History 62 Chrysler 300 Factory Roll Bar? ...Can't Be

This 1962 300 non letter car came loaded, 413 two fours, 3 speed on the floor, Posi, multileaf springs, 12 inch brakes, 15 inch wheels, Power steering, brakes & windows, A/C, buckets, Leather, 150 MPH speedo and more. Almost an H with a stick.

It has a 2" x 4" chromed roll bar wrapped top and bottom with matching upholstery. The car card shows front seat belts, check out the eyelet and clamp system.

The car was ordered new by Varner Motors in Yuma AZ. Looking for the history I googled the (uncommon) name I found on an old reg card in the Arizona area. After a few calls, I get a guy that says his brother bought this car when it was a year old. He described the car to a tee. He told me it had a 413 with a solid cam, a dual point and a Factory Roll bar. He also told me that the Yuma dealer special ordered the car loaded with the big motor and a 3 speed manual. Here's the wierd part, he told me the dealer shot himself in the car. The car was later cleaned up and bought by his brother at the dealership.

I did read that Chrysler Execs Tom Coddington and Tom Hoover (the 426 guys) encouraged dealers to special order these performance 413 engines with the 2 inline 4 bbl's in 1962 in different mid sized models. I also read you could not get a 3 speed manual in an H or behind a dual carbed car. There is an H on the trunk, but it's an 822 VIN.

Three questions:

Anyone ever seen a factory roll bar like this?

Has anyone seen 3 speed manual behind a 413 twin carb.

Anyone in Yuma remember hearing about a suicide by this Varner Motors rep?

I ordered the car card from Chrysler historical, any help decoding the card and fender tag would be much appreciated as well.

Thanks

 

I think we need some pics of the whole car, looks very interesting!-MIKE

 

Factory roll bar??? Nope. That looks really cool as hell, but I'll bet money it was something the dealer (or his outside vendor) installed. The '61 and '62 Chrysler 300s are among my all-time favorites, and I have never seen such an animal in any one I've ever seen or ridden in.

The three-speed manual was the standard manual transmission in these. An extremely rare Pont-a Mousson French-built four-speed was available, as was the TorqueFlite 727 cast-iron automatic. So, yes, the three-speed manual was indeed available behind the 413 2-4 or the 413-4.

If this were a real "H", there would be more than the "H" on the trunk. The grille medallion and the side emblems would also have the "H", as would the steering wheel center and the rear seat emblem.

Seat belts were an option in Chrylser products, starting in 1954, and were standard, beginning in 1962 or 1963, I forget which.

Sounds like you've got a pretty neat ride there, regardless of how it came to be!

 

The one thing I have learned about Chrysler products over the last 30 years is that there is alway a factory aberation out there somewhere...the minute someone say no hemi's were installed in 4 doors or station wagons, a documented and verified one will pop up Maybe your rollbar car owner had some pull with chrysler or it was a factory prototype that was not supposed to be shipped.
I tend to agree with Patrick though, dealer installed seems more likely to me.

 

The 300 H did not have an "H" on the side or grill medallions. The only place there was an "H" emblem was on the trunk.

Definitely not a factory roll bar.

 

Sweet car (and I'm by no means knowledgeable about Mopars) but that bar looks really beefy for something that would have been done in '62, look at the roll bars that were in heavily-campaigned cars in that year...

 

wow, cool. let's see more pics!

 

I dont know but I love it

 

A 3-speed manual was the base trans on the 300's
- even with the single-4 and dual-4bbl 413s. It's pretty
rare though, because most 300's - as well as most other
Dodge , Plymouth and Chrysler cars ordered with a
413 - were also ordered with the popular, optional
Torqueflite automatic. The only other manual trans that
was available with the 413's in the 1962 300's was the
French-made 'Pont A Mouson' 4-speed. Don't even bother
looking for one of those though, as only 3 or 4 300's were
built with them that year..

As for the supposed "factory" roll bar - no way. It was
probably something supplied by an aftermarket vendor
and *maybe* sold and installed by the dealer 'on special
order' when the car was new. But Chrysler never offered
a 'rollbar option' on their cars - or even listed one in
any of their parts books.

