This Chrysler nameplate began as the brand’s upper-end passenger car for the 1940 model year, emerging from the late-1930s New York Special trim and quickly becoming the company’s flagship mainstream luxury offering. Early cars were full-size prewar and immediate postwar Chryslers, and the name became closely associated with Chrysler’s most prestigious sedans, coupes and later wagons through the 1940s and 1950s. After production was interrupted during World War II, the name returned and continued into the postwar era as Chrysler’s traditional top-of-the-line series, evolving through major styling shifts from the rounded late-1940s bodies to the dramatic finned designs of the Virgil Exner years.
Over time, the nameplate followed Chrysler’s changing market position. In the 1960s and 1970s it remained one of the brand’s most luxurious full-size models, often serving as the step below Imperial or, in some periods, as Chrysler’s de facto flagship. In the early 1980s the name was reassigned to Chrysler’s downsized rear-wheel-drive luxury cars, including the Fifth Avenue-era derivatives that carried the New Yorker identity into a more fuel-conscious market. The badge later moved again, first onto smaller front-wheel-drive luxury sedans and then onto the larger LH-platform cars of the 1990s.
The final chapter came with the 1990s front-wheel-drive New Yorker, a more conservative companion to the Chrysler LHS. That version kept the traditional upscale mission of the nameplate while adapting it to modern packaging and ride quality, and it ended after the 1996 model year. Because the nameplate disappeared during the wartime interruption and later returned for a long second life, this model is best treated as having multiple production periods rather than one uninterrupted run.