As the restoration of my 1960 Imperial Crown continues, I have had a diversion. As happened with my 1952 Pontiac Catalina, I got impatient for a car to drive to the local car shows while the car was being restored. Since the Crown has gone in for an unexpected frame up restoration, I am again without a car to drive to the local cruise-ins.

It is March 2004. A good friend of mine had a ’59 Lincoln Continental in pristine original condition. Tony, my partner, and I, both fell in love with this Lincoln. Unfortunately it was way out of my price range considering I was knee deep in a restoration. Tony and I decided I could buy some cheap collector car to drive around until the LeCrown was done. With a $4000 budget we started looking. That weekend we saw an ad for a ’59 Continental in a nearby town, an all original low mileage car. Tony, Chris Hawkins, and myself, went to look at it. It ran well but was not as advertised. The interior was not original as advertised and the car had quite a bit of rust.

Chris and I came back home and spent an hour or so looking at ebay and found nothing interesting. That night, I decided to look at the for sale ads on the IML. What to my surprise was near the top of the list, but a 1960 Imperial LeBaron four door sedan in Augusta, GA. Only two hours from Atlanta! The ad listed an e-mail address or advised to call, but the owner left out the phone number. I could not wait for e-mail so called information and got the number. The owner was extremely nice and as it turned out, his e-mail was down. He had not been able to respond to others interested and waiting on pictures. I was the first to contact him by phone. He had gotten numerous emails involving paying more than his asking price and involving third party checks, and three people were waiting for pics via the inoperable e-mail. I think he was relieved to finally have found a real collector with a serious interest in the car.

The owner had looked for several years for a ’60 LeBaron and paid $3500.00 for the car in 1993. In 1962 this man had bought a used ’60 LeBaron. He was a young man and his parents had just bought him a very practical economy sedan. When he saw the LeBaron he had to have it and his parents finally relented. He lived in Florida at the time and had no trouble picking up girls, as the car was one of a very few local cars with air conditioning, cars that young people owned anyway.

The guy married and his new wife complained about the poor rear visibility and difficulty she had driving such a large car. Soon the car was sold, but not forgotten. After 30 years he found this ’60 LeBaron in Oklahoma City. This car had two previous owners in Oklahoma City, in the 1980s. That is all I know of the car’s early history. I like to think it was owned by some wealthy oil magnate.

The previous owner bought the car in nice running condition, he drove the car a few years and decided to start a restoration. His bodyman suggested starting with the mechanicals, so not being mechanically inclined, he took it to the local Chrysler dealer. He dropped over $5000 at the dealership. They rebuilt the brakes, turned the drums, new cylinders and shoes, hoses, fluids, transmission service, carburetor overhaul, new gaskets, repair air, flush radiator and cooling, rear end seal, vacuum lines, AC fan switch, fan clutch, water pump, new distributor, rotor and adjust, plugs and wires, 4 new tires mounted and balanced, new gas tank and sealant, flush gas lines, new sending unit, new air filter, new fuel filter, replace all belts. I would later see that their labor charges were outrageous and the work poorly executed, but this all sounded great to me at the time.

Over the course of our phone conversation, the man told me that all of this work had been done on the car. He said that soon after the repairs were made he became seriously ill and had to stop driving the car. It was left to sit in front of his house at the end of a long dead end cul-de-sac. He started the car monthly until, after the first year, the battery died. I think it must have sat about 3 ½ years. Now he was retired and moving to a smaller home. The realtor, and the owner’s wife, did not think the car added curb appeal sitting in the yard, imagine! It still sounded great to me. With all the work that had been done, how hard could it be to get the car back on the road? He said the dash was not cracked and that the only damage was a “ding” to the back bumper. I made arrangements to see the car the next day, Sunday.

I was so excited that I arrived about two hours early. The owner was not home, but his wife was. I had two hours to check out the car before he arrived. What a mess! The interior was entirely covered in mold. A tree limb had fallen on the trunk lid and the car had been hit at the right rear fender and the rear bumper was mashed. All the side moldings had been reattached using sheet metal screws. There was major rust in the left hand rear quarter and trunk floor. The front seat was covered in vinyl and the back seat was toasted leather. There was a light crease down the two right doors. It was obvious the owner had not even opened the door in a very very long time and the dash was surely cracked now. To finish it all off, the car had dark purple window tinting that someone had had fun vandalizing with a sharp object. Deterioration was obviously much greater now than what the owner remembered. It had Coca-Cola cups for taillight lenses, an inexpensive replacement feature that the owner was very proud of. The stainless on the roof was very nice and I liked the car in general. I had wanted a LeBaron in the first place, so good judgment went out the window. I had pretty much made up my mind before I got there.

After all, when was I ever going to find another LeBaron sedan in any condition I could afford? I immediately noticed that this car was heavily optioned. In fact, the only thing it does not have is the swivel seats, optional alternator, and non-slip differential. The owner did not tell me anything about options other than that he thought the white leather was incorrect. His previous LeBaron had had broadcloth. It was obvious to me that the white pearlescent leather was original. Special ordered, the trim tag reads “888” for custom trim. I would later find a tag, with “LeBaron” written on it, tied to the back seat frame. Full leather was not available, nor was the color white, in the LeBaron. Now, not only was I the owner of a Crown with LeBaron emblems, but now I was going to buy a LeBaron with a Crown interior! The car had crown door panels and no rear lap robe handle on the back of the front seat. This finally made sense as lap ropes were only available on the LeBaron. Since white was not available in the LeBarons, there was no white lap rope to install. The door panels did not have the special LeBaron name plates either. Until I found out about the “888” code, I thought someone had replaced a worn cloth interior with that from a Crown. The headliner is white perforated vinyl, also original. Sedans, as a rule, only came with the brushed cotton headliner, again, no such thing as a white cotton headliner so they made up the vinyl.

Other options included: Front and rear air, power windows, power door locks, and power vent windows. Mirrormatic, door edge guards, deluxe radio, cruise control, dual rear view mirrors, autronic eye, and more. I told his wife I would take it for the $2000 asking price, boy was she excited! It was my preconceived idea that he had over $9000 in the car (original purchase price and receipts), that made me think I was getting such a bargain. She gave me copies of the dealership receipts and I went to McDonalds’ for lunch. I came back and the owner showed up a few minutes later. He said the car ran great when it was parked.