This type of marketing has not changed over the years. At a local Ford
dealership they have a turbocharged Mustang Cobra in their showroom as a
traffic booster. As we know, most of the people who come to check out the Cobra
usually drive off with something much less expensive. Even most of the Mustang
buyers leave with six-cylinder models. So it was in the 50's, the showrooms
featured Chrysler 300s, Plymouth Furys, and DeSoto Adventurers to boost traffic
and sales of less costly models and body styles. A few years ago at a local
Chrysler/Plymouth dealership the only vehicles on their showroom floor were a
Prowler and a fully optioned Grand Voyager minivan that cost more than many
SUVs. The lot, however, consisted mostly of Neons. It is interesting to think
of how many Neons were bought by people coming to check out that Prowler. So
perhaps our Imperials may measure their success by how many Chrysler products
they helped to sell. Have a nice day.
Doug
1958 Crown coupe
>
> From: dardal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: 2003/05/18 Sun PM 02:50:35 EDT
> To: mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: IML: History repeats itself
>
> Quoting Hugh & Therese <hugtrees@xxxxxxxx>:
>
> > him. He was obligated to take several of them a year by Chrysler in
> > order
> > to be allocated a larger amount of better selling vehicles. He was
> > also
> > obligated to maintain a certain inventory of spare parts and get
> > training
> > for technicians on a car which would never yield back the investment.
>
> Hugh, we all agree that Imperial was never marketed right. I always thought
> though that Ma Mopar's objective may have never been to maximize Imperial
> sales. I think that the Imperial division was "used" to add prestige to the
> lesser makes, even though they may have been losing money with it. And
> possibly, the connection between Chrysler and Imperial was maintained on
> purpose. When a person considring buying say a Chrysler Newport saw a super
> fancy Imperial sitting in the dealership, I am sure he noticed the high
>quality
> of the Imperial, but also noticed the similarities between his Newport and
>the
> fancy Imperial. That may have upgraded his immage of the lesser Newport, and
> possibly made him choose the Chrysler over, say a Buick. That may have been
>at
> least part of the reason why the pesence of the Imperials in the dealerships
> was required.
>
> Chrysler corporation was certainly not the best in marketing as opposed to
> their engineering, but I don't think they were idiots either! Again, all
>this
> is my opinion, not based on any sources.
>
> D^2
>
>
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