Mart3406
==============================

 

I'm not a mopar guy, so what is the 'H' signify? Interesting car, is the original motor in it? How about some experior pics, what lead you to this car for a looksee?
Thanks, oj

 

That car looks like it could possibly be something VERY special, like a factory Show Car or something. That rollbar, in addition to being chrome, and even matching the rest of the interior from the windows down, just looks like it fits to extremely nice against the headliner and door panels. Not only that, but ask yourself this........who had a bender in the early Sixties that could bend 2x4 steel tubing like that? Yeah.....that's a pretty short list! I love the sheet metal "bubble" in front of the shifter so the linkage clears the floorpan. This is a car that should be bought, if buyable, and then start the detective work. I think you may have really stumbled onto something special.

 

I had a friend with a 62 Chrysler (not a letter car) back in the 60s and it had the factory 3 spd on the tree. Very very rare. He turned it into a mild custom with multicolored candy panels over heavy silver metal flake that was all the rage back then.

Without a console I doubt that it was sold to the public with a floor shift.

 

I can remember my buddy and I hitchhiking home from high school in 62 or 63 and being picked up by a guy in a new Chrysler 300 and it had a 3-speed on the floor. Seemed all factory at the time. Sure beat the usual rides back then.

 

Without a console I doubt that it was sold to the public with a floor shift.[/QUOTE]

Only the letter cars came with consoles. All other manual trans Chrysler models would have had a floor shift without a console.

 

My first thought was State Patrol/Highway Patrol Pursuit car. Ford, Mopar and GM could arrange for just about anything when there was fleet purchase involved. I am not a Mopar person, and I'll admit a factory rollbar seems far-fetched, but I've seen a lot of ex-State Cop cars with some serious one-off performance equipment. In the 60s, stick trannies were easier to service and considered superior to A/Ts for performance - granted, racers were proving that an auto worked better than a stick, but this was in the days of Hayden Proffit, Arnie Beswick and a lot of other guys who could shift faster than the "man with no name" could draw. Police probably wanted the heavy-duty 3spd for pursuit purposes. Look for alternate/ancillary ID tags somewhere, or even see if you can get Govier to lend an ear

dj

 

I grew up in Milwaukee and there was a guy around my neighborhood with a manual trans in his new '62 or '63 300... the damn thing was about as fast as anything around... a neighbor had a '62 421 Poncho and he said he couldn't beat 'em so it MAY have been a 413... who knows.

 

In that era Chrysler offered a low ball price 'Newport' 4 door sedan that came with floor shifted three speed trans a standard equipment. If I recall correctly, it sold for $2964 at the time. I was in the Navy then and my division Chief Petty Officer had one. I can well imagine that the 3 speed stick was offered across the line of body styles.

Neat piece..........congrats on your find.

Ray

 

I stand corrected on the grille and side emblems. The '62 had a red/white/blue striped round grille emblem and "300" side emblems. The 300H trunk lid insignia is four separate numbers and the H as individual elements on the driver's side of the deck lid.

Plenty of customizers existed back then that would've been able to build that "rollbar", but that surely was NOT a factory job.

 

So rare in fact it was one of none. All 1960, 1961 and 1962 Chryslers (and '60 & '61 Desoto) came with a floor shifter if it was a manual trans car (push buttons if it was automatic).

The floor shift was necessary because was there was not enough room on the steering column due to the Astrodome instrument cluster.

 

Learn something here every day. I was around back in the day and never saw a factory floor shift 3-speed Mopar. The only 3-speeds I ever saw were on the NASCAR Grand National cars and I mistakenly assumed the Hurst shifters had replaced a column shift.

However, I did see one of the three or four Pont-A-Mousson 4-speeds. It was a actually a French truck transmission with a really low first gear. The dual-quad 413" broke the box while still under warranty. No parts anywhere in the US. It was replaced with a Torqueflite and the Pont-A-Mousson was brought home by the Mopar line tech and sat in the corner of a garage in Mud Creek, Alabama for forty years. May still be there.

jack vines

 

It's too many years ago to argue about it. I'll take your word for it. I had a 58 push button Plymouth at that time. It was a 3 speed stick for sure. I thought that was rare. I'm slightly surprised that no pictures have shown up on the net of that car. He took it to a hell of a lot of indoor shows up and down the east coast. I'm sure there were plenty of pictures of it.

 

I've got $10 that says this was just a nicely-optioned car that someone set up for drag racing with aftermarket parts. The prior owner you talked to wasn't involved with the car until it was a year old - a lot could have happened to it before that. The seat belt hooks and eyelets are typical aftermarket parts. I installed very similar Simpson belts in a Cutlass years and years ago. The car likely did come with factory belts (as did my Cutlass). The stock belts were unbolted and the Simpson eyelet screws right into the existing treaded hole in the floor pan.

 

Push button = automatic transmission.

