Chrysler Nationals 2025 at Carlisle: Once in a Century Car Show
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Jul 13, 2025
Out on the show field and in the Expo Center, we see an enormous number of rare and unusual cars from the turn of the century onwards—here’s just a short overview of the show!
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Hi there. This is Dave from Motel and I
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am here to talk about Chryslers at
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Carile 2025.
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This is the 100th anniversary of
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Chrysler Edition and you can see a
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pretty big collection as every year at
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Chryslers at Carile of uh vintage and
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modern Mopars coming in. Some of them
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are modified, some of them are stock.
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So, you can see this very wide range of
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cars coming in. And these are cars that
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you normally, a lot of them are cars
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that you normally don't see on the
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street, like this commercial Dodge
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truck. I mean, how often do you see a
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heavyduty Dodge uh commercial truck just
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driving around? But Chrysler's at
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Carile. Here he is along with the
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modified uh Dart, Valiant, whatever, and
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a whole crowd of spectators. A lot of
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people park some really remarkable cars
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off in the parking lots that are like
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$10 for the day. and then come in as
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spectators rather than going out onto
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the showfield. Uh here's one of the many
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police cars. There's I think I counted
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about a dozen police cars there from
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different years and different eras.
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It looks like a Valiant. Uh one of the
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very few of those actual green valiants
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that you see out there.
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It's really quite a diverse crowd of
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cars. I mean, there's really something
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for everybody. I didn't even get a
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chance this year to walk out over onto
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the other side of the hill where they
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keep the K cars and the Shelbies and you
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know the minivans and all those. But I
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was with the modern challengers. We'll
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see some of those later. Didn't see any
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neons except coming in and going out
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because it is a huge show. There's
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thousands of cars here and you can see
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the variety really wherever your tastes
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go. And even if you just want to
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discover things that you didn't know
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they had, they're all here at Chryslers
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at Carlile. And every year is like this.
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What makes this year special in
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particular, we'll get to soon. Now, I
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filmed all this while I was waiting for
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the shuttle that takes me out to the
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expo center. I just had some spare time
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on my hands and a camera. And you know,
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here's some beautiful cars coming by.
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you know, why not take the pictures?
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But, uh, the shuttle to the expo center
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was nice. That was running continuously
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and it saved you just from walking. It
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was just two or three blocks over there,
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but uh, in the heat, you'd really rather
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take the van across the street. I mean,
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just look at these cars. Look at this
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variety. It is insane. I wonder if that
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Intrepid is the police package. That
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would be interesting. They did make one
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for a few years.
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Uh again, some of these cars are
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modified, some of them are stock, some
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of them are high performance, some of
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them are just regular. This could be a
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street race about to begin if it was 50
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years ago.
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And uh no shame in taking along your
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Chrysler Pacifica minivan. But if
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there's one thing I really want you to
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take away from this video, it is just
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how big the show is and how much variety
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it is. I mean, just filming people
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coming in. This was already pretty late
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when I was filming this. It was past
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9:00 a.m. And you can see that a wide
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variety of vehicles are still entering.
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The guy in the GMC van's probably a
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vendor.
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This is before people really uh all got
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in there on Friday, so there's a lot of
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empty spaces. And this is just in the
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modern El LCAR uh part of the field. Uh
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here I am at a different spot and now
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it's late on Saturday and so people are
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starting to go home. A lot of people
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bring along those little tents and I
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strongly recommend it but taking some
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stakes and stake them into the ground so
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they don't fly away with the wind. And
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while I did spend an inordinate amount
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of time, you might think filming the
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cars coming in and out. It is an
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amazingly large show. There's just an
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awful lot to it and an awful lot of
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variety in different types of car. Here
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we're going to stick to some Road
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Runners. I just happen to like Plymouth
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Road Runners. It's just one of those
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things. But I mean, really, seriously,
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how often will you see this many road
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runners? You didn't see this many at a
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Chrysler dealership back in the day. Uh
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we're going to go back to them in a
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second after we're done watching the uh
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cars leaving for the day on Saturday. I
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mean, just here they all are. Everybody
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drives right by all the road runners as
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they're on their way in or out. Just
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tons of them. And there's the older ones
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behind the newer ones.
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And uh it it's just that they're all
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there. They're pristine. You wouldn't
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believe that this much
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classic Mopar in this good a shape was
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still around. But here they all are and
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out for anybody to look at and to admire
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as much as they like. It's really pretty
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incredible. If you are into trucks, the
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trucks are up on the hill. There's a ton
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of them. You can see some of them
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heading out. Jeeps are very well
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represented. AMC is there. I remember
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seeing a bunch of Pacers and Gremlins
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one year that I went. And uh AMX's,
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they're around somewhere.
