1981 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue Stainless Steel Roof How Many Of These Were Made?

This 81 Chrysler Fifth Avenue was a gift from a gentlemen that I bought my white St. Regis Coup from. He was so impressed with the work that I did on his cherished New Yorker that he insisted that I own this car with the condition that I not junk it and I take care of it. This is probably the least favorite of New Yorkers for me and this car, although presentable, I would not have chosen to purchase if I had decided to collect one of this vintage. However, good to my word, I repaired probably 100 small items on this car including putting a new 340 purple stripe cam shaft with lifters in it, replaced the water pump, timing chain, converted it complete to 134A, painted and detailed the engine bay, replaced front shocks, left splash shield, flushed the tranny, refitted all the doors, and repaired numerous window lifts, replaced the battery, aligned the front end, replaced the right windshield molding, installed a new heater core, repaired the antenna lead, and generally made it as nice as I could without fixing the original things that were wrong from the factory on the paint or fixing the repairs that the kind old gentlemen had done either himself or at a local body shop. While this car is comfortable and impressive to look at, it’s not up to the usual NGD standards. It is rare, however, in that the stainless steel roof treatment is one of only (I am guessing at this, please let us know the facts on Facebook) 288 every built like this. The interior presents as good as you see in the photographs with the exception of a slightly loose left front arm rest but the exterior (as many vehicles belonging to older people have) has been scraped down the right side of a garage opening. It has been repaired but the repair was painted from the factory paint stripe down. The vinyl top at the rear window (pictured) is rough. No rust, but I can only think that this might have been bad quality control in 1981. Also, the right rear filler (pictured) was part of the garage door damage and was never painted properly. The antenna does not operate (I fixed it once and now I am mad at it) and finally, the car ran so good with its operable lean burn that when we detailed the engine, we put the camshaft in and when we put it back together, the lean burn had failed. Shoulda left it alone. So, it needs to be converted from lean burn with the appropriate distributor but everything else under hood has been seen to. I was trying to make it a nice driver without doing the body work.

This was the last of the larger bodies and the tenth generation of the New Yorker and was quite an exclusive car in its day, it was also fairly expensive. The year after, they rode on the diplomat/grand fury platform which was really a better car but smaller. The roof treatment and sitting in the rear seat feels very limousine like feel.

Once again, like the Imperials of the same vintage, this was Lee Iacocca showing off.

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Who am I? My name is Dave. I have been restoring cars for 35 years. My first collector car was when I was 15 years old. I've had three major collections and now it's time to sell my last one. My personal taste run to the eclectic.

I have picked out or restored these vehicles to be some of the finest in the world of these types.

I was a Dodge dealer for 27 years, selling 1600 to 2000 cars a year - that was my business.

These cars are my passion.

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