Re: IML: Le Baron trivia question?

[Christopher H <imperial67@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chrysler¹s engineering leadership was kind of in the slow lane during the
late 1970s and 1980s. The imports, both the Europeans and the Japanese, had
leapfrogged most of Detroit with small cars, front-wheel drive,
aluminum-alloy engines, fuel injection and other such advances that defined
the basics of what consumers wanted in cars at that time.

Detroit was still trying to adapt its old cars (and old thinking) to a new
world, and it took them a while to catch on (assuming they have... perhaps
the market just swung back to a love of torque and spaciousness).

While Chrysler has long been revered for superior engineering, it also
deserves its reputation for "badge engineering." The 1975 Imperial lost
several hundred pounds and several thousand dollars and became the 1976
Chrysler New Yorker Brougham. Follow the timeline and watch the New Yorker
name (which at its demise was the longest continuously running nameplate in
the US) land on a dressed-up midsize (M-body, the aforementioned 1977
LeBaron), then a dressed-up K-car, and finally back to a large car with the
launch of the LH, but playing second fiddle to the LHS.

In the 1970s, when GM developed all-new downsized "big" cars, Chrysler
couldn't afford to do that, so they stuck the fullsize model names on the
midsize cars (Coronet became Monaco, Satellite became Fury) and voila! (Ford
did the same thing with LTD II, though don't get me started on the one-year
Cougar wagon! And it turns out the 1976 Chevy Caprice was dimensionally
almost identical inside and out to the 1970 AMC Rebel...later aka Matador.)

Chrysler has also used "Duster" on five separate car lines, and has revived
Charger now for its third life (fourth if you count the late-1970s "Special
Edition" personal luxury coupe as distinct from its muscle-car roots).

They took and engine name (Magnum) and made it a car model. (Then again, the
"Charger 225" was the original name of the larger slant-six.)

They've recycled DeSotos into Dodge Trucks (Adventurer), a bodystyle into
model names (Newport), and a Plymouth trim level into a Chrysler (Sebring).
And of course, that brings us back to LeBaron.

Me, I'm still wondering why Valiant and Reliant don't rhyme... And if there
is any significance to the fact that DCX just re-registered the Imperial
trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

-- 
Chris in LA
67 Crown
78 NYB Salon



On 6/8/05 6:35 PM, darrell kershaw at darrells59imperial@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> my next question is this.  if the la baron was the "cream of the crop" back in
> the 50s and 60s then why did Chrysler treat the name as a "stepchild" in the
> mid to late 70's
>  
> to me it doesn't make much sense, because in the 50's a 57 imperial La Baron
> would have sold for more than a custom or a crown. but then I see a 78
> la-baron with a slant six , no offense to the slant six , but one would think
> it should have had a v8 in it.
>  
> my old 59 imperial has more options than the 78 la-baron, is it me or was
> Chrysler heading backwards in the late 70's and early 80s as far as technology
> and innovation.





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