Granted, the two bodies were VERY much alike; however, the Imperial had small differences that made it standout from the New Yorker. Also, the Imperials (until 1975) had prototypes on them as it was easier to recall a limited production vehicle than a standard much larger production one. The Imperial had the solid voltage regulator on it (1969), four wheel disc brakes (1974), Sequential turn signals (1969), fuselage body (1969), ABS (late 1970), and other items. Also, there were more convience items, four ash trays and lighters, extra insulation and isolation, double U-Joints, larger passenger compartments, and others. Granted that some of these items are only very slight differences, but they are what made it betterly different to be an Imperial and the top of the line. I have owned/and own a 1969 Imperial LeBaron FDHT (with sequential turn signals) and a 1975 Imperial LeBaron FDHT. The 69 was a rental car in Las Vegas originally and I bought it in Scottsdale in 1971. Obviously, it did not have a huge amount of options on it, but what it did not I order and installed them myself ( new dash and engine compartment wiring harness), twilight sentenal lighting, a rear heater/defogger, a 1971 Imperial column, a new dash metal super stucture, and the 5 stereo speakers . (By the way there is a printing error in the FSM Dash wiring harness to the headlight switch. The parking light and a feed from the battery are thansposed.) I was 18 when I bought my 69 Imperial (used for $2600.00) and I used to drive it from Tucson to Phoenix about twice a month with the Auto Temp set to 62, but I later found out by measuring the potentiometer that it was actually 55; no wonder every who rode with me FROZE. I also had the A/C on Auto and let it take care of the switching and the control of the front A/C and the rear heater/defogger. Must be off for now... need to do some HONEY-DO's. Æyn & Patrick --- anthony romano <mamrom@xxxxxxx> wrote: > Why was the Imperial and New Yorker virtually the same in body > and features? Cadillac made itself completely different than > the top of the line for Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile 98. > Lincoln also like Cadillac stood alone against any other Ford > product and their other divisions. So again, if the Imperial > was to be recognized as a class unto itself it had to be > different than the other Models. I believe it fail to do so. > Example of today- The Imperial concept car of 2008 looks so > similar to the 300 than why would you even look at the Imperial > or get excited about it. Why pay more for and Imperial when > there is no real difference except for the price tag! In my > opinion the New Yorker/5th ave. sold more in the 90's because > it looked the same as the Imperial ,but was cheaper! A loaded > 5th gave you just as much as the Imperial- In fact , one can > argue that the Interior on the 5th was more luxurious than the > Imperial. Help me understand The Chrysler mentality on this > matter -Regards -Anthony ----------------- 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