(first posted 2/17/12) What do you get when you cross the marketing savvy of Lee Iacocca, the star power of Frank Sinatra, and an attractive personal luxury coupe with tried and true Mopar mechanicals? You get a beautiful and intriguing car that became a failure of epic proportions. Is there a better recipe for a Curbside Classic?
Lee Iacocca is best known for the Mustang. His most profitable car, however, was probably the 1969 Continental Mark III, along with the Mark IV (CC here) and Mark V (CC here) that followed in the series. An off-the-shelf platform which was dressed up in its country club finest turned out to be the next thing to gold for the Ford Motor Company during the 1970s. The Marks were priced high and sold in numbers that finally made Lincoln a contender in the luxury market. Although the big Continental never caught its traditional Cadillac rival, the Lincoln Mark series owned the personal luxury segment during that decade.
When Lido came to Chrysler in 1979, the company was in worse shape than anyone knew. It had fled the luxury market after the 1975 Imperial (CC here) finished its annual drubbing in the marketplace by selling fewer than 9,000 cars. Lee certainly knew that there was no money available for another full frontal assault on Cadillac. But why not skip the meat-and-potatoes sedan and go right for the sweet, creamy dessert that was the personal luxury coupe?
The starting point was there – the new J-body platform of the 1980 Cordoba and Mirada could provide a modern midsized coupe platform, that was really a pretty nice car. So, the decision was made to authorized a fresh, stylish new suit, plenty of expensive trimmings. And, because everybody knew that Chrysler was an engineering company, there would be a brand new electronic fuel injection system that would appeal to buyers in the demographic that Iacocca craved.
Make no mistake. The 1981 Imperial was nothing like the cynical Super K that would pretend to be a luxury car a decade later. This one was a serious attempt at a premium car. First, the price. The new Imperial would come fully equipped and would be priced at over $18,000. The only option was the power sunroof, which added about another $1,000. This was serious money in 1981 (≈ $45k adjusted). Second, the car would be built on its own assembly line, and would use an extra-thick gauge steel in the bodies. This car would be the first available with full electronic instrumentation, including a trip computer. Genuine Mark Cross leather would be available for the seats at no extra charge, and the hood ornament was a pentastar made of genuine Cartier crystal. This car was meant to go head to head with the Continental Mark VI and blow it into the weeds.
The Imperial was the car that should have hit the target smack dab center. Several of the people involved in the design of this car were veterans of the Mark program at Lincoln and knew what was expected in this segment. The lush carpet, the jewel-like trim details and wide choice of exterior and interior colors (six in velour and six in leather). You want a designer edition? How about the FS, named after Frank Sinatra and painted blue to match his famous eyes.
http://youtu.be/jBvI0C8OEzE
Old Frank himself crooned for an ad for this car and was prominently featured in the promotional materials. His fee? As a personal favor to Iacocca (and possibly out of his lifelong tendency to root for the underdog) he charged Chrysler $1 plus one of the first new Imperials off the line.
The timing seemed right, too. By 1981, this market was ripe for the right car. The 1980 Continental Mark VI was an abomination. Its ungainly proportions certainly never massaged the brain’s pleasure centers the way its predecessors had done, and the sales showed it. The King was dead, and the throne was open to any luxury coupe that could win over those trading their Mark Vs. Over at Cadillac, a perpetual also-ran in this market, the 1979-80 Eldorado was a legitimate contender, but it was quite conservative and hardly the kind of car that set a luxury buyer’s heart aflame.
In sum, this was an attractive, sumptuously trimmed, well built and well appointed car that did everything required of a car in its price class in 1981. So what could go wrong? Only one little thing. All too often, it just wouldn’t run.
Flashback to 1958. Chrysler adapts the Bendix Electrojector in the first American application of electronic fuel injection. Epic fail. The crude electronics available in 1958 were simply not up to the job of providing a reliable fuel metering system. There is a fascinating article at Allpar on this system and the single known example of one in operating condition, that can be read here.
