Lot 778

Auburn Spring 2016

1948 Chrysler Town & Country

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$100,000 - $125,000 USD | Not Sold

United States | Auburn, Indiana

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Identification No.
7406169
  • Spitfire 323.5-cid, 135-hp inline eight-cylinder engine
  • Fluid Drive automatic transmission
  • Limited production with far fewer survivors
  • Popular and desirable "woodie" body
  • Spotlight
  • Power-operated canvas soft-top

For 1946, the fashionable Town & Country Convertible was presented. Urged on by an enticing advertisement campaign and a two-page spread in the widely read Saturday Evening Post, anxious public interest in the new Chryslers prevented the firm from making any clay models or prototypes. The new Town & Country Convertible was based on the upscale New Yorker series and offered a wide variety of luxurious appointments. Cosmetically little changed in the first three years, but with the response, why would they?

Advertised as Chrysler’s “work or play” convertible; its styling was considered magnificent. Chrysler customers were well-aware of the brands easy driving characteristics, their safeness, being surefooted and, in general, were simply a pleasure to own. Chrysler owners knew fine engineering, fine materials and recognized the fine craftsmanship that enabled Chrysler cars to weather the long, hard years of the War. This brilliant record instilled confidence in the new lineup.

Priced new from $3,400, Chrysler’s elegant Town & Country Convertible was the most expensive model available in the entire Chrysler model range, exceeding any other model in the New Yorker series and eclipsing the more moderately priced Royal, Windsor and Saratoga. All told, approximately 8,400 convertibles were built for 1948, with many less said to remain in existence.

The car offered here is finished in green with a green and tan interior and a tan canvas power-operated soft-top. This Town & Country convertible is powered by the New Yorkers big Spitfire 323.5-cid L-head inline eight-cylinder engine with 135 horsepower, and is also equipped with Fluid Drive transmission for cruising ease. Other equipment includes a spotlight, pushbutton radio, dual sideview mirrors, turn signals, wide whitewalls, spare tire and clock. The interior has many Art Deco inspired trim elements, combined with a truly distinctive body design that allowed the owner to be at ease if the going was on country roads, up through the mountains, or on a jaunt down the boulevard to the club. Chrysler gladly illustrated this versatile lifestyle of the Town & Country in a series of renderings that portrayed the car at the hunt with hounds to lovely ladies driving to the country club for a round of golf. This handsomely styled machine has all of the foundations needed for motoring delight in both town…and country.