For no apparent reason I have frequently thought of chauffeurs in the same
league as horse racing jockeys. Maybe it is because the one standing in the
picture in the 1965 Vintage Imperial sales brochure looks "small" in comparison
to the car(of course).
As a young boy I often considered becoming a chauffeur just so that I could
drive one of the 110 Imperial Ghia Limos built, though at that time I thought
Chrysler would continue building them forever. Why not? They were so beautiful,
right? How could they pull the plug on something that was SO desirable to look
at. Ah, the mind of a child...
Regarding the multitude of sins that may be hiding under that maroon paint job,
I always thought that these limos had so much body work from the folks at Ghia
that that it would be difficult to maintain over time anyway. Pictures of the
deteriorated Ghia Limos (I have seen two)often bear witness to the fact that
even with out accident damage these cars tend to become very ugly with lots of
bulging lead filled seams, much like our beloved '60 LeBaron's roof problems.
Since I am sure that their are few (if any) body shops that would employ the
methods described by our own Kenyon Wills to repair such work, I have no doubt
that what lies beneath that maroon paint job is a lot of incorrectly done body
work. I would expect that in any restored example of a largely "hand made"
vehicle.
Finally, since I am writing all of this stuff, I don't think that the 1957
Ghia's ever did share the grills of the production '57 cars. I could be
completely wrong about this, but I have always thought that the '57 and '58
models were much the same, as were the '60 and '61 models. Also, since all Ghia
limos would have had to have 15 inch wheels, I doubt that they would ever have
had wheel covers that looked anything like the production '57 and '58 cars that
originally came with '14 inch wheels. I am guessing that the '59 style wheel
covers may have actually been in production early so that they could appear on
the Ghia cars. At least one used the '55-'56 style wheel cover, which I didn't
think looked as nice on these cars.
I WOULD LOVE TO OWN AND DRIVE ONE OF THESE CARS! But thinking about it during
this auction, I have realized that none of my parking facilities has a long
enough space for one. Parking one outside is not an option. Maybe some day...
Paul
In a message dated 2/21/2004 5:26:30 AM Eastern Standard Time,
tom_hubbard@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> So, for a little shorty like me (5' 6") the Ghia is perfect!
>
> Jeff Ingraham <jeff_ingraham@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
> I don't know how many are left but I think the number left in the US
> may be as low as 30 or so although the is totally a guess. Kind of
> hard to tell as I have only ever seen 1 in person! I don't think the
> owners of these cars ever actually drove em so they just hired short
> drivers.
> The original owners of mine were the puritan dress company later to
> become Puritan Mills and it was the corporate limo. delivered to NYC.
> Jeff
>
> Billimp68@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > Jeff,
> >
> > I much enjoyed your comments about your Ghia. Does anyone know how
> > many of these are accounted for? It is my understanding that only 110
> > were made. I am also surprised that Chrysler or Ghia would build such
> > a fine vehicle with a fixed front seat. I would guess that they did
> > this to gain additional space for the divider window or rear
> > compartment. It would also be interesting to know who the original
> > owners were.
> >
> > Bill/Imp, 68's
>
>
>
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