It takes a great deal of confidence – or perhaps arrogance – to name a car after one of the world's great cities. And perhaps that was Chrysler's thinking in 1938. As the Sinatra anthem says, `If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere'. In reverse it means the world's toughest nut to crack is New York. So to name a car a New Yorker meant Chrysler well and truly put its head on the chopping block.

Chrysler gave itself every chance of the New Yorker climbing to the top of the heap by getting the basics right: engineering. This became a New Yorker given, a strength that all but transcended the subjective issue of style. No matter what the New Yorker looked like, buyers knew the car was all class underneath. When the New Yorker finally succumbed in 1996 it had not only conquered the Big Apple. It was, and is, the longest running automobile nameplate in the car-culture capital of the world, the U.S. Our featured New Yorker is a 1953 model 6 passenger Deluxe sedan we spotted at an All Chrysler Day at Mt Gravatt near Brisbane in 2009 .

The first New Yorker had an inauspicious start as an underling nameplate of the 1938 Chrysler Imperial. It proved so popular in 1939 the New Yorker was elevated to a nameplate in it's own right and was based on the same platform as the Imperial, as was another newcomer in 1939, the Saratoga. The New Yorker, as you'd expect, was big in all respects. It was powered by a 323 cubic inch Straight Eight engine and transported passengers in spacious luxury. The first generation New Yorker went from 1938 to 1949.

The year 1949 saw the first generation New Yorker phased out and an entirely new generation car launched. It shared a body style with siblings Dodge and Desoto and not to put too fine a point on it, the design was fairly bland as our images depict. The siblings were sold in Australia as Desoto Diplomat and Dodge Kingsway using six cylinder, side valve engines. The 323 cubic inch Straight Eight engine continued in New Yorker and slightly down-market Saratoga that also offered a six cylinder and was hooked up to a four speed Prestomatic semi-automatic transmission.

These engines were unusual in that they were over-square in that the bore (97mm) was larger than the stroke (92mm). The majority of these 180 hp (134kW) 331 cubic inch engines used a two barrel carby. It was used in Chrysler product for four years including New Yorker, Imperial, 300 and was optional on Saratoga. In little time the engine found fans in the hot-rodding fraternity along with race cars.

The 1953 New Yorker came in a number of variants designed to take in every premium market segment: the Deluxe Newport, Town and Country Wagon, Deluxe Convertible Coupe, Deluxe Club Coupe (hardtop), Deluxe sedan, six passenger sedan and a long wheelbase eight passenger sedan. However there were some major changes made. The 131.5 inch wheelbase of the previous model was reduced to 125.5 inches of the Saratoga , there was now a curved, single-piece windscreen doing away with the `splitter' and the rear mudguards were integrated into the body. The New Yorker became the New Yorker Deluxe and the 1952 Saratoga became the New Yorker. But the basic body shaped remained the same for the third successive year.

Despite looking almost identical 1953 was a good year where it mattered – in the sales department – with more than 37,5000 cars delivered. Certainly buyers did not purchase on the strength of style, so Chrysler's fine engineering underpinned why buyers wanted the New Yorker. The 1953 model had a Fluid-Torque semi-auto transmission until late in the year when Chrysler's renowned Torqueflite was introduced. The New Yorker Deluxe featured power steering, power brakes and power windows and optional air-conditioning at a time when Australia's Own car, the 48-215 (FX) Holden did not even have indicators.

By 1954 New Yorker started to suffer from lack of major styling changes and sales dropped to less than half of 1953. Even the smooth Torqueflite transmission was not enough to lure buyers when there were other options that looked like they belonged in the mid 1950s compared to the New Yorker that was aesthetically still part of the late 1940s. In fact the New Yorker was forced to tread water until 1955 when the new shape Chryslers were released, from the pen of Virgil Exner and his design team. This became the third generation New Yorker with the body style known as the `forward look' which took the New Yorker through to 1961.