(first posted in 2011) You got to hand it to Lee Iacocca; he was given an utter basket case of a car company and one new K car. And just like a magician, he kept reaching into his hat for a solid decade, pulling out one new variation after another on a theme in the key of K. Would you believe this? Ah,…yeah. This? Maybe. How about this? Umm…And when he reached in one last time and pulled out the TC, everybody laughed. Which is not what Lee had in mind at all. Lee was given the hook, but we’ll always associate the TC with the sin of pretentious overreaching.
I just realized now why I’m finally getting to the TC: it needed to be preceded by the Chrysler-Ghias to help put it in perspective. Note to Lee Iacocca: if you’re going to do an Italo-Americano, don’t do it on a K-car. And don’t release it a year after its styling has already appeared on one of your mass-production cars. And ditch the porthole; it kinda’ worked on the ’56 T-Bird, but…And, most of all, make it memorable. The Dodge-Ghia (top) may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it sure as hell wasn’t mistaken for a 1954 Dodge Royal.
Which one shall we take on first? Or are they all painfully obvious? The restyled “aero” Le Baron (bottom) beat the TC to the showrooms by several years. When the TC was first announced in 1986, that look was still kind of fresh. By the time the TC finally showed up, it was stale bread, even if it was baked in Italy.
As the first Italian-American to reach the top of the car business (equivalent to Kennedy being the first Catholic President), Lido’s natural pull to the old country was understandable. And his first go-around with Alejandro DeTomaso did produce the memorable Pantera.
Now that was on par with with the Chrysler-Ghias. I don’t have to go through the motions comparing a Pantera with a 1971 Mercury Marquis Brougham, right? Yes, Lee and Alejandro’s first little trans-Atlantic fling produced quite a love child. But second times around are always so problematic; everyone’s older and more cynical, for one. Love seemed to have very little to do with the TC, for sure; more like a hooker and a gigolo fleshing out the financial details of an odd coupling.
Let’s take a closer look at what they agreed to do to each other: the TC was built on a shortened Dodge Daytona platform. There were no less than three engines in the TC’s failed three-year life-span: the 89’s got a slightly modified Turbo II 2.2 L four coupled to the old three-speed automatic transaxle. Given the turbo lag, narrow power band, and the buzziness of the (non-balance shaft) 2.2 four, this was not a good way to make a first impression.
The ’90 and ’91 TC became a tri-continental affair, with Mitsubishi contributing its 3.0 L SOHC V6, now coupled to the infamous Ultra-Self-Destruct-O-Matic A604 in its maiden outing. Some 500 TCs were built with a different power train altogether: a specially built turbo 2.2 L four with a Cosworth 16 valve cylinder head and other go-fast goodies. It was paired with a Getrag five speed manual box. Undoubtedly, the ultimate K car engine-tranny combo. Also undoubtedly scary to source parts for nowadays.
The TC was also bestowed with then-new ABS and some special springs and shocks. If it’s the same ABS system our ’92 Caravan came with, it was a disaster that Chrysler had to extend a lifetime warranty on. But I know the TC has some devotees. That’s good. Every car has its redeeming qualities, and I’m sure the TC has its share. It certainly is the ultimate K car. Whether it made sense to fork over some $75k in today’s dollars to buy one is another question.
Apparently, not too many folks saw the value proposition, despite the Maserati name and some nicely stitched leather in the cabin. Lee had assumed TC sales of 5 – 10 k annually. A total 7300 TCs were sold in three years, way below that target. Oh well; I’m sure he and Alejandro had fun hashing out their baby. Seems like DeTomaso got the better end of the deal, consistent with his track record.
Now why am I showing you this pairing of K-based cars? It represents two of the more extreme ends of the speKtrum, in terms of their relative success and otherwise. Curiously enough, these two cars are within one-tenth of an inch of each other in overall length. I picked the TC for today’s CC because I wanted to do the shortest K-car ever, among other things. After I started, I suddenly had a moment of panic: is the SWB Caravan shorter? Turns out one of these is 175.8″ long, the other is 175.9″ long. Did I guess right?
These are the lofty issues I struggle with. Well, lengthy, in this case.
Obviously, I’ve run out of inspiration on the TC. Actually, I never had any. The TC is like a long-forgotten dream, until you actually run into one on the street. And then you ask yourself: did I really dream this?
‘You can sell a cheap car that looks like an expensive one, but you can’t sell an expensive car that looks like a cheap one’ is one of the hard-and-fast, unbreakable rules of the auto industry, some of the more memorable examples being the Cadillac Cimarron and downsized 1962 Mopars. Of all people, Iacocca surely knew it. But by the time it became apparent that the Lebaron-lookalike TC wasn’t going to make it to market until well after the Lebaron convertible, it was too late.
One of the ironies of the TC’s failure is that it may have come primarily due to the success of the original Lebaron convertible. Chrysler’s finance people had told Iacocca that a Lebaron convertible would be too expensive to be profitable, but he overrode them, and his instincts were proven to be correct when the car became a hit.
I can’t help but believe the same thing happened with the TC but, this time, the finance guys were the ones who were right when De Tomaso’s production delays meant the much more expensive TC wouldn’t arrive until years after the very similar (but a whole lot cheaper) Lebaron.
BTW, it was mentioned that the TC fiasco caused Iacocca to cancel future De Tomaso projects. Does anyone know what those other projects might have been?
Ford, in my opinion, really got 1989 right. They introduced the Taurus SHO and the Thunderbird Super Coupe, and both were cutting edge cars that were different enough to appeal to different markets. Do you want a coupe or a 4 door sedan? A luxo muscle personal luxury cruiser with a supercharger and tire shredding low end torque and fancy things like IRS, or do you want a high revving overhead cam 4 valve per cylinder with split port induction engine, along with an aggressive manual transmission?
