I bought this car in June of 1993 in Kansas at the Dave Totten estate auction. They had about 25 cars for sale. I made the 1,300 mile drive and arrived the day before to view the cars. I am glad I did -- with so many cars for sale, the extra day give me time to keep things straight. One of the things I learned was that this LeBaron had a replacement engine in it. It was pretty obvious by the fresh paint and cleanliness. Unless you looked closely, you didn't see it was a 300H engine. More on that later.

The focus of the trip had been the 300H Letter Cars. I ended up with a caramel coupe and a caramel 62 Sport coupe. There was also an H convertible which drew a lot of attention. Ed & Angie Philips from Chicago bought that one.

I had arranged transportation for whatever cars I might buy at the auction before hand. There was space on the truck for one more so I bid on this car. After the auction, a fella came up and said: "You did well on the caramel H but you overpaid for the Imperial." It happened to be Don Rook. I had heard of him but had not met him. I replied: "It has an H engine in it." Don said: "Really! Well that makes sense then." Don and I were friends for many years after that. He was quite the character.

Dave Totten kept a notebook for most of his cars. This one says Dave bought it 4-8-1982 from Andrew Johnson of Roslyn Hts, NY. Andrew Johnson bought it from an estate in Rhode Island. The odometer when Dave bought it in 1982 was 61,830. In 1988 the odometer was 63,171. When I bought it the odometer was 64,469 miles. It is clear from the condition of the interior that is not 164,469 miles.

At the auction, I met Dave's wife Glee. She mentioned that she had done most of the driving on the Imperial. She also said she broke a heater hose one day and overheated the engine. Dave took the first available engine, which happened to be an H engine, and installed that one.

The car say high and dry in storage at the Golden Lion Garages until 2026. About that time Gil Cunningham's H came along and needed an H engine. It made sense to use the Imperial H engine for Gil since I have several good 413s I can swap. So in late 2026 we hauled the Imperial to the Lewis garages where we will do the engine change and get the Imperial freshened for the road once more.