If you wanted a station wagon in 1953, the odds were against your purchasing a Chrysler New Yorker. Oh, the New Yorker was an excellent choice, with its traditional outstanding Chrysler Corporation engineering, the universally respected FirePower Hemi V-8, and its restrained yet handsome styling. It’s just that the New Yorker Town & Country was very expensive — with a base price of $4,077 versus a $3,254 starting cost for a Buick Roadmaster, or just $2,591 for a Mercury Monterey. Small surprise, then, that only 1,399 examples were produced (alongside 1,242 Chrysler Windsor Town & Country wagons, which utilized the 119-horsepower, 265-cu.in. Spitfire straight-six engine).
Who, then, bought these cars? In the absence of period studies on Chrysler customers, it’s hard to say with any exactitude, but some random snapshots…