Taking this into consideration, it’s ridiculous how Chrysler sold ANY of these. It would have had to be to a fairly clueless person, and/ or to someone who was older that had the money that was also a Chrysler/ Dodge/ Plymouth diehard.
Yes Ryan, the early buyers were ‘diehards’ for sure and they had money and they also had golf bags to toss into the trunk and a membership and a friend to Golf with. Combine all this and you can see how the TC was the ‘Perfect Golf Cart’ to transport the 2 of then to their favorite Golf Course. Those were my thoughts long before I bought my ’89 TC by Maserati. I had quit the dealership life in ’88 and never had to deal with these cars at my own shop until I bought one in ’95. Why did I Buy one you might ask, because of all the bitching and badmouthing about this car. I had to learn for myself why you all hated this car so much. I found out, it is not the car but your attitudes! I have now driven my ’89 TC with the little 2.2L Turbo engine to over 304,500 miles. It’s STILL a great road car and performer. You guys LOOSE! If You don’t like the looks, TOUGH.
Early ’90’s… playing golf at a nice public course with two friends and a fourth was added to our group. He was an older guy, a bit hefty, dark hair that looked dyed, and a fair amount of gold on his neck and wrists. Basically, he was pretty tacky looking by my admittedly conservative standards. Somewhere along the way he made sure we knew he had a Maserati. As a car guy I was interested, and he said he’d let me look it over when we finished. You know the rest of the story!
Taken by itself, it’s an attractive car. I really like the way it looks. But a 75 thousand (adjusted for price) cost is just way too much. Now, if it had its own specific engine (and something pretty exotic as a V8, maybe a forerunner to the 4.6L sohc Ford or the GM Northstar engine, Chrysler could have introduced some sort of new, exciting engine, and could have wrung the last bit of life out of the K car platform. But any engine like that would have made more sense in the early 90’s with a total redesign of their cars, which is also when Ford and GM rolled theirs out.
The interior, from what I’ve seen, is nothing special either. It’s pretty easy to see why Chrysler had given Iacocca the boot after this, because it’s pretty lazy. UNLESS Chrysler were–despite the successes of the 80’s–still in a financial black hole and ill equipped to take chances on new engines and platforms. In a way, this kind of reminds me of AMC’s cost stretching on a platform, and that no matter how they chopped up and re-packaged a Hornet to make a Gremlin, their audience was growing impatient with the variations of the same platform.
If the Lebaron lookalike exterior for an exorbitant price wasn’t enough to turn away any potential customers, the run-of-the-mill, plastic-fantastic Daytona dash would certainly have done it. The TC might have been a good-looking car, but special in any way it was not.
The TC boondoggle might not have taken down Chrysler, but I can easily see it being responsible for cementing the end of Iacocca’s tenure at the company. He’d had a great run but it was all over.
Marketing 101,
Chrysler’S TC by Maserati
Is it a Chrysler? Is it a Maserati? It has Mitsubishi engine? WTF? Let’s look at their more mainstream models. Lebaron 123, Lebaron XYZ, Lebaron Oh Whoopee. Honey, let’s go look at the Buick’s. It’s just easier.
Not many mentions of how this compared with the Cadillac Allante, which went over a bit better, but not by much. To me, at least Cadillac tried. The Allante got the Northstar engine (which was not a big plus, long term) and came fully loaded (I believe the car phone was the only option, forgive me if my memory is incorrect). Plus, it was a larger car and mostly unique from other models. This was too much a LeBaron after a little nip and tuck over in Italy.
For all the faults, I still like these things. If for no other reason, one should buy one just to join a Maserati owner’s club. It seems to upset those folks, LOL.
I sure learned a lot more about the TC than I knew. I remember following the development of it through Popular Mechanics and the comparisons to the Lebaron and Mercedes SL. I always thought it was a letdown but I see it has some virtues of it’s own. That Pantera is just sex! The TC is one of the better car “by another car maker” efforts I’ve seen.
This somehow reminds me of the night when Johnny Carson did a bit about the most expensive hotel room in America, and it was in a Holiday Inn somewhere in middle America.
In all honesty, the TC did have a chance. Compare it with the sharp-creased, original, 1982-86 Lebaron convertible. If de Tomaso had had his act together and the TC had made it into showrooms in, say, late 1985, the idea of getting an ‘exotic’, svelte Maserati through Chrysler dealers held promise. When viewed next to the original Lebaron convertible, Iacocca might have gotten away with it.
But when it didn’t make it until well after the lookalike (and much cheaper) 1987 Lebaron convertible, the TC instantly became dead-car-walking.
Maserati-ChryslerTC-Oxymoron
Never understood the TC. I recall, maybe four years ago, someone trying to sell two of them on the San Francisco region Craigslist. Up there forever and then disappeared only to reappear months later and be up there forever again.
Saw this one at the grocery store in Apache Junction about 2 years ago.
Re post.
Picture #2
CC effect – I just saw one of these parked on the street in my Brooklyn neighborhood. Can’t remember the last time I’d see one prior to that.
There were 501 built with the 16V head. The last was a 1991 built specially for a Chrysler executive. It was the only ’91 with that engine.
One thing you missed Sean, is the fact that the vehicle itself was built on the Maserati assembly line in Milan. That’s the short and sweet fact. If you were to read a VIN plate riveted to the drivers door of every TC you would be so informed. The fact that you don’t like the porthole in the hard roof is just too bad, Lee wanted it there it remember his glory days at Ford when he put a similar porthole in the roof of the Thunderbird. So you like it with the roof off, that’s kind of you.
Here’s a VIN breakdown :