1948 Chrysler Town & Country Sedan: luxury sedan with a wooden body (27 photos + 1 video)

This 1948 Chrysler Town & Country sedan is one of approximately 4,000 examples built in three years production.





On the topic of luxury in the automotive industry, one could write a lot, and it varies greatly from market to market. For example, in Germany, finishes and technologies are highly valued, ahead of their time, and for the Japanese, the most important thing is that in the back row there should be enough legroom. About the Americans, you can say that they it is important that the cars are large, roomy, powerful and with good equipment.



But there was also a period of the American automotive industry, when some parts the bodies were made of wood - this was considered a luxury. This trend originated shortly after World War I among surfers in the state California, and then eventually spread to the rest of America.





Ford, Mercury, Buick and Chrysler offered it as factory option until the 50s, although in fact they did not installed. This was taken care of by independent design studios, and, as you might guess, the process was very slow and required a lot of man-hours, as it had to be done manually. Every year since only a few thousand cars of each brand came out of the factory. Consider a 1948 Chrysler Town & Country.



This is one of the most famous names in the history of Chrysler, which was produced from 1941 to 1988, and then from 1990 to 2016 (although then it was only available as a minivan and had nothing to do with original).



The model is not very popular among collectors, but had a great customer success. Now this design is perceived differently, but then it was chic.







What set Town & Country apart from most of its competitors was that it was one of the first American vehicles with disc brakes, although they cost an additional $400 (about $4,505 in today's money), which was relatively high for a car that costs $2,609 ($36,254 today).



The engine is in-line with six cylinders, developing 114 hp. at working volume of 4.1 liters, gearbox - three-speed automatic. This allowed him to accelerate to 100 km / h in 22.2 seconds, and the maximum speed was 135 km / h.



Such wooden design details will gradually disappear by the early 60s. years, but will return to fashion in about twenty years, although they will only pasted imitation wood, not real materials.