Very informative post, Bill. I wonder, are they still paying on that
hundred year loan? :)
I think the major problem with the 1957 Chryslers was, 1957 was the
first year Chrysler started producing its own bodies. I think. I
could be mistaken about that, but I think Briggs supplied them up until
that year. I don't know whether or not this applies to Imperial or not.
So many of the problems might just be a matter of Chrysler "working out
the bugs" of their new system, which I think they had done by 1958.
(Of course, if you bought a new 1957 Chrysler and you had a lot of
problems you wouldn't care about that.) However, in the auto business
perception lags behind reality, and even though the 58s & 59s had fewer
problems, the 57s continued to hurt Chrysler's rep for years to come.
A lot of people to this day believe that Chryslers are more prone to
rust, I think in part because of the 57 models.
Also, I believe they did not even "dip" their bodies in some kind of
zinc solution prior to painting in those days. I think the preparation
process they went through was probably pretty primitive when compared
to today.
You also have to wonder-- or at least I wonder-- how much of this
perception is justified and how much of it was the result of Chrysler's
competition trying to offset the advantage Chrysler's styling gave them
in the marketplace in 1957. Think about it. If you're a Buick dealer
and you've got a car that looks dowdy in comparison to that sleek
looking new Chrysler, what do you say about it? You can't say your
model looks better. All you can do is knock the quality of the
Chrysler. I'm not saying Chrysler didn't have quality control issues,
just that GM and Ford may have exaggerated these through a
word-of-mouth campaign (while desperately restyling to close the
"styling gap" on next year's models).
Mark
On Tuesday, November 11, 2003, at 12:20 PM, Bill Watson wrote:
>
> Chrysler's new line of 1957 models put General Motors to shame.
> Oldsmobile,
> Buick and Cadillac used brand new bodies, but as one wag put it,
> although
> Plymouth was "Suddenly It's 1960", Oldsmobile was "Suddenly It's 1950".
> Popular Mechanics did an owner's report on a new 1957 Oldsmobile and
> the
> assembly line worker that installed the grille nameplate installed the
> letters "O-L-D-D-M-O-B-I-L-E" on the grille.
>
> 1957 was a disaster for Buick and Oldsmobile, by the way. Buick model
> year
> production fell from 583,181 in 1955 to 572,024 in 1956 to 405,086 in
> 1957,
> while Oldsmobile dropped from 554,090 in 1955 to 485,459 in 1956 and to
> 384,392 in 1957. Cadillac production also dropped, but by a much
> smaller
> amount from 154,631 in 1956 (up from 1955's 140,778) to 146,840 in
> 1957.
>
> As for the borrowed money, Chrysler borrowed $250 million from the
> Prudential Insurance Company in 1954. This gave the corporation the
> financial foundation to go ahead with the complete retooling needed
> for the
> 1957 models, plus plant expansion and modernization. And they had one
> hundred years to repay it The money did not come from their suppliers,
> although the suppliers generally foor the bill for tooling the parts
> they
> produced. Thus if Chrysler redesigned a part midway through the year a
> supplier might be caught footing the bill for tooling a part twice.
> But
> Chrysler did not actually borrow money from them.
>
> Bill
> Vancouver, BC
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: John Harvey
> To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 9:10 AM
> Subject: Re: IML: Quality of the 1957 Imperial
>
>
> Quality on all 57 models was not very good, even by 1957 standards.
> It is
> claimed that the reason 57 Chrysler products were so bad is that they
> rushed
> them into production a year before they originally planned (the 55-56
> were
> only a 2 year cycle, instead of the common 3 years) because of what
> Ford
> did with their styling for 57. Believe me, Ford had real quality
> problems
> of their own in 57. Buick produced a whole bunch more cars than the
> factory
> was designed to build, and quality on 57 Buicks supposedly really
> suffered.
> Chrysler pulled a trick in 56 on their suppliers that resulted in them
> in
> effect borrowing, interest free, several hundred million dollars from
> these
> suppliers for about a year. As a result, Chrysler had to find new
> suppliers, because the old ones refused to sell to them, except cash
> out
> front. My dad was one of these suppliers. He made washers, shims, and
> spacers. That didn't help quality in 57 for Chrysler, either.
> Another problem was that they really didn't understand how to
> design to
> fight the tinworm.
> My suspicion is that the surviving cars we have now were the
> "good"
> cars. The ones that needed a repair just now and then, but were
> otherwise
> pretty dependable. People who had "lemons", dumped them quickly, and
> these
> quickly went down the value line and suffered a life ending repair
> early
> (cars depreciated really fast back then, a typical new car lost 1/4 of
> its
> value just driving out of the dealership, and by the time it was 2
> years
> old, it had to be really nice to be worth 1/3 the original price. By
> the
> time it was 5, you would be lucky to get 10% of original cost on
> trade). You
> had to put some real money out front to finance a new car; none of
> this
> 0-0-0 stuff we have now. People weren't "upside down" in their cars,
> like
> is real common with the real low down payments, and 60 or 72 month
> payment
> books of today. Goes to show you how much cars have improved over the
> last
> 40 years--that someone will loan money on one for 5 or 6 years. Back
> in 57,
> 24 or 30 month contracts were just about as long as they would go.
> Maybe
> 36.
>
>
>
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