Keith,
You may or may not be lucky. I have allergy induced insomnia, so at 2:30
AM, I just happen to be still available to answer your question. My great
good fortune to actually know the answer.
Southampton is a body style name. It refers to being a hardtop. What is a
hardtop? It can be two or four doors but it has no 'B' pillar, or a
truncated one, which means with the windows down nothing between the wind
shield 'A' pillar, and the rear window's 'C' pillar. So, there are two
types of four door Imperial. A traditional sedan, which has a 'B' pillar
and regular, full frame doors, and the Southampton, which has fully
recessing window frames, which meet up to one another when in the up
position. The easiest way to tell the cars apart is that the sedan has a
third window on each side, as the roof does not need all the structural
support at the back 'C' pillar that the hardtop does. Also underneath, the
four door Southampton has a huge 'X' shaped strengthening piece in the
chassis, as does the convertible. The sedan and the two door do not.
Technically speaking their was no coupe in 1958, just a two door hardtop. A
coupe implies a different body shape from the four door version, one that is
'cut,' reduced in size and weight in some way. Very often, what are called
coupes are really two door sedans, but that it another story.
The use of Southampton as a designation for hardtop was discontinued at some
point in the early sixties. But the base model would gain a name of its
own, the Custom model. Chrysler Corp's naming policies were a law unto
themselves, devoid of logic and inherently confusing (such as Crown Imperial
and Imperial Crown) to the public, who never really got around to calling
the cars simply Imperials. Maybe because of their long history prior to
1955, when the cars became a brand unto themselves, or because they were
still sold and serviced at selected, but regular, Chrysler dealerships, and
were never a mass market vehicle, most people stubbornly continued to refer
to them as Chrysler Imperials. Probably the most common question I get
asked about mine is, "Who made it?" No one asks that about a De Soto or a
Plymouth, I'm sure.
>From a New Zealand perspective what you are going to have on your hands is a
true mystery machine. You might wish to make something up when asked of the
car's provenance. I suggest either South Africa or India. Both have
automobile industries. You just might get away with it.
Hugh
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