But by 1981, shouldn’t all of those lessons have been learned? Evidently not. The system was designed and built almost completely in-house by Chrysler’s electronics unit in Huntsville, Alabama. Lee Iacocca was undoubtedly proud of this system. He had spent a career at Ford being envious of Chrysler’s engineering prowess. Chrysler had been his favorite target for poaching engineers during his Ford years. Now he had the keys to this kingdom and was ready to make the most of Chrysler’s latest technological breakthrough.
But then the calls started coming in. Sometimes the cars would not start. Other times, they would stall at random places, often the victim of electromagnetic interference from wires, signs and other fixtures of modern life, much like the Electrojector-equipped cars of a quarter century earlier. People in 1981 who could afford a car that cost in the neighborhood of twenty grand were not people who would quietly accept such a shortcoming. These Imperials resulted in a lot of unhappy customers, one of whom was reportedly FS himself.
So, after several attempts to fix the injection systems, Chrysler did what it did with the Electrojector cars – it provided a kit to dealers to yank the injection and retrofit the car with a carburetor. But the process in 1981 was so much more complicated than it had been in 1958. According to Allpar’s extensive piece on this car, the retrofit kit cost $3500 and the job required 50 man-hours of labor. The process involved replacing the fuel tank, the exhaust system, the instrument cluster, and a host of other things. All in all, it is reported that the 1981-83 Imperial cost Chrysler $10,000 per car on warranty expenses. It soon became clear that the new Imperial was an unqualified disaster. To this day, Chrysler has never made another attempt at building a legitimate premium car.
By the time the 1983 models were out, the decision had been made. Far from the splash of 1981, color choices were down (this car’s Manilla Cream was gone, some would say thankfully) and interior color choices were now down to four leathers and two cloths. After about 7200 were made in 1981, it took the final two years to bring the total to about 11,000 cars. Then it was over.
This is a hard car for me to write about. I have shared here before that during my college years, I was a huge Mopar-head. When this car came out, I fell for it, and fell hard. The Imperial featured some really high-tech stuff in 1981, and we Mopar faithful reveled in Chrysler’s re-emergence as a technological leader in its flagship car. To me and others like me, the re-born Imperial screamed “Chrysler is BACK, baby!”
I have always considered the car to be drop-dead gorgeous. The English bustle-back look is certainly the most controversial feature. This fad was riding a wave in the early 1980s, and this Imperial did the look as well as anyone. It was a graceful, expensive looking car. More than once, I sat in one in a showroom. Every time I did so, I would furtively look around, fearful of a gruff salesman turning to me and declaring “Hey, Kid – Get out of that car. That’s an IMPERIAL, you knucklehead. Let me show you a Horizon or maybe a nice used Duster.” The car seemed that special to me.
If anyone ever wonders why Lee Iacocca spent the rest of his career at Chrysler building K cars and their variants, this Imperial is probably the reason. This is pure supposition, but I would guess that there is no car ever championed by Lido that earned more of his scorn, bitterness or even hatred than this one. He pushed it. He gave it every chance. He backed it in a very, very public way. And it embarrassed him. Badly. Is it any wonder that the entire platform was killed by the end of 1983? I would not be surprised if Lee personally pushed the big red button to crush the tooling and kill this cruel, cursed car (and everything else that shared its platform).
As I was finishing this piece, I stumbled across a nice piece on this car at Ate Up With Motor (here). In it, Aaron cites evidence that Iacocca denied the Imperial’s paternity. Iacocca evidently claimed that the Imperial had been authorized by his predecessor, John Riccardo, and that by the time he took over, the car was too far along to stop. I’m not buying. Lee arrived at Chrysler in the spring of 1979, about eighteen months before its introduction. When an expected disaster in the making is already rolling out of the station, you let the car appear, then watch as it slowly sinks below the surface. You do not plaster your face all over the ads and ask Frank Sinatra to put his star power behind it. The Old Chrysler may have first conceived the idea of the J based Imperial, but all evidence suggests that Iacocca is the guy who enthusiastically ran that football the rest of the way downfield.
