As
historians of the lettered cars, we often must explain that
there was a C300 and then a 300C before the modern cars added a third
group with a similar title to the former cars. I have had the
pleasure of owning and restoring both of the first two. Deep
into retirement, perhaps the third iteration is on the horizon.
In
May of 2000 the Chrysler Corporation bought back a 1955 C-300 it had
first sold in the spring 45 years previously. It was apparently
a case of seller's remorse and the tango red (born in platinum white)
hardtop coupe was reshipped back to Michigan, the state of its origin
and turned out to pasture and stud so to speak.
3N552462
had spent its entire retail car-eer in Northern California
before being reunited with Mother Mopar. Delivered in
Walnut Creek, CA to a school teaching couple, the car was well
remembered by the son of the original selling dealer at Lawrence
Chrysler-Plymouth. Mr. Lawrence, the son, was the current owner
of Lawrence Volvo in the same location and had been a service writer
for his father during the Chrysler days. He was able to
provide original license plate frames from the 50s but Chrysler
probably discarded them after the purchase. Their merchandising
plan was to promote understanding of the 300 heritage by loaning
the car to automobile writers and journalists so they had a basis to
understand what the 20th century 300 models were about as the
grandparents to the new kids in the 21st.
When
the last CA custodian (isn't that what we really are?) Lefty Jett
towed the bedraggled brute home, it inspired pity and scorn by
those who failed to see beyond the ripped missing interior and
severely weathered exterior and a non firing engine. After
a cosmetic restoration including the mental consternation process
endemic in the 'change-the original-color? community and the changing
of running shoes to Motor Wheel (wire division) type, the old battler
began a new pampered life, not unlike its salad days of the
middle fifties. The internet was the broker for the deal
between buyer and seller with John Lazenby the uncommissioned
middleman.
I
next heard of its whereabouts when David E. Davis Jr.
(ofAutomobile and Car & Driver fame) joined the 300
Club Fall Meet at Williamsburg in 2000 and told me he had been
driving my car for a week on loan from Chrysler. When asked how
did he know it had been my car, he said that it had a message written on
the glove door saying, "Larry, please don't drive this car over
139 mph and signed Tim Flock 1996".
Some
years later Martin Swig (remember him as the storyteller at the
Lake Tahoe Meet with details of Chrysler's racing success in the
20's?) hosts his annual CA Mille Miglia Tour for the
well-heeled sporting gents with the starting day at
the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel. It was co-sponsored by
Chrysler and they had the C300 proudly on display at the front of the
hotel. I drove in with my 300C and thought a reunion of
the cousins would look good in my scrapbook so I backed up next
to the car just to be admonished by a Chrysler Suit informing me that
I was not allowed to park there even for moment for the
picture. When I asked him if it said something about a Larry
and a Tim Flock on the glove box door, he agreed that it did. I
mentioned that I was the Larry and he gave way thus the photo
attached. I then admonished him that much of the original
black ink was being removed by too much polishing of the glove door
and that Tim was deceased and not available for a redo.
Hoping he passed that intel on to older caretakers of the car and
they knew of which I spoke. If the archives can ever determine
that 3N552462 is alive and well, I'd be pleased to learn.
