C 1003
Where Are You?

In 1993, Karl Pippart III wrote an article "C-sational Chrysler" on Ken Mack's C, 1003. Karl documents the interesting adventures of this car. Click here to read his article.

I recently had a discussion with Ken where he added more information.

In his book "The Chrysler 300 on the Sands at Daytona Beach" Burt Bouwkamp says they brought a C to Daytona for the Flying Mile Experimental Class. The car was modified with fuel injection and ram intake tubes were added by Chrysler Research. Here is a picture. Note the air cleaner mounted in front of the radiator support. Ken says when he bought 1003, the radiator support still had the holes for the air cleaner. It is likely 1003 was this same car.

April 10th, 1957. Chrysler sold the car to George Barbat for $3,306. Rumor has it that George went no father than in front of the Chrysler engineering building before he broke the transmission. George broke a lot more transmissions in this car.

George wrote this note to Ken:
The MPH conversion is a thing made to see how fast it was actually going. Since the car didn't have a 150 MPH speedometer, they had a gear reducer on the speedometer cable at the transmission and pencil marks on the speedometer face indicating shift points and top end. I took the reducer apart, got the gear ratio and made a real speed chart. Before the chart, I had thought the car was a real slug. I was wrong.

When Ken received the car from the next owner (Bob McCormick), there was a large rectangular cut out on the transmission tunnel from the previous transmission replacements & substitutions. There was also engine block 1017, the original engine for 1003.

Note the 4 bolt exhaust pipe.

This is a picture of the instrument panel for 1003. The dial pods are New Yorker. Note the bright metal panel between the gauges. The odometer reads 7,479 miles.

The restoration of 1003 is well documented in Karl Pippart's article. Ken took the car to the club's Coldwater, Michigan meet in 1994 and to many local events before selling the car in 2011 to Dave Bunn. Dave had the car at a show when a fellow approached him and had to have the car. It went to a new home, possibly in Kuwait, and then the trail goes cold. If anyone has information on where 1003 might be today, give us a shout. We'd like to know.

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