 

He installed safety equipment....then committed suicide...hmmm....I wonder if he was a 'friend of Bill'....
Just seems strange.

 

The 58 Plymouth was a push button automatic...the 62 Chrysler that we were talking about was a stick shift. Sorry for the poor wording.

 

ufixem -

The Roll Bar looks aftermarket to me ... but with Chrysler, I'd never rule out some obscure factory option.

I know for a fact that Chrysler used to honor their loyal customers by installing "special order" items at the factory.

oj -

Chrysler 300's were known as "letter cars" from 1955 thru 1961:

* '55 C-300 2-door hardtop [331ci HEMI V8]
* '56 300 B 2dr hardtop [354ci HEMI V8]
* '57 300 C 2dr hardtop & 'vert [392ci HEMI V8]
* '58 300 D 2dr hardtop & 'vert [392ci HEMI V8]
* '59 300 E 2dr hardtop & 'vert [413ci V8]
* '60 300 F 2dr hardtop & 'vert [413ci V8]
* '61 300 G 2dr hardtop & 'vert [413ci V8]

Chrysler produced both "letter" & "non-letter" 300's from 1962 thru 1965 ...

... "letter":

* '62 300 H 2dr hardtop & 'vert [413ci V8]
* '63 300 J 2dr hardtop [413 or 426ci V8]
* '64 300 K 2dr hardtop & 'vert [413ci V8]
* '65 300 L 2dr hardtop & 'vert [413ci V8]

... and "non-letter":

* '62 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert and 4dr hardtop & sedan [383 or 413ci V8]
* '63 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert, 4dr hardtop & sedan, and 2dr Pace Setters [383, 413 or 426ci V8]
* '64 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert and 4dr hardtop [383 or 413ci V8]
* '65 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert and 4dr hardtop & sedan [383 or 413ci V8]

Chrysler also produced "non-letter" 300's from 1966 thru 1971:

* '66 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert and 4dr hardtop & sedan [383 or 440ci V8]
* '67 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert and 4dr hardtop [440ci V8]
* '68 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert and 4dr hardtop [440ci V8]
* '69 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert and 4dr hardtop [440ci V8]
* '70 300 2dr hardtop & 'vert, HURST 2dr hardtop, and 4dr hardtop [440ci V8]
* '71 300 2dr hardtop and 4dr hardtop [440ci V8]

In 1979, Chrysler offered a "300 option" Cordoba 2 door, 5 passenger hardtop with a 360ci V8.

The Chrysler 300M 4 door, 5 passenger sedan with a 215ci V6 was produced from 1999 thru 2004.

Since 2005, Chrysler has been producing 4 door, 5 passenger sedans with the 300 moniker (i.e., "300", "300 Touring Edition", "300 Limited Edition", "300C", & "300 SRT8").

 

Damn Cob, that's nice...

 

You'd be surprised at some of the stuff I've seen that my dad had picked up over the years working at Dodge dealerships.The last thing I remember him getting was a Caravan with a factory stick on the floor.It ws set up to run in the Swiss Alps.

 

From Chrysler 300 by Robert Ackerson:
"Nonetheless, the extreme proximity in appearance of the 300H to the standard series was undeniable. With both cars sharing generic '300' red, white and blue medallions on their grille and side body trim, the 300H was identified in profile only by it's unique slotted wheel covers with a 300 medallion in the center of the spinner and 15 in wheels with 7.60X15 in Goodyear nylon Blue Streak tires.... (edited for length) At the rear, the 300H was distinguished by virtue of a one-inch high chrome 'H' added to 300 lettering located on the left side of the rear deck."
There were also differences in the interior (leather was darker brown than previous years).
Also "Chrysler offered the 300H with a three speed manual transmission with ratios of 2.55:1, 1.49:1 and 1.0:1. It's clutch used an 11 inch disc with a pressure plate rated 2350 lbs for the 300H. Although operated by a floor shifter, it was hard pressed to match the dragstrip performance of the Torqueflite gearbox."

The standard engine was a dual 4 barrel (non long ram) rated at 380 HP. There was available as special order, however, a ram inducted intake over the counter for both the base 300 and H. This was the first year a non 'letter' 300 was offered. Purists cringe, letter car sales plummet, but non letters are a hit.

I'd love to have that car you found. It would be a perfect period piece, even if it isn't a letter car. Wanna trade for my 79 300 with an Eddy headed 360?

Thanks for the heads up on the find. But you gotta get pix of the rest of the car for us!

JK