As a old Chrysler muscle car/sort of guy I can say the following with some reserved confindance; we loved those butt ugly old Chrysler cars that predated the
slick1966/7 cars that went into production. The local Chrysler guys used to laugh a lot about the uglier the better. The later cars did however get one thing right. The 440 engine was to later become "standard fair" regarding engine swaps into those early cars. These cars/engine swaps at that time were cheap (junkyards were full of em), very fast, very stout and were faster than most of the factory iron that the other guys were making payments on. The lack of installment payments also let us buy, sell, trade, parts & cars almost at will. I can't stress enough that at this time these cars were cheap,cheap,cheap, old cop cars could be had. (did I mention cheap?)
In spite of this in 1968 I joined the prevailing club. I ordered a 1968GTX convertible with the hemi engine option. Kept it for over 12 years, pulled the engine & sold it for $800.
Ron Shockley