Perusing the Rarity of a Jewel-Like 1942 Chrysler Royal Business Coupe

It emerges silently from the fog, all of it black, sleek and bubbling with quiet menace. The vessel brims with cruise missiles, guided torpedoes and a level of classified electronics that let it go about its mission out of sight, in virtual silence, as it roams the seas invisibly. This is the ultimate in lethality from the U.S. Navy, a Virginia-class attack submarine, all curved hull and jutting, unadorned conning tower. 

This is an unforgettable image of a technology-laden platform for unseen maritime combat. So, what’s it got to do with a low-production business coupe for traveling salesman, built 84 years ago in a production year that was cut short by the explosion of global warfare? To the owner of this 1942 Chrysler Royal three-passenger business coupe, one of just 479 produced, it means everything. David Helmer knows what he likes aesthetically, and this car, with its perfectly proportioned little greenhouse, reminds him strongly of the Navy’s silent service and its beautifully deadly boats. In fact, that’s why he bought the car, a concours-level example, in the first place.  

“It’s about the look of the car,” David explains. “I was a Pontiac dealer, and I don’t think Pontiac ever made a car that looks as good as this Chrysler. I just like the elongated profile of the coupe with that conning-tower greenhouse right in the center of the car. It’s like the conning tower of a submarine when you look at the car, just that one bubble where the seat is. When I started collecting cars more than 40 years ago, a fellow told me, ‘If the top doesn’t go down, don’t buy it.’ The typical two-door sedan just looks clunky to me. The coupe is very aerodynamic with this big swooping rear end. I love coupes.” 

David’s short-coupled prize is one of the three-passenger coupes built in Chrysler’s base Royal range in 1942 and was presumably aimed at the likes of a salesman with tonier wares for the trunk and rear shelving than most. It’s the product of a car year that was chopped off in the months immediately following Pearl Harbor, which accounts for its low-three-digit build total. Visually distinguished by its five horizontal grille bars and excised running boards, the 1942 Royal joined a Chrysler lineup that also included the Windsor, Saratoga, and New Yorker in ascending order, plus chassis units that mostly received custom Derham coachwork, 1942 being very late in the coachbuilding era.  

According to the Royal’s documentation, David’s car was assembled just seven days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. That means that the Chrysler has its full complement of chrome trim, which was subsequently removed from the car as chromium was declared a strategic metal by the U.S. government. Later Royal business coupes, to the extent they were built, were relegated to having painted-steel trim like most cars that were actually assembled during the war. Yet this being a Chrysler, the Royal is a nicely trimmed rolling office for a businessman that might otherwise have ended up driving a stripped-out Plymouth for sales trips. Heck, this Royal even has optional fender skirts. 

“The fact that it’s a 1942 model makes the car a much more interesting and rarer piece,” David says. “Shortly after this car was built, production stopped. The 1942 model is exactly what I wanted to get because of the rarity. Shortly after that, they stopped putting brightwork on cars, and the level of available automotive equipment started to shrink rapidly once the industry began shifting to war production. The chrome trim quietly went out of production.” 

David’s car is powered by the expanded-for-1942 L-head straight-six, which powered the base Royal range and could trace its origins to 1934. This engine family, which served both Chrysler and De Soto, is known informally as the 25-inch engine after the length of its flat cylinder head. By 1935, the 25-inch engine had gained hardened valve seats and full water jackets, essentially completing its technical evolution. The engine’s displacement varied from 228 to 242 cubic inches, depending on application, until it was enlarged to a full 250-cu.in. for 1942, which saw output increase to 120 hp and 200 lb-ft of torque, fed by a Carter EE-1 carburetor. 

The flathead remained a Chrysler engine choice alongside the first-generation Hemi until 1955, when it was supplanted by the new line of Polyspheric OHV V-8s. The flathead had a long and glorious run at the sign of the Pentastar, remaining on duty in beefy Dodge Power Wagon pickups through 1964. Chrysler produced four-, six- and eight-cylinder variations on the flathead. An interesting point of trivia is that the last flathead four in 1933—the engine could trace its origins to Maxwell in 1926—would be Chrysler’s last domestically produced four-cylinder engine until the K platform debuted in 1981.  