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Wing cars. I really did not take good
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video of the wing cars and I apologize
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for that, but there were a ton of them.
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And by a ton for wing cars, I mean about
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a dozen, which is maybe more. It's a lot
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of wing cars. These things are worth a
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ton of money and they're really uh
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getting those front parts and the tail
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and the uh spoilers.
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I can't imagine that that's at all easy.
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So people bringing them all the way to
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Carile so that you can compare a whole
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bunch of them is pretty amazing. Uh this
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is a row of early valiants and
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barracudas just taken from up on the
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hill. You can see as you go around the
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just incredible amount of variety. By
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the way, pretty soon we're going to be
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looking at something that you don't see
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at a lot of car aisles in the past and
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that you really don't see a lot at car
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shows in general, and that is cars from
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the teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s.
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Let's just take a look at some of these
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modern Challengers again going down the
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hill. You can see the uh Pennsylvania
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Turnpike in the distance.
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Some uh the bigger tents belong to clubs
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and the smaller tents belong to
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individuals.
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And I filmed this before the clubs were
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really out there yet. I ju I just got
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there in the morning on Friday and
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Thursday and started filming. But
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anyway, one of the big features of this
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year's show, which is really different,
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is the Expo Center displays. And these
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were a combination of cars brought in by
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the Detroit Historic Society, Chrysler
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Historical, but mainly from the clubs
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bringing in uh cars belonging to various
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owners. So, there's some vintage Dodge
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Brothers Army cars all the way back here
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in the shade. And then the parking lot
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was assigned to various club members to
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represent certain eras. And uh it it's
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pretty wide representation here. Now
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again, a lot of this was filmed on
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Thursday or Friday morning before a lot
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of the people had shown up, but you can
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see that there's a great deal of variety
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and cars that you just don't normally
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see at shows. Cars from the 20s, 30s,
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40s that are pretty unusual.
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And we've seen scatterings of these
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types of cars at previous Chryslers at
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Carile, but nowhere near as many. It
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took a serious club effort from the WPC
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club, the Walter P. Chrysler Club, that
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is the Plymouth Owners Club, the Dotto
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Club, the Dodge brothers club, the
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Imperial Club, the Airflow Club. They
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all had to participate. And Chrysler
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brought these two cars in one of these
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turbines. The other is brought by the
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Detroit Historical Society. Two turbine
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cars. One of them is still working.
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That's the one that belongs to Chrysler.
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The other one, the turbine engine,
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apparently doesn't work anymore. I
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believe that there are nine of these
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cars left. Chrysler did offer all of the
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ones that they made to museums, but not
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many museums took them up on that. So,
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there's not a whole lot of them left.
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And they are beautiful cars inside and
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out. The idea of a turbine powered car
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might have been a little wacky. It
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certainly would have been unique, and it
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really did help when they made the M1
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Abrams tank for a while. uh two turbine
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cars in the same show. That is highly
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unusual and that tells you that it's
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Chrysler's Centennial according to
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Stalantis. and they had a bunch of new
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documentaries running the entire time
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that people were generally watching. And
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I came in and I did a uh story on
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Chrysler's history and they had people
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from Chrysler's history as always at
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Chrysler's at Carile giving seminars and
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interesting talks about working on the
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Mopar Missile being one of the Ram
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Chargers. Uh here's the uh table from
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the Plymouth Owners Club. They also had
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a booth out back. A lot of these cars
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are from club members again and the
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Walter Peak Chrysler Club had a table.
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The Sodto people had a table.
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Bringing in the clubs is unprecedented
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and it was a great idea because the
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clubs can have a really incredible
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national meet and Carile can have the
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best Chryslers at Carile in history and
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Stalantis can show people the greatness
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of the airflow and uh you can compare to
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the Airstream next to it. Notice that
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the airflow is a much wider passenger
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compartment. It was called the first
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modern car when it came out and there
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will be a video out from me pretty soon
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on the history of these cars. I've
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actually already done most of it. I just
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have to integrate some more video into
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it. And look, more video, but being able
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to examine these cars very right up
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there up close and a bunch of them, it's
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like having two turbine cars sitting
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next to each other. It It's really
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a rare event. And this Chrysler's at
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Carile, I think that's what it was. It
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was a show worthy of the 100th
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anniversary of Chrysler Corporation and
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the Chrysler itself, which was made by
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Maxwell Motors. And how often do you get
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to see these cars actually driving in on
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their way to the show just like any
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other car going down the road? It's
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really pretty
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amazing to see. Thank you, and I'll see
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you soon.
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