IML: the 67 /68 debate continues
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IML: the 67 /68 debate continues



As someone who is quite capable of running hot over a storm in a tea cup, I have been following this thread with some interest. I can understand why some 67 & 68 owners are seeing red over the green appellation given to this era of Imperial. It was and is still intended to be tongue in cheek but evidently not everyone find the joke so funny anymore, even though the vast majority of survey participants are quite happy to smile and go along with it.

I don't know if explaining the joke to folks who are already upset is going to mollify them, either. As removed as I am from the crucible of this little inferno, the name suggests the hedonistic hippiedom that was so prevalent in the culture at that time. Jimi Hendrix had his purple haze while Chrysler's was green. I cannot think of anything less a part of the counter culture than an Imperial but someone had to work to give all those wild teenagers the money to be free enough to mock the very people who were making it possible.

I am always concerned that the tyranny of the majority is not always wise or kind to those who are excluded. As the "leader" of another all volunteer group, I share the often expressed concerns of the folks who try so hard to maintain the IML as one of the very best such lists on the internet, which is to somehow come up with a solution that keeps everybody happy. It isn't always possible but it is very important to try to keep people, who take their semantics very seriously, and we do, in some kind of harmony. There is a value in avoiding the loss of a single member if it can be avoided.

To acquaint myself with the era in question, I went to the Year by Year section of the web site and checked into what Chrysler Corporation itself came up with. And there's the rub. They didn't, it seems, come up with anything. The field was open, the "Haze Green" name arose and kind of stuck as being somehow, inexplicably, sort of just right and it stuck. That's as good a test as you can find, by the way.

In 1967 the key word seems to be prestige. But, in 1968, the word was luxury. "Prestige" was no longer to be found. Nonetheless, I voted for 'Contemporary Prestige' on the survey. I'm not sure it really means a whole lot as the sine qua non of any Imperial is luxurious prestige. It seems to me, however, that the phrase is not out of place and provides someone looking at the web sight for the first time in search of some guidance on that era with a good idea of how Chrysler itself perceived the cars.

I just hope no one decides to fly the coop over this. If my car was red, white or blue, I might be aggrieved about the name myself.

Hugh








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