Here’s a brief account of the rebirth of a "beautiful brute" exceptional for its rarity, a 300 C convertible.

The car was purchased new in France in 1957. With original microfiches from the factory, the Chrysler 300 International Club was able to establish that it came off the production line April 26, 1957, and was shipped to France five days later. It was one of only five 300 C convertibles to be exported; 479 were sold in the U.S. It is probably the only survivor among those five exported models.

When Fernand bought this car in 1995, it needed a lot of work. It had spent several years in the Seine-et-Oise district, then moved to the Paris vicinity, where its second owner lived. This man kept the car about 10 years and abandoned it in a piece of wasteland, where hoboes slept in it. At the end of the 1970s a fan of American cars bought it and held it for several years, eventually selling it to an important collector in the southwest part of the country. At last it came into Fernand’s possession. It had recently been repainted, but everything else needed attention. The top was bad, both bumpers needed new chrome plate, the interior was crackled and pitted. Fortunately all the original parts were in place - except the motor, transplanted from a 1958 New Yorker! The original engine turned up not far away, under the hood of a 300 D coupé carrying an # 5 conditions, that was stored in a shed. Fernand soon negotiated the purchase of that car too.

Restoration proceeded over a year, but not at a steady pace. Searching for certain parts, and fabricating others, delayed the re-emergence of Beautiful Brute. The most troublesome was the hunt for the pair of Carter WCFB carbureters and their intake manifold; the transplanted engine was proved by factory microfiches to belong to the convertible, but over the years it had lost its original intake system! Two cylinders where the pistons had seized had to be rebored. New oversized pistons, rings, bearings, fuel lines, valves, pushrods, etc., were supplied by G. Riehl of the Chrysler 300 Club. With the help of W. Graefen’s Chrysler 300 C Handbook, the engine block and parts reacuired their original colors. The carbureters and manifold were found in Iowa by a response to the club’s bulletin. They cost $800, for these carbs are unique to the 300 C. Seat upholstery, the top, carpets, door panels and weatherstrip were ordered from Gary Goers, the big specialist in 300s. It took six months for them to be delivered, but they were worth the wait, for everything was in strict conformity to the original - color, stitching, leather quality, metallic ornaments, emblems on the top. All this was turned over to an upholsterer at Tarbes for installation. In time the engine had recovered its thunderous voice and was impatient to get out on the highways of Aquitaine! The Torqueflite transmission showed its long neglect with a centimeter of tarry sludge in its sump, but went back to work after thorough cleaning. A great many other details - brake system, shock absorbers, chromed body trim, overhauling the electrical system - are left aside here. At last, in May 1996, the 300 C was back on the road after 15 years of idleness! Its first showing was at the N.A.S.H. of Nérac, then Mirande and some regional stands. In the course of this tour it became clear that all was not well with the transmission: there was a leak from its front end, and the change from second to third gear was reluctant, or worse. It was decided to remove the Torqueflite for a full rebuild. Fernand reflected at the time that the one thing he had not overhauled was sure to become the first to go bad. Rather than entrust it to some shop for hypothetical rebuilding, we resolved to do the work ourselves, with help from a mechanic and from the factory’s indispensable Shop Manual. With a kit acquired from the always helpful Chrysler 300 Club, disassembly moved ahead without any problem except the need to fabricate a special tool. The clutch discs proved to be completely worn out. There should have been alternate discs of friction material and metal, but here only metal discs remained ! The American expert G. Riehl advised us not to use Dexron fluid in Torqueflite or Powerflite transmissions, because this GM-designed fluid had additives that caused premature wear on the Chrysler clutch discs. He said to use Ford Type AA fluid instead, and a nearby Ford garage found it for us, with some difficulty. After reassembly and reinstallation, and adjustment of the transmission control cable (very important), the 300 took to the road with an authority we hadn’t dared to expect..

Since then the Brute has paraded the roads of southwestern France, basking in its eminence among Retromobile Chrysler stand . It acts up now and then, with a radiator stoppage after a hard run on the Autoroute, and brakes that don’t brake as well as one would like. But what do you expect? It’s worth little distractions to hear those carbs hiss as they feed fuel to the throbbing Hemi.

A final note. The factory microfiches show that this car was equipped with two very rare options:

• Rear dual antennas (not ordinarily supplied on 300 models)
• The RCA "Highway Hi-Fi Phonograph," with a 16 2/3-rpm turntable and special 7-inch ultra-microgroove records containing 40 minutes of music. The turntable was stolen long ago and Fernand hasn’t been able to run it down. But is such a thing really necessary on a 300?