u/motelguest

As with the auctions held to break up the massive car collection of Bill Harrah at Reno and Las Vegas in the 1980s, the dissolution of the musclecar car collection of L.A. Times publisher Otis Chandler proved these personal collections are never successfully endowed to become long term museums open to the public… even the Petersen Museum is currently struggling.

Otis Chandler was old enough to have amassed his own number of supercars when they were new but when he was that age he was only interested in European cars… his hiring of a college professor to purchase and “curate” the collection was likely the first and only time academia took note of high performance automobiles.

These are photographs of Chandler’s collection taken around 1994, a period when he also had a Times photographer create a book about them. In that much of the collection involved Hemi-powered Chrysler products, many of you may recognize these cars and know where they reside now… at least temporarily.

Cool fashion tied to a cool car.

A lot of you might be thinking that the 2nd Gen was the least likely (least attractive?) for convertible conversion. If anybody has ever seen Automotive News — the paper for the industry and dealers alike — coach-built convertibles were advertised for years starting in the 1970s. I used to occasionally find these at the salvage yards in L.A…. often the top structure and underbody reinforcing is a kind of crudely welded square tubing, and the coach plate can be found in the door jambs.

I’ll say one thing for the Coach folks… they pioneered in places Detroit feared to go but often tested the waters first for factory convertibles.

I pick up this book every time I need a chuckle. For Noiristas there’s a great story about Howard Hughes and the film His Kind of Woman; also the Narrow Margin. Add your own comments on books or stories from this one.