My wife and I have just returned from a nearly 2,000 mile trip in our
56 Southampton coupe.
After leaving home in South Carolina,
we attended the Imperial/Packard meet held by Robert Soule in Chattanooga, TN.
It was a very nice, relaxing time at Robert and Lequita’s home; they were
wonderful hosts and there were roughly twenty Imperials of all vintages and two
Packards. We had a very nice time and enjoyed the wonderfully restored
downtown Chattanooga.
Our next stop was Lexington, KY on our way to the Chrysler 300 International meet near
Cleveland, OH. We stayed two days in Lexington admiring the beautiful horse farms
and the local terrain. We toured the Keeneland race track where some of the
movie, Seabiscuit was filmed.
Our next leg of the trip was to Cleveland,
OH. We had a bit of trouble that
turned out to be a bad condenser but we were out of commission for about four
hours in a delightful town of 1,000, Danville,
OH. No less than twenty people
stopped to offer their assistance with our plight as we struggled to diagnose
the problem. After we had resigned ourselves to spending the night in Danville and renting a car
from the local used car dealer, a kind and gentle soul asked if he could take a
look at the car. He got the car running by finding a short in the distributor
and after we limped to his home, we found the defective condenser. He
installed the only one he had (from a Ford Mustang) and we were on our way to Cleveland.
In Cleveland,
we were pleased to find a very accepting Chrysler crowd of Imperial lovers.
Nearly all of the 100 or so attendees were extremely interested in seeing the Southampton and they were very kind with their words of
seeing this beauty returned to its former glory. The restoration is not quite
finished but we were glad to have our efforts appreciated.
After four days of an active meet schedule, we had a relatively
uneventful trip home, except that I ran out of gas near the West Virginia border. AAA came to the
rescue and after a two hour delay, we were on our way. It rained most of the
rest of the trip, but it was cool and pleasant while we rode in style.
Throughout the ten day trip, we were repeatedly stopped by onlookers admiring
the car and as we learned of their Mopar memories.
The only odd thing that we noticed on our return trip was that our gas
mileage dropped in half, to about 7 mpg. I was pretty sure the timing was off
but didn’t expect such a decrease. When we arrived home, I washed the car
and found that the entire passenger side of the car had a thick oily substance
all over it. Also, we smelled gas fumes on the last half of the trip. Wonder if
this could be a leaky fuel pump; the oil level was fine, so I assume it is fuel
related.
The car ran like a top and performed marvelously, except for the few
problems mentioned above. Since the car had been off the road for nearly forty
years, I guess we should feel fortunate to have such little inconvenience. Now
that we have diagnosed those few issues, I believe we can make appropriate
repairs and adjustments and we anticipate many more adventures. Thanks to the Webmonsters
for adding pictures of our car to the 56 Imperials, although it is called a Newport, rather than the Southampton
that it is.
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