RARE ROADSTER

THIS SHORT-RUN PREMIUM CHRYSLER IS THOUGHT TO BE JUST ONE OF EIGHT SURVIVORS IN THE WORLD, AND PERHAPS THE ONLY FACTORY RIGHT-HAND DRIVE

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The fact is my brother Rob found it - he was a member of the Chrysler Club in Melbourne. And some guy said to him, "Do you know there's a Chrysler convertible sedan in NSW?" "No - there are none in Australia," was Rob's response. "Well, I've seen one."

He worked this guy for a year and he would not give up its location, until one day my brother offered that he would pay a spotter's fee, $200! Yes but there were three of them in the car so, $600. My brother went and bought the car and brought it home what a mess!

There were lots of bits missing. We got it home and he invited one of his friends around. The friend said his dad had two of them. They were sedans and they were dumped in the Castlemaine forest. Next morning, off they went, and they found them. They stripped them and took one of the bodies back - that's what he has built into a stretched limo restomod with an SRT8 engine.

Back in 1933 Chrysler built 33,000 CAs and they planned the Airflow, which was a revolutionary shape and a beautiful car, would take over. Chrysler's marketing wasn't as good as GM's and the Airflows weren't selling well.

Their solution was to get the CA, stretch it by three inches, call it the CB and send it down the line. They only built 1400 of them. Then someone said let's glam it up a bit and they built a convertible. So they took 250 off the assembly line, changed the rear doors from rear-hinged to front-hinged, built a new roof, put a roadster windscreen on it and called it the convertible sedan. About that time there was a big car show being organised in Australia, including all the Chrysler models. Someone must have requested a right-hand drive version. It and my brother's sedan are only 10 chassis numbers apart.

"THE CHASSIS WAS FULL OF MUD AND THE CROSS-MEMBERS DAMAGED BY RUST"