1960 Chrysler 300F: Ram Tubes, a French Gearbox and a Hardware Dealer at 144 mph

Toward the end of 1959, according to Sports Car Market, Chrysler engineer Burt Bouwkamp telephoned Gregg Ziegler, a hardware-store owner from Elgin, Illinois. Ziegler had been impressed enough by Chrysler's showing on the beach in 1956 to sell his Buick Century and buy a 300B. Now, the magazine says, Chrysler was planning a full assault on the 1960 Daytona Speed Weeks and wanted him in it. Six 300Fs built in early November went to the engineering garage at Chrysler's Jefferson Avenue plant for 400-horsepower engines and heavy-duty four-speed transmissions made in France by Pont-a-Mousson. Ziegler and the other privateers, the profile adds, paid full dealer price: about $6,800.¹

On February 7, 1960, Sports Car Market reports, Ziegler ran the flying mile at a two-way average of 144.927 mph, and the six GT Specials finished first through sixth. The Chrysler 300 Club gives the same sweep with speeds from 141.50 to 144.9 mph, and its model page adds that a standard 300F placed seventh. Mac's Motor City Garage spells the driver's name Zeigler and rounds his speed to 144.9. The club's own record for the 300B four years earlier was 139.373 mph. A letter car had once again gone to Daytona and come back the fastest thing in its class, this time with the factory's engineers openly behind it.^1,2,3,4

The car underneath the record was new in structure. For 1960 every Chrysler except the Imperial went to unit-body construction, and the club notes that the 300F was the first letter car without a traditional ladder frame. Exner's styling changed with it: fins canted outward and ending in points, boomerang taillamps, a simple two-bar grille carrying a red, white and blue 300F medallion, and a Flight Sweep deck lid stamped with a simulated spare tire. The 126-inch wheelbase stayed, and Over-Drive lists the car at 219.6 inches long and 79.7 inches wide, riding on 9.00 x 14 Blue Streak tires with white sidewalls.^2,5

The engine was the other headline. The Hemi was gone, replaced by a 413-cubic-inch wedge on a 4.18-inch bore and 3.75-inch stroke, and Chrysler fed it through what it called Ram Induction. Over-Drive explains the idea: two Carter four-barrels sat on opposite sides of the engine, on 30-inch tubes tuned so that pressure waves pushed extra air into the cylinders between roughly 3,000 and 4,000 rpm. The standard 300F engine, on 10.1:1 compression and hydraulic lifters, was rated at 375 horsepower at 5,000 rpm and 495 lb-ft at 2,800 rpm. The club likens the effect to supercharging in the middle of the rev range.^5,2

The Daytona cars used the same idea cut short. Over-Drive's table gives the optional engine 15-inch ram tubes, mechanical lifters, a longer 284-degree camshaft in place of the standard 268 degrees, and a rating of 400 horsepower at 5,200 rpm with 465 lb-ft at 3,600 rpm. The shorter tubes, the fact sheet says, moved the tuned range toward 5,500 to 6,000 rpm, where a flying mile is won. Torque fell by 30 lb-ft on paper and peak power rose by 25 horsepower, a trade suited to a car meant to run flat out. Both ratings are manufacturer-published figures whose rating basis the sources do not state.⁵

The gearbox came from further away. The club says the Pont-a-Mousson four-speed had been made for the French Facel Vega luxury car, and Over-Drive lists its ratios as 3.35, 1.96, 1.36 and 1.00, with a 3.31 axle standard and ratios up to 3.73 available. Sports Car Market says the cars had to be modified to accept the four-speed, its clutch and a floor shift. The ordinary long-ram 300F had only the TorqueFlite three-speed automatic, geared 2.45, 1.45 and 1.00, and a 3.31 axle. A buyer walking into a showroom was, in practice, buying the automatic car; the French gearbox belonged to the handful built for the beach.^2,5,1

How many were built for the beach is still argued. The club says at least eight short-ram cars were built, which it calls Gran Turismos, and that four of the eight remain. Over-Drive says 15 short-ram cars were produced, nine of them with the Pont-a-Mousson. Mac's reports that Chrysler said seven Specials were built, that others say six, and that still others say as many as 15. Sports Car Market estimates nine to 15. No build record has been published to settle it. On the club's figures, eight cars were about 0.7 percent of the 1,212 300Fs; even the highest count, 15, is little more than one percent. Ziegler's own car is among the survivors: Sports Car Market says he sold it to Robert McAtee of Bloomington, Illinois, who kept it until his death in 2007, when it showed about 11,000 miles, and that it sold at Gooding and Company's Amelia Island auction in March 2013 for $236,500.^2,5,4,1

Inside, the 300F was built for four people rather than for a record. Over-Drive and the club describe four individual tan leather bucket seats, the front pair on swivels, with a console running the full length of the car from dash to rear seat back, carrying the tachometer and the rear window switches. The AstraDome instrument cluster put a 150-mph speedometer and four gauges under a clear plastic dome lit electroluminescently. The club counts ten red, white and blue 300 emblems and lists air conditioning, six-way power seats, a Sure-Grip differential and a power rear antenna among popular options. The paint list was short: Formal Black, Toreador Red, Alaskan White and Terracotta.^5,2

It was also expensive, and few were sold. Mac's gives $5,411 for the hardtop and $5,841 for the convertible, prices with no stated basis. The club counts 964 hardtops and 248 convertibles, 1,212 in all; Over-Drive counts 969 hardtops and the same 248 convertibles, 1,217 in all, the figure Sports Car Market repeats. Neither names its factory record. The convertible took about one sale in five on either count. Against the 1957 300C, which the club counts at 2,251, the 300F sold at a little over half the volume, even with a new structure and a new engine family.^4,2,5,1

Chrysler kept the Daytona formula for one more year and made it simpler. The club records that the 1961 300G carried both 1960 engines at the same ratings, changed the standard axle from 3.31 to 3.23 for more top speed, and gave the 400-horsepower engine a new heavy-duty Chrysler three-speed manual in place of the expensive French four-speed. A GT 300G won the Daytona flying mile again, a stock 300G won the one-mile acceleration run, and production rose to 1,280 hardtops and 337 convertibles. The 300G was the last letter car with Exner's fins. The 300F's record, as Sports Car Market tells it, belonged to a car its driver had bought at full dealer price.^2,1