For all their failings, I still love these cars. I consider it one of the best looking “traditional” cars of the 1981-83 time period. When I was driving my daughter home from a friend’s a couple of weeks ago, I immediately recognized this Imperial as it sat at a gas pump. (How fitting.) It took some traffic maneuvering, but I caught up with it, idling unattended. I waited for the owners to come out as I snapped pictures. They never did, and I had to go. Even in this car’s dilapidated condition and in this least-flattering of colors, one thing kept running through my mind: Frank Sinatra singing “It’s Time for You.” And for just a moment, I imagined that I was the guy he was singing to as he tossed me the keys. But back to reality, because instead of it being “Time for Imperial”, it was really time for a Honda Fit. Which, fortunately, is not pale yellow and missing a window.
I had no knowledge or interest in these Imperials but this article held my attention from start to finish. Had no idea about the new plant, unique platform, $10,000 FI -> carb replacement and my favorite tidbit of all the thicker sheet metal! Well done!
I’m certain they blew all money on the digital display, or plain forgot the digital tuning Radio and high tech electronic push button/display Climatron. Hope they had instant MPGs etc a la Seville. Also the Aspen’s steering wheel and column are hard to swallow. But asides, these did have massive presence and dignity, though the trunk’s problem is it seems to be designed more in cubics space demanded by the marketing people or committe, than by the designer. Also agree with above, re rear plate display, as a kid, I scratched my head on that.
One of the main reasons I kept hearing people promising to rip out the fuelie for carbs, through the 80’s. I think Olds almost forever use of carbs on their tradition models, was due to certain a Grandpa demographic who though carbs were non new fangled perfection And I pity the skinflint who bought an Imperial with issues, centain an old intake manifold rebuilt carb would be everthing needed for running on the cheap in style.
This only hearsay from a Mopar guy from years ago, but it gave the impression some dealerships coverted them to carb from new, claiming they were already bad. This was to keep the comeback levels lower and their shops higher scores with successfully completed jobs.
the A/C controls are nothing special, the only differences from the standard Mopar controls are the attractive silver finish and the temperature markings below the temp slider. Almost reminds me of the “AutoTemp II” system used in 1973 Chryslers, with the dial marked with the temp on it, like a home thermostat.
The dash does contain a mileage computer, accessed via a row of silver buttons above the radio. it can tell you how much gas is in the tank, the (Approx.) miles you can travel before empty, and the avg. MPG you are getting, the measurements can also be read to you in metric, along with everything else, with the press of a button!
“Over at Cadillac, a perpetual also-ran in this market, the 1979-80 Eldorado was a legitimate contender, but it was quite conservative and hardly the kind of car that set a luxury buyer’s heart aflame.”
Not sure how the 79-80 Eldorado could be considered quite conservative, especially in light of the contemporary Mark VI and Imperial. Mechanically it was far more advanced with front wheel drive, four wheel independent suspension and 4 wheel disk brakes (which the others also had). But compare it to the leaf springs and live axle of the Imperial, or live axle and conventional coils on the Mark.
And by ’80, the Eldo was exploring digital electronic fuel injection, (presumably to better effect than the Imperial) and by ’81 they offered the variable displacement V8-6-4. Unfortunately, much of this advanced technology wasn’t ready for primetime, leading to reliability issues and numerous warranty claims that damaged the brand. We won’t even mention the HT-4100.
But the point is the Eldorado of this era was among the most mechanically advanced domestic cars, and at least attempted to offer engineering on par with BMW/Benz etc. As for not setting luxury car buyer’s hearts aflame, the 1980 model alone set a new sales record at just over 67,000. The Imperial sold about 17,000 for the entire 3-year run. Lincoln shifted about 64,000 Mark VIs, total.
The most depressing thing about the ’81-’83 Imperial is it was just another case of the typical Chrysler woulda/shoulda/coulda. Most seem to agree that it was an attractive car and if they had only put a much more reliable (and powerful) carburated 360-4v in the engine bay, it might have cleaned up, ironically, from the newly downsized Lincoln Mk V.
But gas was expensive, so a big, traditional engine was out of the question and the effort to extract the most fuel mileage from the old 318 had to be made, I suppose. A real shame the EFI system turned out to be so troublesome. Apparently, it was so bad that the Imperial occasionally winds up on ‘worst cars ever built’ lists.
