Chrysler¹s engineering leadership was kind of in the slow lane during the late 1970s and 1980s. The imports, both the Europeans and the Japanese, had leapfrogged most of Detroit with small cars, front-wheel drive, aluminum-alloy engines, fuel injection and other such advances that defined the basics of what consumers wanted in cars at that time. Detroit was still trying to adapt its old cars (and old thinking) to a new world, and it took them a while to catch on (assuming they have... perhaps the market just swung back to a love of torque and spaciousness). While Chrysler has long been revered for superior engineering, it also deserves its reputation for "badge engineering." The 1975 Imperial lost several hundred pounds and several thousand dollars and became the 1976 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham. Follow the timeline and watch the New Yorker name (which at its demise was the longest continuously running nameplate in the US) land on a dressed-up midsize (M-body, the aforementioned 1977 LeBaron), then a dressed-up K-car, and finally back to a large car with the launch of the LH, but playing second fiddle to the LHS. In the 1970s, when GM developed all-new downsized "big" cars, Chrysler couldn't afford to do that, so they stuck the fullsize model names on the midsize cars (Coronet became Monaco, Satellite became Fury) and voila! (Ford did the same thing with LTD II, though don't get me started on the one-year Cougar wagon! And it turns out the 1976 Chevy Caprice was dimensionally almost identical inside and out to the 1970 AMC Rebel...later aka Matador.) Chrysler has also used "Duster" on five separate car lines, and has revived Charger now for its third life (fourth if you count the late-1970s "Special Edition" personal luxury coupe as distinct from its muscle-car roots). They took and engine name (Magnum) and made it a car model. (Then again, the "Charger 225" was the original name of the larger slant-six.) They've recycled DeSotos into Dodge Trucks (Adventurer), a bodystyle into model names (Newport), and a Plymouth trim level into a Chrysler (Sebring). And of course, that brings us back to LeBaron. Me, I'm still wondering why Valiant and Reliant don't rhyme... And if there is any significance to the fact that DCX just re-registered the Imperial trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office. -- Chris in LA 67 Crown 78 NYB Salon On 6/8/05 6:35 PM, darrell kershaw at darrells59imperial@xxxxxxxxx wrote: > my next question is this. if the la baron was the "cream of the crop" back in > the 50s and 60s then why did Chrysler treat the name as a "stepchild" in the > mid to late 70's > > to me it doesn't make much sense, because in the 50's a 57 imperial La Baron > would have sold for more than a custom or a crown. but then I see a 78 > la-baron with a slant six , no offense to the slant six , but one would think > it should have had a v8 in it. > > my old 59 imperial has more options than the 78 la-baron, is it me or was > Chrysler heading backwards in the late 70's and early 80s as far as technology > and innovation. ----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com ----------------- This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm