Enough with these pathetic little Briggs and Stratton powered sidewalk toys like the Rabbit and Starlet! We need us a real car to counterbalance that axis of Cozy Coupes. Hell, this Imperial weighs a half a ton more than both of them together. Its 7.2 liter engine is almost three times as big as their egg beaters combined. And its got enough torque to twist those little tin cans into shreds. This baby rocks, even if it is to a song that abruptly played out the year of its birth. Yes, this Imperial was born under a bad sign: the crescent moon. And it marks the end of the road for Chrysler’s pride and joy, save some pathetic efforts to revive it. But Chrysler’s loss is our gain today, because it isn’t every day we stumble onto one of these bitchin’ waterfall-grilled monstrosities with big twin exhausts to rumble our memories and fantasies far away to another time and place…
I’m going to call this the coolest big sled since finding the hot-rod ’50 Caddy coupe. They have a lot in common too; they’re the beginning and end of the whole crazy and uniquely-American idea: the biggest, meanest luxury coupe with the biggest, baddest motor in the house. I know; Caddy and Lincoln were still at the game with big rigs in ’74, but which of the three would you pick to put mag wheels on and hang a couple of big exhaust pipes out the ass end? I thought so. For whatever reason, and wherever your loyalties to the Big Three lay, the big Chryslers were the only ones that still could pull this sort of stunt off in 1974.
Was it the styling, or what was under the skin? The return of the waterfall grille was a bold and distinctive step, even if it was a reprise of that divine sales flop, the Airflow. The rest of Chrysler’s new look wasn’t exactly original either; it looks like a slightly warmed over ’69 Buick Electra except for that outrageous front end. The stunning and original fuselage styling of ’69-’73 was worn out, as were Chrysler’s creative juices. The crap that came out of Highland Park from here on out was nothing but the death rattles moving the hands of the designers. That is, until Lido showed up and taught them to fold, spindle and mutilate a Kardboard box in more ways than had ever been…; well “imagined” is too flattering a word. That resulted in zombie Imperials that still haunt our nightmares.
Yes, the Arabs put a kibosh on this barge that Cleopatra would have been proud to float down the Nile on. And her tush would have been sitting pretty on all those acres of gen-u-ine Corinthian leather. The 440′s blubbering dual exhausts didn’t even need to be submerged under water to sound like an old Chris Craft speed boat. They don’t call these barges for nothing.
No, it wasn’t the styling alone. Chrysler’s big unibodies were always the eating-disordered unpopular sister of the big luxury three. A ’74 Lincoln had a good 600 pounds on this Le Baron (oh God, was that name ever dragged through the mud by Lido’s Kars). Does anyone still know what Le Baron once was? The builders of the finest coach-built custom bodies in the land, like this Duesenberg. All things must pass. Well, this Le Baron isn’t exactly a Duesey, but it’s a lot closer to it in spirit than what followed all to soon. Just for good measure, here’s the tracks this ’74 was following.
But the tracks ended here; well, technically the following year in ’75. If you can tell the difference between the two, you should be writing this. Less than 4k of these coupes were made in ’74; even fewer the year after. Then it was over, for Chrysler’s perpetual wild goose chase for Cadillac gold. Since breaking away from the Chrysler brand in ’55, it managed to beat Lincoln just twice, in ’59 and ’60. But the brilliant ’61 Lincoln showed its trim little taillights to the Imperial, and never looked back. Twenty-one years of true Imperials, and every single one a memorable one. That’s more than I can say for its competition. Nothing like going out in style at the top, big time.
“I’ve got me a Chrysler
It’s as big as a whale
and we’re gonna
SET SAIL!!!!!!!”
The whole shack shimmys!
Now thats a car proper Merican car Thats a real Chrysker not like this halfbaked 4dcylinder shit I keep seeing that is too much like the crap Chrymits junk we got Chrysler made the Hemi6 and listening to a 265 roar at a steady 100mph thru the nite is very pleasant but they folded the tent and ran away and left Mitsubishi to wave the flag nobody out this way was surprised they went under.
This looks a lot like the Chrysler New Yorkers of the same vintage. These are best known in Canada for their starring roles in the Trailer Park Boys series. Lahey drove the one (probably a 1977) pictured below and Ricky had a slightly older one that was in much worse shape.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/104/287085606_f0497891a7.jpg
EDIT: after doing a little research, the New Yorker inherited the front and rear styling of the Imperial after it was discontinued.
ha! I’ve just started watching TPBoys and love it. I suppose if you have to house a family of three then this is the car (“care”, as Ricky says) to do it in.
The 74 Imperial was a beautiful car. This is one of the few cars of the mid 70s that does not have a bad line on it. Was there ever a better rendition of the 5 mph bumpers? It is a pity that they did not sell better as Imperials, but when you introduce a new luxury car into the worst recession in forever, this kind of thing is bound to happen. The other problem these cars had is that they were built by Chrysler in 1974, which was not a good thing for quality, either real or perceived.
