These pictures were taken around 1988 at a small antique automobile dealership just outside of Salisbury Mass. called Cars of Yesteryear. It was for sale at an asking price of about $5000, and supposedly was operational. Its current whereabouts are unknown.

After posting this webpage and dropping posts in the MML and The Forward Look Mailinglist, I had several responses. Wayne Graefen wrote in and said the car is a Ghia 375 type and it is pictured on p. 216 of Moretti's book "Ghia". He further noted that the car is biult on 1957 Chrysler 300C chassis. Someone posted a web location of a scanned in photograph of this car (located at www.shorey.net). At right is a local copy of the same picture.

If you have information, or know what this car is, please email me

History of this automobile

After seeing this webpage, Melissa Dineen Anderson contacted me with a fantastic story of much of this car's history. Her father was Jack Dineen. He was a car nut and pruchased the car in New Jersey the late 1960's and kept it until his death in the early 1980's. Below is an account of the car by Melissa:

I saw the chrysler on your web page and I suspect it is my father's car. He collected unusual cars. That car was his favorite.

He died in 1981 in New Hampshire and the car was sent to a local salvage yard to be destroyed, by my mother, who, in her grief, chose to see the car destroyed rather then sold. Obviously, {perhaps} it was not destroyed.

When my father died, the car was in running order and drove beautifully. It needed some cosmetic work but like he said "it was a you break it, you make it" car. A neighbor's son did run into one of the rear fins one day, but my father who was an inventor/design engineer and did a very good repair.

It was the concept car in 1957 I think... It was supposed to be shipped with the other car on the Doria but it was not ready so they held it back. It was a sister car to the one that sank with the Andrea Doria.

It did have a kid leather interior...with bucket seats in front...attached buckets in back with a small connecting seat upon which, I , as the youngest, sat. The seat centers were tightly woven leather strips in a lattice-like design. That part of the front seat was stationary...the outer sides of the front seat folded forward to allow access to the backseat., The olive green was not original. That was what color my father had it painted...originally it was an even more hideous than olive green, mauve. My father had removed the crossed flags when he had it painted and never put them back on (keeping them in the glove compartment). Of course the roof was white. The kid leather interior was originally white but the fellow we bought it from in NJ, honest to God, had the interior painted kelly green. With a brush. Yes, that is what I said., with a brush. We bought it in 1967 or 1968 (No later than 1968 and no earlier than 1966).

There was a record player in between the front seats in the dash... the dash was leather and wood, the transmission shift was a series of buttons. Everything was button powered...the windows, even the lights. There was a center console as well. The rear seats had individual reading lights, controlled by flip switch on the rear side console. The reading lights were round and swiveled in their sockets like vents on an airplane.

When we bought the car, my father and I returned home to Long Island where we were living at the time. I remember him saying he thought we could save the interior after the fellow we bought it from had painted it green. The green was coming off so we were hopeful it could be salvaged,. We came back later on the next weekend to pick it up and the dear fellow had repainted the interior as a favor to my father! My sister and I spent many a trip carefully chipping kelly green paint from the kid leather...and never went anywhere without green paint chips decorating our clothes.

We were told after the car toured the USA as a concept car that the president of Lionel Toys bought it. That insignia ye see on the side of the roof was that man's initials. Then the fellow in New Jersey bought it. He sold it because he wanted to buy a boat.

We were always being stopped by cops so that they could find out what kind of car it was...usually they caught up to us after going through tolls. In all those years, only one person that happened upon the car knew exactly what car it was, and believe it or not, it was a teenage boy working in a Chrysler garage in Albany, New York. Back when the Loudon track in NH was smaller, the caretaker let my father take it out on the track and I'd ride along. That car was VERY heavy...and cornered great, handled beautifully. We had been told that the car had been run out on the salt flats.

History of the Chrysler Ghias

It is important to note the distinction between the "Dual Ghias" produced and sold by Dual Ghia Motors, and Chrysler Ghias. The car pictured above is not a Dual Ghia. Dual Ghia's were coupes and convertibles produced and sold by Dual Motors. The bodies were built by Ghia in Italy, the frame and drivetrain were Dodge. This was an independent coupling of a Ghia body and a Dodge drivetrain. No doubt, Dual Motors had an agreement with Chrysler, but it was not a Chrysler project and it was not a Chrysler marque (Chrysler would have similar relationships with Jensen in the United Kingdom and Facel-Vega in France).

Prior to the Dual Ghia, Chrysler had a relationship with Ghia in Italy to build concept vehicles, and of course, it was that relationship that created the 1954 Ghia built Dodge Firearrow, which the Dual Ghia would be based upon. Chrysler and Ghia continued this relationship Through the 1950's, building in small numbers concept vehicles and specialty cars. Included in that small set were the 1955-56 Falcon and the 1956 K-300 which both bare reassemblance to the featured 375.

Ghia, like Bertone, Pininfarina, Vignale, and Zagato was a world reknowned coach builder, or Carrozzeria In post WW-II Italy. To read more about Ghia and these other Carrozzerias, see www.CarsFromItaly.com.