Very interesting, John, although I have never really thought that the name
Imperial was the problem. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but look at the years
that the car really did well. In 1957 the public didn't say "Imperial doesn't
mean luxury". They said look at that beautiful car! They knew that there was
engineering and innovation behind it since that was what the company, Chrysler
Corporation, had always stood for. They loved it! The car dripped with luxury,
prestige, and in the minds of the public QUALITY.
Unfortunately, the quality part was just an illusion based on the past.
Chrysler Corporation had one "H" of a time getting people to believe in them
again after that. Soon they were telling people that they were building
"America's Most Carefully Built Car", but guess what, in the meantime some one
else built something with even more style and class. Imperial's styling was
behind the times, even though they got back their quality. It was too late.
>From then on Imperial just played catch up. As beautiful as they were, Engel's
>Imperials were there because he had done a great job of saving another luxury
>car. To do the same for the Imperial he had to "make another copy". He did,
>and they soldiered on.
Even the '80s Imperials mimicked something that had been tried and successful
with another make first. I never quite understood the message of the '90s model
since the popular top end cars at that time were still relatively big, rear
wheel drive barges, and the folks in that market still wanted that when the
1990 Imperial was introduced. Maybe that model was the final shot at
innovation, predicting the ultimate luxury car for the coming decade of the
'90s. Maybe they even had an inside track on what was being planned at
Cadillac. That time they missed badly, as did Cadillac. In the '90s Lincoln out
sold Cadillac several years in a row because that gamble didn't pay off for
General Motors either.
I read the Motor Trend road test of the 1990 luxury cars. That year the 1990
Lincoln won Car of the Year. Though highly criticized for that move, in that
article Motor Trend pegged the luxury car market that was to be in the 1990's
right on target. Their opinions have carried a lot of weight with the car
buying public over the years and they were not kind to the 1990 Imperial and it
wasn't because the name didn't say luxury and prestige.
Paul
In a message dated 1/22/2004 9:25:17 PM Eastern Standard Time,
donkiyoti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I think we all agree that Chrysler failed to market the Imperial
> effectively, and also failed to separate Imperial as a separate marque
> from the Chrysler name. Imperial started out and ended up as "Chrysler
> Imperial" and that's how nearly everybody refer to our cars today,
> never mind that most of them don't carry the word "Chysler" anywhere.
> The design and engineering of the cars wasn't the problem. I think also
> that (nearly) all of us agree Elwood Engel wasn't at fault.
>
> But what about the name Imperial itself?
>
> We know that Chrysler's use of the name Imperial was meant to connote
> the best of the best, the top, the pinnacle, etc. But many many other
> companies and entrepreneurs had exactly the same idea. Think of
> Imperial Margarine, etc. I look in the yellow pages today and I see
> Imperial Gem & Jewelry and Imperial Transportation services. How many
> plumbers, roofers, dry cleaners, barber shops, etc. do you want to bet
> used the name Imperial all through the 50s, 60s & 70s? I'd bet there
> were thousands. The name was really watered down to the point of being
> meaningless and having no real identity.
>
> GM certainly never had that problem with Cadillac. Cadillac meant
> Cadillac and that meant prestige. The name Imperial just didn't have
> the power to lend much prestige to Chrysler's top of the line. The
> beautiful (and now highly sought after) Chrysler Imperials of the 30s
> helped doom Chrysler's efforts to establish Imperial as a separate
> marque: it would always be "Chrysler Imperial." The name "300" was much
> more successful. People never forgot that 300 meant a snazzy Chrysler
> car. The association stayed strong enough for Chrysler to revive that
> name.
>
> Imperial has a lot of meanings, and in the 30s it was just fine to be
> imperialistic. Imperial Navy, British Empire, and so on. Studebaker
> even sold a car named the Dictator. Nowadays using Imperial would be a
> marketing disaster. These days more people would connect "Imperial" to
> Star Wars and Darth Vader than to any kind of car.
>
> All the same, I always just say "It's an Imperial" when someone asks
> what kind of car I'm driving.
>
> Best,
> John Meyer
> 1965 Crown
> Tucson
>
>
>
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