There is one 82 imperial in good condition for sale in mid europe
http://www.bazaramerik.cz/inzerat/imperial-lebaron–1982/352/?&language=en
The writer of this article commented “Lee Iacocca is best known for the Mustang. ” But Lee Iacocca himself is most proud of his achievement of introducing the Front-Wheel Drive Mini Van into the automotive market in 1984, the Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager.
The `81 Imperial FS edition was probably the only car named after a singer, though it was called FS, not Frank Sinatra, Not too wild about the car, even less about the singer.
I would prefer an Eldorado from the 1879-1981 period with touring suspension and alloy wheels in black with maroon interior from this time era. The Imperial was a decent looking car plagued with EFI and Lean burn woes and it’s suspension was rather archaic and flaccid betraying it’s Volare’ roots. A 318 4BBL conversion with suspension upgrade would make for an interesting ride however.
Hey, If you don’t like these cars; I could care less. For those of us that do; kudos to you.
All I can say is, this one is perfect! Eat your heart out!!! And it’s all original!!!
Hope the picture shows up!!
There is a man in NC that drives one all over the place we see it regularly here in Ohio at the parts store I work at. It is original and nobody knows what it is except an old Chrysler guy who used to work at the dealer.
I bought one here in Sweden, imported 2014 and only been driven 19 700 miles and the leather seats and all inside is like new! I just love it!! It´s a very rare car here in Sweden, only three of them is here!! The injection system is working just fine and it has a low fuel consumption compared to other cars with a 318, V8!!
Wow. Interesting thread. In 82-84 my Grandpa owned an 81 Imperial….and despite my being 17-18 years old back then, he had me drive him everywhere. I ended up with lots and lots of quality time with my Grandpa behind the wheel of an Imperial. I also did a fair amout of maintenance work on the car. As a teenage mopar nut, and someone who learned to drive in an M-body, i just adored the Imperial. And looking 35 years back now I find that the car looks better and cooler than ever.
This was a relatively rare car – I barely saw a handful of them back in those days. I am astounded at how many people here have something useful to say about the car as well as those who still have them running! Very impressive.
A couple of things vividly stand out in my memory of driving the car. It was not a drag car – it was 4k+ lbs heavy – but it had PLENTY of power and an OUTSTANDING over the road manner in complete silence. It also had a pronounced delayed tip-in a la a Merc of the day. The EFI was cool but very finicky…and the controller board and pump were replaced once. The factory would not cover the cost, and my Grandpa got pissed and bought a K-body new yorker in 85–which was in a vastly different league. K bodies are another subject altogether.
That Imperial was and is such a great and underappreciated car. My hat is off in honor of all of you that still have one in running condition.
They are becoming very rare even in barely fair condition. I have a survivor, I’m told I am the 3rd owner, the first having it for 16 year, and the second, the same. The last owner was a Cadillac fan, supposedly, and was aging, so his collection needed to be thinned out.
It’s time for Chrysler Imperial FFS?
I recall seeing one of these once at my high school being driven by some kid around 1997 or so, haven’t seen any since then.
Ah, yes….the Imperial. When these came out, I thought they were a bit tarted up and couldn’t warm up to the bustle back. They were way beyond my reach, anyway.
A few years back, a guy who was a Chrysler dealer tech when these were new mentioned the warranty EFI-back-to-carb repair. He didn’t have much good to say about them in light of the plethora of quality issues, but said those that came in for work kept him occupied.
When they came out, I vaguely remember reading that the bumper mounts were engineered so NVH could be damped out by the bumpers.
Sad that Lido went in-house on EFI when Bosch had perfectly functional systems across several Euro lines. Trying to keep it all American, I guess.
Glad to see there are still a few on the road these days.
I cannot remember the last time I saw one of these, on the road, or at a car show. Nice looking cars, certainly the bustle-back is remindful of the Seville, but in a good way.
Since they had to spend ten grand doing the retrofit, they should have opted instead to swap out the 318 for a proven configuration of the 360 engine, leaving the rest of the fuel system bits (tank, dash) alone. If it would have mated to the transmission of course.
