Back in 1956, Detroit did not care about corporate downsizing or carbon footprints. Chrysler produced exactly 1,102 examples of the 300B at its Jefferson Avenue Assembly plant in Detroit before calling it a day, cementing this high-performance sub-model of the Chrysler New Yorker as the ultimate mid-century unicorn. Remarkably, registry data from the Chrysler 300 Club International notes that 232 of these heavyweights still survive today. That is a 21% survival rate, which is honestly impressive for an era when rust prevention was considered an optional luxury.
While a standard 300B originally carried a base sticker price of $4,419 and now commands anywhere between $55,000 and $170,000, the absolute peak of 300B madness belongs to Fiat vice president Gianni Agnelli. The Italian industrial titan dropped a staggering $1,105,000 on a custom, coachbuilt Coupe Speciale by Boano, marrying Chrysler’s 354-cubic-inch FirePower Hemi V8 to hand-shaped European lines.
The gorgeous Raven Black example currently listed on Bring a Trailer will by no means fetch a million bucks, but it tells an equally wild story of American consumerism. Having spent over four decades with a single owner in a climate-controlled Southern California garage, this car is an absolute freak of the factory options sheet.
It is one of only 262 units finished in Raven Black, one of 252 ordered with a power antenna, one of 122 with power seats, and a mere 107 featuring power windows. If that is not enough trivial pursuit material for your next car meet, it is also one of just 33 cars equipped with the advanced, dual-speaker $138.10 Town and Country Electro Touch Tuner system.
Underneath the elongated hood lives the numbers-matching 5.8-liter Hemi V8 with dual Carter carburetors, delivering up to 355 HP through a PowerFlite two-speed automatic transmission. This setup allowed the 300B to become the very first American production car to achieve the holy grail of one horsepower per cubic inch. European snobs like Alfa Romeo, Porsche, and Ferrari had already crossed that threshold years prior, but for Detroit, it was a massive technological breakthrough. Clocking an official record-setting two-way average of 133.9 mph during the 1956 Daytona Beach Flying Mile trials, it rightfully earned its reputation as the “king of the road”.
Inside, the pristine beige leather cabin features a bizarrely brilliant piece of period engineering: a functioning Benrus DK 14 Chryslermatic clock mounted directly into the center of the unrestored steering wheel. Despite its immaculate historical status and a current bid sitting at a laughable $10,000 with five days left, the car is currently registered in California under Planned Non-Operation (PNO) status.
