RE: [Chrysler300] Palo Alto

["John J. Hertog" <crossram@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

it IS the Norseman that's in the Andrea Doria.  One of the most fascinating
things, about this concept car, is that precious few pictures even exist of
the car!  It had the most beautiful, cantilevered roof .  The Imperial Club
has one picture of it on their site:
http://www.imperialclub.com/Articles/GhiaStory/Ghia222-reg.jpg

 

 

The roof line / front windshield, while quite similar to that of a 57 300,
differs because the windshield is a one-piece curved affair, with  no posts
at all.  The rest of the car is rather ugly, in my opinion. 

 

As far as the car's current condition, yes, it HAS been seen since the ship
went down. Here is an excellent "cut and paste" from a relevant web site:

http://shipwreck.blogs.com/shipwrecks_historical_tim/andrea_doria/index.html

 

 

 


February 06, 2006


Prototype Car of the Future Lost on the Andrea Doria - Norseman


One of the "casualties" of the Andrea Doria sinking has received quite a bit
of attention in the past decade; however, this casualty was not a person but
a beautiful automobile called the Norseman. The Norseman was a special
prototype car that was a joint project of Chrysler and Ghia. It is thought
that the complete development of this automobile cost more than $100,000
1956-dollars. Normally, all passenger cars were placed in the garage section
of the Andrea Doria that is slightly aft of the collision point where the
Stockholm impaled the Doria underneath the bow wing bridge. These cars would
have been placed on to the Doria by use of a crane and meticulously parked
in the garage and arranged strategically for stability. However, the
Norseman was no passenger vehicle and was specially packed and treated with
extra care. The Norseman was put into a wooden crate and placed in the
number 2 cargo area. While looking for a lost diver, I had an opportunity to
see the Norseman for myself in the cargo hold. The crate had disintegrated
and the car was in very, very poor condition. The ocean's salt water invaded
the Norseman's metal and most of the car is rust, corrosion and a heap of
indistinguishable junk. The tires are still there and have assisted to its
identification. 

I have been back to the cargo area several times (it is pretty scary in the
cargo hold because the ship is lying on its starboard side) and visited the
Norseman on a couple other occasions. I contributed to an article authored
by a New York Times reporter that appeared in the Hemmings Motor News in the
early 1990's. In 1996, a website in Germany translated part of this Hemmings
article and added additional information. The link to this article is:
http://riekmann.prohosting.com/magazin/chrysler_norseman/chrysler_norseman.h
tm 
I have been interviewed about my dives to the Norseman several times since
the original Hemmings article appeared. I have not been back to this cargo
site since 1994 and with all the decay that the wreck has had over the past
10 years, it is doubtful if I will ( or anyone else) ever get a chance to
see the remains of the Norseman again.

 

 



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