I like this car much better than the 1990s edition of the Imperial.
I believe that what keeps this from being a Deadly Sin was its market failure, preventing thousands more from destroying Chrysler’s reputation.
I’ve admired the Cordoba/Mirada second generation cars and was baffled at its brevity – but after reading this information about the Imperial, I believe Iacocca killed it with fire.
I’ve been pondering why the ’81-’83 Imperial doesn’t get a Deadly Sin tag, and I suspect it has to do with the fact that, while all the costs involved (including the monstrous warranty claims to replace the troublesome EFI) didn’t help Chrysler’s bottom line, it didn’t do all that much damage, financial or reputation, either. By the late seventies/early eighties, everyone knew that chances were less than 50/50 of getting a good Chrysler product that had been developed in the seventies. It was only when the K-car came online that things began to turn around a bit.
In effect, it’s sort of like citing something from British Leyland as a Deadly Sin. With some auto manufacturers, products were generally so bad, labeling one of them as a Deadly Sin is rather pointless.
Interesting example of how times have changed..a really expensive car then fully loaded is $45-$50k in today’s money…and Frank is an old legend at the age that say Eddie Vedder is today. 🙂
Keep in mind that Frank Sinatra had a Top 40 pop hit just months before the Imperial was introduced (“New York, New York”); he was very much still in the public eye and not just a historical figure in 1980.
I seem to be in the minority, if not the only one, but the styling… Often what seems garish at first will age to just less than memorable. But the trunkline on this and it’s Caddy counterpart look just as laughably absurd today as they did when they came out. I had no idea the car was such a mechanical disaster, but to my eyes it’s just stunningly ugly. I guess it fits the old line, beauty may be only skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to the bone.
CC Effect! This is posted on Barn Finds: https://barnfinds.com/?p=406099
With working EFI and the Moonroof, currently @ $3750
Wasn’t there some sort of fix for the EFI, something about moving it from the vibrations of the engine to a much calmer location on the firewall?
A few months before graduation, I bought a new 1983 Imperial, which I’ve kept since then in its original condition. She still has her EFI system that works well.
The early EFI systems seem to suffer from poor component quality. The RCA COSMAC 1802 CPU was pretty solid, but the other semiconductors, capacitors, etc. weren’t up to the task. Sometime in the later 1980s Chrysler pulled back as many cores that they could find and rebuilt them, this time with better quality control. I have one of those CCCs and HSPs on my car and it’s perfect with them.
The second problem was that, unlike today’s cars with OBD-2, the Imperial’s EFI can’t tell the tech what to fix. Today a mediocre mechanic can usually make a lucky guess that results in a correct repair, but diagnostic computers didn’t exist in the early 1980s. In an era where the guys in the shop were mechanics and not automotive technicians, they lacked the skills to correctly diagnose and therefore repair the car.
Troubleshooting can be non-trivial. But with comprehensive understanding of the system, it isn’t impossible to keep the EFI system working well.
I just had to comment. Back in 1980/81, I was living in Orange Park/Jacksonville, FL, and went in to a Chrysler dealership and saw this beautiful car. I was leery of Chrysler products although my grandfather was big on them. My mom had a used 53 plymouth, and it was good and 61 valiant my brother had–the door handle fell off during my driving test…that’s another story.
Everything about the car screamed beautiful, the seats everything, and then I got in it and the door handle fell off. I still debated getting it but the door handle falling off in the showroom made me even more leery. I stuck with Olds Cutlass I had for a couple more years.
I wanted a new 1981 Imperial badly. It was a beauty! Too bad they didn’t work well mechanically. However, they looked very old school too. The modern K-cars were new and were front wheel driver, smaller outside dimensions, big interior, and really good mpg which Imperial couldn’t match. When LeBaron debuted the following year, I was VERY impressed. I was a Yuppie and I liked the two door coupe and wagon versions of LeBaron best. Furthermore, it was obvious that the Imperial and the Cordoba shared a lot of sheet metal and glass areas. Also, there was no real automatic temperature air conditioning. That was off putting. The Imperial looked great, but should have been introduced in 1979. By 1981, the time for Imperial was over…unfortunately!