1957 Chrysler 300C: The Beautiful Brute That Raced Only the Clock

The letter car went back to Daytona Beach in 1957 without the team that had made its name. Carl Kiekhaefer's Chryslers had won 22 of 41 NASCAR races in 1956, and at the end of that season, Ate Up With Motor records, he announced that he was leaving NASCAR. The Chrysler 300 Club says plainly that the 300C did not compete in NASCAR track events. It went to the sand for the flying mile instead, and won it, which by the club's count made the 300 the fastest American car in its class for a third straight year.^1,2,3,4

What stood on the beach was a new automobile from the bumpers in. Mac's Motor City Garage describes 1957 as the year Virgil Exner's Forward Look reached full maturity, with Plymouth advertising 'Suddenly, it's 1960' and Chrysler promising 'a step ahead of tomorrow.' The club history credits Exner with sleeker bodies and upswept fins, and on the 300C those fins began at the rear door edge and ran almost straight to the taillamp tips. Over-Drive calls the grille masculine and unlike any other Chrysler's; the club calls it Ferrari-like. Trim was spare: a single spear on each rear quarter and the round red, white and blue 300 medallion.^5,4,6

The bigger change was underneath. The club says Chrysler engineered an entirely new chassis for 1957 through 1959, with torsion bars in the front suspension and angled upper and lower control arms that reduced dive under braking; Mac's names the system Torsion-Aire and places it on a conventional ladder frame. The 300C carried twin-leading-shoe front brakes and 9.00 x 14 Goodyear Blue Streak nylon tires on wider rims. The smaller wheels had a cost, and Over-Drive records Chrysler's answer: a rectangular opening below each pair of headlamps that ducted cooling air to the front brakes.^4,5,6

The Hemi grew again, to 392 cubic inches on a 4.00-inch bore and 3.90-inch stroke. With 9.25:1 compression and two Carter four-barrels it was rated at 375 horsepower at 5,200 rpm and 420 lb-ft at 4,000, a manufacturer-published figure whose rating basis the sources do not state. The TorqueFlite three-speed automatic was standard. The optional engine, on 10.0:1 compression with what the club calls a more radical camshaft and larger exhaust pipes, was rated at 390 horsepower at 5,400 rpm, and Over-Drive lists mechanical lifters for it and says it came only with the manual transmission and no power accessories.^6,4

That optional car is the rarest 300C, and even its definition is slippery. The club history says the three-speed manual went into only 18 special high-performance chassis-package cars; the club's model page describes 18 cars built with the 390 horsepower engine. Whether those are the same eighteen, and whether every 390 car was a manual car, is not settled by the club's own pages. Mac's describes the package as adding stiffer suspension and a limited-slip differential, and reports that Motor Trend recorded 0-60 mph in 8.0 seconds with a 390 horsepower car, a secondhand figure whose tested axle and weight are unknown. Against the club's 2,251 cars, eighteen is under one percent.^4,3,5

The 300C also brought the first convertible letter car. The club lists the 1955 C-300 as a two-door coupe and the 1956 300B as a hardtop only, so this was the first time a buyer could take the Hemi with the top down, and the club says it rode a massive frame meant to let it handle like the hardtop. Both the club and Over-Drive count 484 convertibles, and Over-Drive prints a $5,359 price for the open car, basis not stated. The hardtop count divides the sources. The club gives 1,767; Over-Drive gives 1,918, and Mac's total of 2,402 with 484 convertibles is the same arithmetic as Over-Drive's. Neither side names the factory record behind its figure. Either way the convertible took about one sale in five: 21.5 percent on the club's numbers, 20.1 percent on Over-Drive's.^4,6,5

Inside Chrysler's own showroom the 300C was a sliver. Over-Drive puts total 1957 Chrysler production at 122,273, and Mac's gives about 122,000, some five percent below 1956. On those numbers the letter car was about two Chryslers in every hundred: 1.8 percent with the club's hardtop count, 2.0 percent with Over-Drive's. Mac's lists the base Windsor four-door sedan at $3,088, which puts the 300C convertible's printed price $2,271 above the least expensive Chrysler. The club says the 300C sold strongly anyway, despite sticker prices above most American luxury cars, and describes it as a halo car that drew customers into the showroom. It was also the best-selling letter car yet: the club counts 1,725 C-300s for 1955 and 1,102 300Bs for 1956, both below either 300C total.^6,5,4

It was a luxury car first and a fast one second, and Chrysler equipped it that way. Over-Drive lists full leather trim, power steering, backup lights and a parking-brake warning light as standard, and the club specifies the leather as tan. Paint was monotone only, in five colors: Cloud White, Gauguin Red, Jet Black, Parade Green and a brown the sources name differently, Copper Brown in Over-Drive and Copper Spice in the club history. The club counts ten 300 emblems on the car inside and out. Tom McCahill, as Mac's quotes him, called it 'motorized dynamite.'^6,4,5

The brute is a fair label for the 300C, and the club records that the letter cars earned 'Beautiful Brutes' after its introduction. Over-Drive's compilation goes further, calling the 300C the fastest and most powerful production car in the country and comparing it only, and hesitantly, to the Corvette. Those are claims of rank, not measurements, and the compilation does not pair them with a period road test. What the documents do establish is the configuration that made the argument: a 392 Hemi with two four-barrels in a 126-inch-wheelbase luxury body on 14-inch wheels, rated at 375 horsepower as delivered and 390 in its rare special form.^3,6

The next year showed how quickly the formula could lose its audience. The club records that the 1958 300D kept the 392, raised to 380 horsepower, and offered Chrysler's first electronic fuel injection, a Bendix system fitted to 21 cars that were recalled and converted to twin four-barrels. Production fell to 619 hardtops and 191 convertibles, about a third of the 300C's total on the club's figures. The 300C remained the car the club calls among the most beautiful and desirable 300s: the year the letter car stopped needing a stock-car team and started selling on speed it proved against the clock.⁴