After a lot of discussion we decided to not use the 1947 Desoto Suburban for our cross country retirement travels. The big issue is that we now live in an age where:
1. People just have no patience on the freeways and in the mountains for slow 1940's cars.
2. No trunk. We are seeing more and more reports of people with cars, both classic and not, getting broken into by bashing the windows to get to things in sight. The 1947 Desoto Suburban does not have a trunk. We do not want to worry about someone looking in and deciding to break a window to get to things while we are in some diner someplace.
By dumb luck we ran across last week an 88 year old man that had a few cars. He cannot drive any more. One of the cars was a 1964 Chrysler 300K hardtop. It was his mothers that she purchased new in the fall of 1963. FACTORY paint still on it. The sheet metal unibody is perfect. A couple of small dings here and there but where it counts the metal is just fantastic. The car has a documented 98K miles on it.
Now you have to understand that my mom and dad, in addition to the 1949 Desoto that a got back and restored, purchased a 1964 Chrysler 300K in the fall of 1963 as well. I restored that car as well a convertible. I sold them both in the late 1990's. I regret to this day selling the hardtop. Neither of the 300K's would fit into the garage space here in San Francisco at the time.
So, we are going to rebuild a stock 265 for the big Desoto and not do all the fancy modification I was contemplating. We will use it for spring and fall cool weather trips in Northern California for fishing and the like. The 1964 Chrysler will be completely rebuild for cross country trips.
James