Another favored element of our feature car is its employment of the Chrysler Fluid Drive system, a very early interpretation of a semiautomatic transmission that continued to use a conventional clutch pedal for getting underway. As David tells it, “I find driving with it extremely easy. You shift from first to second and then from second to third using the accelerator. Once you take off, you can drive all day without using the clutch unless you want to go into reverse. It shifts exactly as it should. If this car had power steering, it would be a daily driver.” 

Now retired and living on Amelia Island in northeast Florida, David is a Michigan native who started out as a Pontiac enthusiast and whose first job was selling Pontiacs at Red Holman Pontiac in west Detroit, as a summer intern when he was 19 in 1963 while living in Pontiac, Michigan. David graduated from Western Michigan University in 1966 and was commissioned in the Navy—that submarine connection?—the following year. After two tours of Vietnam, David returned to Red Holman Pontiac in 1970, first as controller and 10 years later, as general manager. 

Some years later, in the early 1980s, David accepted the chance to buy a Pontiac dealership in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The store, known as Knopf Pontiac, grew to also sell Audi, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and Isuzu during the 40-some years that he owned it. Both of David’s sons also found work with Pontiac, one of them coming to run Patriot Pontiac-Buick-GMC in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, home of the famed Boyertown Body Company. David ran Knopf until he sold the dealership in 2018.  

Living now in Amelia Island, David became closely familiar with the famed concours held there and now known as The Amelia. One of David’s newfound friends was Mark Becker of Jacksonville, Florida, who was a close associate of Amelia founder Bill Warner and helped to organize and run the concours. David once let drop to Mark how cool coupes were to him. In David’s words, “Mark called me one day and asked me how long I’d been searching for a coupe, and I told him, about a year. And he tells me, ‘I’ve got one. It’s a done car, been shown everywhere, won everywhere.’ So, I bought it. He delivered it about 35 miles from his house, which I thought was really generous. That was three years ago. When Mark bought it, it was in excellent condition, but with the attention he paid to it, the car is now in mint condition.” 

Mark never displayed the Royal coupe at the concours, primarily because he was helping Warner to run it. As David recalls, “When I bought it from Mark, there was nothing left to do to it other than to maintain the car and make sure it gets driven. It’s perfect.” The Royal was owned by three people, all from Pennsylvania, before Mark acquired it. The third prior owner is said to have undertaken a complete restoration before selling the Chrysler to Mark.  

David did indeed enter the Chrysler at The Amelia in 2024, but asked that it not be evaluated for judging, explaining that “I don’t put it up for judging intentionally because I live right here in Amelia, and it costs me two dollars to get to the show. I’d rather see the award go to somebody who spent $10,000 to have their car transported here from Iowa or California or Texas. I showed it at The Amelia in the Early Limited Production American class.” 

Amelia Island is a 13-mile-long barrier island that faces the Atlantic Ocean in Nassau County, Florida. Access to the community can be particularly challenging on the concours weekend. Four small communities, including Amelia Island itself, dot the four-mile-wide landscape. Most of the road network is highly localized and driven at low to moderate speeds. According to David, the highest speed the Chrysler generally attains when he exercises it is 40 mph.  

“Wherever it goes, people rave about it,” he said. “They’re always very interested in the styling. It’s something that’s rarely seen, because the Royal was built as a work car and obviously was not that popular when it was built originally. It attracts a lot of attention, and nothing has to be done with it. The car is absolutely perfect.” 

Owner’s View

“I have two other Chryslers with Fluid Drive, and I’ve owned others, and I find that Fluid Drive makes driving the car extremely easy. I also own a 1951 Lincoln Cosmopolitan convertible, one of 15 survivors out of 587 built; a 1960 Buick Electra convertible, a 1949 Chrysler Town & Country convertible, a 1948 Packard Custom convertible, a 1947 Town & Country sedan, and a very interesting 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline Aerosedan with wood sides and every available option including the rear window and shade, which was accepted at the Amelia concours by Bill Warner. They’re all mint, and they all get driven. I’m a big fan of the streamline era and today, I live right on The Amelia’s show field.” —David Helmer  

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