IML: the 67 /68 debate continues
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IML: the 67 /68 debate continues
- From: "Hugh & Therese" <hugtrees@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 09:50:48 -0500
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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