Junkyard Find: 1963 Imperial Custom

by Murilee Martin

Published: August 10th, 2011

With scrap steel worth so much these days, does a fairly rough ’63 Imperial have any chance of evading The Crusher? Probably not.

This one has been picked over pretty well, but still has plenty of goodies left for someone with a project Imperial.

Plenty of overlooked bits and pieces in the trunk

Speaking of the trunk, check out this huge air-conditioning unit in the back.

Chrysler Airtemp!

The ’63 Imperial came with a 340-horsepower 413 under the hood. Hmmm… this engine might be just the thing for my Dodge A100 van.

Someone who felt like restoring a 1963 Detroit luxury car would probably go for the more popular Continental or Cadillac; the big-fin Imperials of the late 1950s and the boxy monster Imperials of the later 1960s get a lot more attention than those of this era.

These cars were huge and heavy, but not quite as heavy as you might think. The ’63 Imperial Custom four-door hardtop scaled in at 4,690 pounds. How heavy is that? Just 521 pounds more than the ’11 Dodge Challenger SRT8!

#1960s #1963 #1963ChryslerImperial #1963Imperial #Chrysler #ChryslerImperial #Denver #DownOnTheJunkyard #Imperial #Junkyard #JunkyardFind

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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Acd on Aug 10, 2011

Some people rescue cats, some rescue dogs, if I had the money and the storage space I'd rescue cars and this would be one of the first I'd go after even though I've never had the least bit of interest in a '63 Imperial. There is enough here that it would be an absolute shame if this car and all of those hard to obtain parts disappeared for a few hundred bucks worth of scrap metal.

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- Sandy B. on Aug 12, 2011
  
  I am new hwere. This item got me "in". so.... I am MALE and in my early 60s. In 1957, my Dad bought a new 1957 CADILLAC HARDTOP COUPE. From week # 2 of ownership, the car began giving trouble. The dealer was very good to us...the car was not. We took Mom's 1952 Chevy on long trips, as the Caddy could not be trusted. In 1960, Dad had enough and traded the Caddy in - on a new 1960 Continential, in pink ! The power windows were temperial, according to weather conditions the, the car was clunsy, fat and boring. Dad tried in vain to stand by his choice. HE FINALLY CAVED IN, and sold the boat to a tennis player friend. He bought a 1965 Imperial LeBaron. We had it 5 years !! In the 5 years, the driver's side power window morot quit. End of list of problems! Warrantee covered it ! Following that was a 1970 Imperial, a 1973 Imperial, a 1975 Imperial and finally a 1978 Imperal (called a N.Y. Brougham) Nobody can tell our family that Lincolns and / or Caddy are better ! Our cousins bought only Imperials all through the 1960s too. Sadly both Mom & Dad & the Imperial brand are all gone. I drive a 2003 Lincoln Town Car, the Spring "Feature" car called "THE
  
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Dm2012 on Jan 05, 2012

Wow! I've owned one of these for the past 11 years & use it at least once a week. It's like driving a luxurious JFK-era living room on wheels. The handling & braking aren't at all modern, but not as bad as you'd expect. On the highway, it gets around 13 MPG; on surface streets, not so good. A few years ago, I had to re-solder a wire inside one of the electric window motors. I swear that motor was the size of an early Honda Accord starter.

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Recent Comments

Analoggrotto Junior Soprano lol
GrumpyOldMan The "Junior" name was good enough for the German DKW in 1959-1963:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKW_Junior
Philip I love seeing these stories regarding concepts that I have vague memories of from collector magazines, books, etc (usually by the esteemed Richard Langworth who I credit for most of my car history knowledge!!!). On a tangent here, I remember reading Lee Iacocca's autobiography in the late 1980s, and being impressed, though on a second reading, my older and self realized why Henry Ford II must have found him irritating. He took credit for and boasted about everything successful being his alone, and sidestepped anything that was unsuccessful. Although a very interesting about some of the history of the US car industry from the 1950s through the 1980s, one needs to remind oneself of the subjective recounting in this book. Iacocca mentioned Henry II's motto "Never complain; never explain" which is basically the M.O. of the Royal Family, so few heard his side of the story. I first began to question Iacocca's rationale when he calls himself "The Father of the Mustang". He even said how so many people have taken credit for the Mustang that he would hate to be seen in public with the mother. To me, much of the Mustang's success needs to be credited to the DESIGNER Joe Oros. If the car did not have that iconic appearance, it wouldn't have become an icon. Of course accounting (making it affordable), marketing (identifying and understanding the car's market) and engineering (building a car from a Falcon base to meet the cost and marketing goals) were also instrumental, as well as Iacocca's leadership....but truth be told, I don't give him much credit at all. If he did it all, it would have looked as dowdy as a 1980s K-car. He simply did not grasp car style and design like a Bill Mitchell or John Delorean at GM. Hell, in the same book he claims credit for the Brougham era four-door Thunderbird with landau bars (ugh) and putting a "Rolls-Royce grille" on the Continental Mark III. Interesting ideas, but made the cars look chintzy, old-fashioned and pretentious. Dean Martin found them cool as "Matt Helm" in the late 1960s, but he was already well into middle age by then. It's hard not to laugh at these cartoon vehicles.
Dwford The real crime is not bringing this EV to the US (along with the Jeep Avenger EV)
Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Another Hyunkia'sis? 🙈