That 56 Chrysler was a nice car. I have always considered it to be the best of the 50's Chryslers. The 1957 version was a dramatic change in my opinion. For example, the door knobs and window cranks went from die cast metal to stamped or molded plastic. It appeared to have undergone a complete cost reduction to its detriment. Even the 56 that I had, came up with a problem.
The torque converter developed pinhole leaks and I had it in the garage a couple of times. Even went to an auto parts graveyard and got a replacement. It worked.
Maybe reliability was on my mind as I wound up looking at the new 1961 products. I was just going to kill some time until my wife returned from lunch with some friends.
Well, that was not good, since I was left to my own devices.
The current trend at that time, was to go to smaller, more economical cars. The Chevy Corvair and Plymouth Valiant were examples along with a few other "compact" automobiles. At any rate, I was convinced and bought the 61 Lancer. What the heck, I was making $3 an hour designing fluorescent lighting fixtures for a great manufacturer. That's where I got my grounding for the changes I would see in my future.
The Lancer was a neat, 4 door car and along with the Valiant, quite popular. It utilized a slant six engine, developed about 100 HP and would slide up to 60MPH in 12 seconds. I was in no danger of ruining the tires with that acceleration. In spite of that, the tires only went about 36K miles.
The automatic trans was shifted by push buttons on a cluster located on the lower left part of the dashboard. I still remember rocking that car in the snow by pushing those buttons. You could push the buttons pretty fast but always got that little delay before it would shift.
With the four doors we got convenience since by then, we had two active boys, one 4 and the other 2 years old. I think they like the car and they were safe in the back seat since we added safety covers over the door handles. Of course there were no safety seats nor seat belts required at the time. No drivers I knew then, would accept seat belts and I can not remember if seats for children were even available.
As you can see, this was no car for show and go, nor for expanding the ego. I think that wore me down to an extent, weakening me to the point I had to do something. That something was to make a change back to Ford and think about fun cars which I want to cover in the next post.
Rich
