My guess is you hit it on the head, Mark.
Bill & Tami Roddick
1964 Imperial Crown 4 DR HT
1972 'Cuda 340 (Tami's Toy)
1988 Cherokee Laredo
1995 Concorde
----- Original Message -----
From: <tomswift@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: IML: Suicide doors / Engel designs
> Hugh,
>
> Normally I agree with you but I have to take issue with you on this one!
>
> A designer as talented as Elwood Engel almost certainly could have come up
with a
> totally different design for the '64-68 Imperials if he chose to-- or if
his corporate bosses
> wanted him to. I find the notion that he simply fell back on his work for
Ford and "couldn't
> think of anything better" when he came to Chrysler an implausible theory.
>
> I think he was stolen, if you will, from Ford, precisely because Chrysler
leadership
> wanted to take their Imperial in a direction similar to what Engel had
already done for
> Lincoln, and who better to take them there than the very man who created
the look? It
> was a way of hurting Ford by taking one of their top men and also updating
your look at
> the same time.
>
> Second, the resemblance to Lincoln was, in my opinion, no accident. I
don't like this
> trend, but it is common practice in the auto industry to copy the look of
your competition.
> Today you have Japanese luxury cars imitating the styling of BMW and
Mercedes. The
> perceived leader, or the next one up the ladder, is always copied in an
effort to lure
> buyers from the competitor.
>
> For Imperial, their closest competition was Lincoln. Conceivably,
Imperial could take
> buyers away from Lincoln and eventually beat Lincoln out of the #2 slot.
It wouldn't make
> sense to copy Cadillac, I believe their thinking went, because Cadillac's
sales figures
> were so far above Imperial's as to be unreachable. But they could put a
dent in Lincoln,
> so that's who they targeted by imitating their styling.
>
> So I don't think it was an accident or a case of Engel lacking the
imagination; if you look
> at the fuselage cars you can see he was quite capable of coming up with a
totally new
> look-- when he was directed to do so. I think it was a decision made at
the corporate
> level to take the styling in that direction.
>
> Just my opinion! :)
>
> Mark M
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