Junkyard Find: 1989 Chrysler New Yorker Landau
The Chrysler New Yorker has been a constant in the Junkyard Find series, from this genuinely luxurious ’64 to this Slant Six-powered New Yorker-ized Dodge Diplomat. The most recent New Yorker used the good-looking but shoddy LH Platform, but between the Diplomat and the LH were the K-Car-based New Yorkers. By 1989, the K platform had been stretched out, huge contracts with the largest diamond-tucked velour upholstery company Chrysler could find had been written up, and truckloads of “crystal pentastar” hood ornaments and steering-wheel emblems were being unloaded at Chrysler assembly plants.
Yes, the 1989 Chrysler New Yorker with landau roof!
This one smells like an ashtray inside a Porta-Potty inside a potato-chip factory that’s on fire, but imagine the class when it was new.
I am very tempted to remove this exquisitely dated Digital Instrument Panel™, with its Electronic Voice Alert™ system, rigging it up to function on my garage wall, but I’m already behind on doing the same thing with this even more 1980s Mitsubishi Cordia digital cluster.
The low humidity in Denver means that most cars don’t rust, but the high-altitude sun is murder on vinyl tops. This once-stately Landau roof isn’t looking so sharp today.
The integration of the center brake light was done pretty well by late-80s standards.
I seem to recall that a certain Japanese car company whose name starts with the letter M was the true source for this engine, but Chrysler decided to badge it with their own name.
New Yorker!
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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The sheer Panache of a K-Car like luxury with fake suede seats and petroleum based trim. And to top it off, a Visasticker in the back window. The Class people........ THE CLASS!
Love it! There's a gold 1991 model near my work on a lot. Finally dropped by to look at it. It's gold with beige leather Mark Cross interior. It would be a nice resto-project if it wasn't for the salvage title that comes with it.