Quality of the 1957 Imperial

["Hugh & Therese" <hugtrees@xxxxxxxx>]

Donald,

 

The success of the forward look came as an overwhelming surprise to the then Chrysler Corporation.  There was insufficient planning to handle the vast demand for the entire range of their products, not only Imperials.  Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler sales were phenomenal.  Remember also that the now hallowed 1957 Chevy was a poor seller in its day.  Notice also how ugly the Lincolns were.  The time was ripe for a stunning breakthrough by Chrysler Corp.

 

The time was right but the company was ill prepared for it.  As a result, build quality went down the drain.  New outside suppliers were swept into producing parts without being given much if any time to get it right.  In short the company was a victim of its own success.  They went for volume over quality and, boy, did the product suffer.  There is all sorts of evidence to cover this.  Customers were polled and they were bitterly angry about having been hoodwinked into buying what they thought were going to be high quality cars.

 

Exner became the fall guy and his replacement, Engle, was instructed to change the look of the cars as quickly as possible to get the debacle of the "Forward Look" years behind the company as quickly as possible.

 

While Chrysler was certainly not alone in their quality issues, the company's reputation suffered more than most.  Sales for the corporation's entire product line slumped badly in 1958.  There were steel strikes and the economy also slumped somewhat but this alone does not account for the dismal showing of the company.

 

I have acquired many car magazines and related items from 1958 and there is an ironic recurring theme.  Chrysler's build quality has been improved enormously and it is now safe to buy these cars.  The teething problems of the first production year have been resolved.  The advertising department was in high gear, too.  I doubt if any other year of Imperial produced such a wide range of different adverts.  I have twelve full page ads from the glossy magazines of the day, all of them different.

 

Chrysler's reputation undoubtedly was almost irreparably tarnished by this episode.  Certain truisms came out of the experience as well, one being "Never buy a car in its first year of production."  Build quality remained an issue among all US manufacturers and was one of the weak point that allowed the Japanese invasion to be so successful.

 

Hugh

----- Original Message -----

From: DONALDDICKINSOND@xxxxxx

To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 9:34 AM

Subject: IML: Quality of the 1957 Imperial

During my college years at Florida (go Gators) we lived in Miami and my father owned a light blue Imperial four door hardtop.  My recollections of this car are of a very poor quality product, some items from memory:

1)  Door handle mechanism fell apart, we had to take the doors apart and reassemble (I also remember we did some redesign as the pull handle mechanism was poorly designed).

2)  The seats were very thin, not much padding, and wore out prematurely.

3)  The side windows were curved and never lined up properly front to back (hand one on power window switch, hand two guiding the window).

4)  The air conditioning condenser, I believe, was right in front of the radiator and over heating was a regular occurrence in South Florida's 90 degree summers.

I also remember going back to the dealer, with my father for service and seeing a very irate customer complaining about the poor quality of his Imperial and him saying that he would never buy another one.

These memories have stuck with me over the years and I often wondered if the 1957 (and probably 58 & 59) quality was the downfall of Imperial as they never again came close to the 1957 sales volume.  I would be very interested in other members comments on this.  What has been the experience of current owners of 1957 - 59 Imperials?