Bunkerman is correct. After the Imp was killed after the 75s, the car returned in 76-78 as the New Yorker, and the 75 New Yorker became the 76-78 Newport Custom. These New Yorkers sold like hotcakes in 76-78. I owned a 77 that could have been my favorite car ever but for the lean burn related issues. If I had to give it a report card, I would have commented “not working to its full potential.” But my oh my was it beautiful.
I would enjoy the opportunity to drive one of these just to look out over that hood!
My first thought was how arduous parallel parking this beast must be. But then, when would the owner of such a vehicle be in a position or a place where parallel parking was the only option?
Did Chrysler have an equivalent of the F41 suspension? I expect these were at their best pointed dead ahead while crossing Nebraska.
I don’t know about the Imperial, but my 77 New Yorker had the heavy duty suspension and 70 series tires. It was the best handling big car I ever had. There was nothing floaty about mine, it would just hunker down and go where you pointed it. I always fantasized about putting a pre-72 premium gas 440 in it. I could have had a lot of fun with with that combination. But alas, as a student with not much money, I had to make do with the underpowered version.
All it takes is a distributor and intake manifold/carb from an earlier engine. Nowadays, probably quite a substantial percentage of lean burns aren’t anymore.
I’m jealous of your memories; I’ll just have to use my imagination!
The front end looked way too similar to the Lincolns. I think you guys were a little harsh on Lido’s later creations – while 30 years hence they seem feeble, downsized luxury was much in demand. The Frank Sinatra ’81 edition was loudly trumpeted…..
Lincolns allways look like caricature car copied badly from everything else a sort of junky car.
One interesting feature of early seventies Imperials was the first four-wheel anti-lock braking system on any American production car, made by Bendix. (GM and Ford offered ABS earlier, but their systems were rear-wheel only.) Unfortunately, it was expensive, and it didn’t sell well, so 1974-1975 Imperials no longer offered it, although they did have four-wheel discs.
Having been born in 1972, I have a soft spot for the 1981-83 Imperials. They had their flaws when compared directly with the Lincolns and GM E-bodies of the era, but I think that they’re also closer to the spirit of the original Imperials than the later K-based abominations that followed.
What’s that I spy parked beyond the bow of this boat? An 83-84 Rabbit GTI ! How about a CC on that,,,best car I ever owned!
never mind the rabbit. is that a renault r17 gordini next to the rabbit?
Yes to both of you. The GTI CC is way overdue; hold on a bit longer. The R17: I’ll re-run the old Outtake in case you missed it at its old location.
I’ve always thought that the 1974-78 Chryslers and final Imperials were very handsome cars. Chrysler handled the bumper regulations far better on these cars than Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Mercury or Lincoln did with their full-size vehicles.
Once the economy recovered from the effects of the Arab Oil Embargo and resulting recession, sales of the big Chryslers recovered nicely. They were popular right up until they were replaced in 1979.
Chrysler’s problem wasn’t with these cars. The problem was that the full-size Dodges and Plymouths never recovered from the effects of the Arab Oil Embargo. Their sales were virtually nonexistent compared to the Chevrolet and Ford competition after 1974.
Going back further, the reason the full-size Plymouths and Dodges were in a position to be reduced to irrelevance by the Arab oil embargo and resulting recession was that they had never recovered from Chrysler’s ill-fated decision to downsize them in 1962, just as the late ‘50s/early ‘60s recession was coming to an end and sales of large cars began to take off again. The full-size Plymouths would have some decent sales years later in the ‘60s, but were much less competitive against their Chevrolet and Ford counterparts than their compact and mid-sizes siblings were. Dodge really stuck out in that era as a rare example of a Big Three brand whose full-size line was not its best-selling product line (or even really close to being its best-selling product line).
Sales of the big Plymouths and Dodges then seemed to fade a bit more in the early ‘70s. I’d guess that this may have been due to a growing perception that Chrysler had quality issues – even relative to the other domestics in that era – or that the 1969-73 fuselage styling just didn’t click with the public. The big Chryslers didn’t seem to experience the same struggles, though, but continued selling well right up until the oil crisis.
I’m liking the Cragar S/S wheels. Too bad they had to get painted, typical pitting issue I’m assuming. A pair of 3-1/2″ chrome sidepipes would look sweet on that monster..
I always liked the ChryCo full size cars over Ford and GMs offerings, Ford had that crazy overhang issue and GMs big cars after the 71 redesign just seemed to be big for the sake of being big.
The Fuselage cars will always be my favorites but if I found one of these in nice enough condition it’d be a pretty quick sale.
I have always loved the orginal Chrysler “road wheels” even though they were just chromed disks with center caps. Something about that style of wheel always said “Road Trip!” to me.
Funny that you should mention Hot Rod Lincolns in your blog about the Imp. Never a Hot Rod Lincoln made to match this:
my.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyEbay&gbh=1
Sorry. Bad link:
Shameless self-serving plug is:
http://tinyurl.com/4spdNYB
Chrysler ads for 1976 trumpeted the ‘all new, New Yorker, Cadillac luxury at a Buick price!’
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