dad paid for half of it. He drove it in high school and into college until August of 1978 when it was parked in the garage at the family's lake house in Plymouth. And there it sat until 2010 when the lake house was sold. Around 2015 he sent it to a couple shops trying to get it running again and the gas tank was rotted out. The second shop is owned by one of his high school friends and he was able to get it running but it was going to cost a lot to get it back on the road. He was approached to sell the car and I believe he sold it to the guy I bought it from at auction. I spoke to his friend at the shop and he was able to tell me what he had done with the car and also gave me a clue to who the original owner was.
According to information provided by Chrysler Historical, the car was sold new at Max Barish Inc., located at 4th and La Brea in Los Angeles, California. It was ordered through Max Barish by Robert M. Flarsheim of Pasadena, California. Mr. Flarsheim also had a house in Culver, Indiana on Lake Maxinkuckee and would travel there each summer with his wife and adopted son Jimmy, as well as the son of a family friend. Mr. Flarsheim was 62 years old when he bought the car and I was curious why he would have bought a 9-passenger station wagon. I talked to Jimmy and he explained that Mrs. Flarsheim was afraid of flying so they needed a car that they could comfortably drive on their trips. A notice in The Culver Citizen newspaper from June 22nd, 1960 mentioned that the Flarsheims had donated some books to the Culver public library. This would have been the first trip to Indiana in the new car, right after it was purchased. Jimmy said that it was a great car and very comfortable on those trips. I'm sure the dual air conditioning was a great feature in the summer. He would have been around 14 years old when the car was new. He also said that Mr. Flarsheim was an avid golfer and would travel around with a friend on golfing excursions. The Flarsheims ended up moving to the lake house in Culver in the 1970s and the car was sold or traded in there.
It was the mechanic who worked on the car in 2015 that told me that the original owner lived on Lake Maxinkuckee. He thought his name was Florsheim and was connected witht the Florsheim shoe company. Using that information I was able to connect Robert Flarsheim with the car and from there I was able to find his adopted son Jimmy and confirm it. While cleaning out the car, I found a couple matchbooks, and other materials, stuck in the front seat from Pasadena, California, as well as some from Culver, Indiana including one from The Culver Inn, which was located on the lake. The car also has an old AAA of Southern California 15 year member sticker in the rear quarter window.
The car was quite expensive in 1960 as the base price on this model of 3-seat wagon was $5,131 and it has over $1,500 in options on it. The New Yorker came standard with left outside remote mirror, power windows, power steering and power brakes. This car has the following options:
- Dual Air Conditioning
- Six-Way Power Seat
- Power Door Locks
- Golden Touch Search-Tune Radio With Floor Control
- Auto Pilot (Speed Control)
- 40-Amp Generator
- Right Outside Mirror
- Tinted Glass
I estimate the sticker price of the car to be about $6,656. Options the car did not have include swivel seats, Mirror-matic (automatic dimming inside rear view mirror), automatic headlight dimmer and sure grip axle. Standard tires on this model are 9.00x14 white sidewalls but this car had special order tires. I don't know yet what they might be as I don't have a window sticker for the car or any other sales information. White wall Goodyear Captive-Air tires were available but they would have a normal option code. They may have ordered black wall Captive-Air tires as those would have had to be special ordered and didn't have an option code. Click here for information on Captive-Air tires.
An interesting detail about the car is that it has a 1953-54 Chrysler Imperial hood ornament installed on it. Turns out that the previous car that Robert Flarsheim had was a black 1953 or 1954 Imperial sedan, and he loved the hood ornament. Jimmy says that Bob loved black cars and that the wagon was a major advance compared to the Imperial. I'll be keeping the hood ornament on it as it looks cool and is part of the history of the car.
It will take quite a bit of work to get the car on the road again. The brakes need to be completely gone through and all fluids and hoses will need to be changed. I've already replaced the exhaust system and gas tank and fuel lines. The engine may need to be pulled to be refreshed but I'll know more once I get it running.
Interestingly, this car was shipped within 5 days of my 1960 Chrysler 300F from the same factory.
