Now 1946 generally wasn’t that exciting as far as new car models. The war just ended and the many of the car manufacturers were recovering from the wartime conversion, they had a lot of Uncle Sam’s money, but no much time to make “new” tooling for creating new sheet metal. So many of the cars were just spruced up. Chrysler was not different.
Their main offerings was the Royal series, Windsor series, the Saratoga series and the New Yorker series. The Royal cam in 3, 6 and 8 passenger and a Limo!!! The Windsor came in 3, 6, 8 passengers and the Town and Country tossed in there was a 2 door convertible. The Saratoga came in 3 and 6 passenger and the New Yorker came in 3 and 6 passenger and the Town and Country 4 door and 2 door convertible.
1946 Convertible
46 Royal
There engines were basically 6 cylinder and 8.
The Royal and Windsor engines was an L6. It had a cast iron block with a bore and stroke of 3.438 x 4.5. It displaced 250.6 cubic inches and had a compression of 6.6:1 (not huge when the shipping weight was 3,000 plus). It was able to produce 114 hp and sported four main bearings, solid lifters. It was topped with either the Fluid Drive (B-B VE1 – Ev2) or Vacumatic (E7L4) carb.
The Saratoga and New Yorker had an L8. This engine too, had the cast iron block, but displaced 323.5 cubic inches and sported a bore of 3.25 and a stroke of 4.875 inches producing 6.7:1 compression. With the 5 main bearings, solid lifters and topped with B-B E7A1 carb could produce 135 hp.
L8 Engine (49 but still the same engine)
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Chrysler styling was held conservative during these times due to the ‘AIRFLOW’ slaes failure. It was not until the late 1950s that Virgil Exner came to Chrysler and started the ‘Forward Look’ styling of the (Christine) 1957 Fury.
I wish Chrysler had not abused the ‘Town and Country’ name by placing it on an upscale Caravan. Even the fake woody K CAR Town and Country LeBaron convertibles of the early 1980s did a good job of maintaining the name (and seem to be holding their re-sale value well even today). I’d love to see a modern day Town and Country Chrysler 300 version; they need an upscale convertible to re-gain what the Sebring/200 convertible has lost.