1970s Mercedes-Benz 450SE versus... mid-sized Imperial?

[Mahoning63]

The small car explosion was well under way by 1973 and it was the 1958 recession that lit the match. OPEC and high gas prices only accelerated the shift, pushing more folks into the smaller segments who otherwise might not have switched, or not as quickly.

 

The monumental shift to smaller cars during the Sixties was, in retrospect, fairly legible handwriting on the wall that a new luxury car market would soon emerge in the U.S. centered around smaller cars. Luxury buyers are people just like everyone else. If mainstream folks begin to choose smaller not out of necessity but choice, because they see a new type of value (handling, parking ease), then some of those elements will no doubt be appreciated by luxury buyers too. We know that roads in mountainous states can be pretty twisty in town and out in the hills, so handling can be a priority for some.

 

The reason these new luxury cars were more expensive (per pound) than traditional American cars can be explained in part by changes to U.S. tax law. There's a Curbside Classic article about GM's deadly sins and strategic change to FWD, planning of which began around 1975. Either the guy who wrote the article or one of the comments explained it. Suffice to say, rich people were steadily able to keep more of their riches beginning in the Fifties and increasing into the Seventies.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Mahoning63 (see edit history)

[8E45E]

Chrysler could have started in 1967 by bring over the Humber Imperial, which they owned at the time.  https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1141278

 

There were five (or more) experimental Super Snipes equipped with the 273 cubic inch engine to counter Rover's recently introduced Buick-engine P5B, but it never came to reality.   It would have made a nice 'compact' Imperial for the time.

 

Craig

[WQ59B]

11 hours ago, Mahoning63 said:

Something doesn't add up here. Seville came out in May '75 so its development had to have started well before OPEC.

 

There were a pair of styling concepts prior to, the La Scala was one, I believe the other was (again) named LaSalle. Tho the Seville did pull styling influence from them, they weren't initially part of the Seville Program. That took 16 months, so it was greenlit in Jan of 1974.
Seville was Cadillac's answer not so much to the gas crisis as it was to increasing requests by women for a smaller Cadillac.

 

10 hours ago, padgett said:

Seville was a gussied up NOVA and Cimmeron was a similar Cavalier. Cheap.

 

Yeah; not. Know what a 'gussied up Nova' was? A Nova Concours. Still not a Seville.

 

 

Seville and Nova share 0 sheetmetal, 0 in the interior. I believe the only glass that's the same is the windshield.
So they share wheel spindles, the trunk floor stamping and door hinges. Might have the same wiper blades, too.

It's not remotely the same car.

 

Edited November 16, 2019 by WQ59B (see edit history)

[WQ59B]

1 hour ago, Mahoning63 said:

There's a Curbside Classic article about GM's deadly sins and strategic change to FWD, planning of which began around 1975. Either the guy who wrote the article or one of the comments explained it.

Saw that piece; a bit slanted, didn't you think?

 

Cadillac initially intended for the Seville to be FWD, but the factory was at capacity producing FWD transaxles for the E-Bodies.
But Cadillac looked at FWD engineering programs at least as early as '59, and of course the Eldo went FWD for '67. Then, it was of course a luxury feature.

[Pfeil]

16 hours ago, WQ59B said:

 

There were a pair of styling concepts prior to, the La Scala was one, I believe the other was (again) named LaSalle. Tho the Seville did pull styling influence from them, they weren't initially part of the Seville Program. That took 16 months, so it was greenlit in Jan of 1974.
Seville was Cadillac's answer not so much to the gas crisis as it was to increasing requests by women for a smaller Cadillac.

 

 

Yeah; not. Know what a 'gussied up Nova' was? A Nova Concours. Still not a Seville.

 

 

Seville and Nova share 0 sheetmetal, 0 in the interior. I believe the only glass that's the same is the windshield.
So they share wheel spindles, the trunk floor stamping and door hinges. Might have the same wiper blades, too.

It's not remotely the same car.

 

 

NO they do not share the same windshield and No they don't share the same OUTSIDE sheet metal, but they share a partial floor and trunk area and most importantly they share since they are a SEMI UNIT body the SUBFRAME with the F and X bodies which allows the fine tuning of sway bar diameter, steering boxes, spring assy's. spindle rotors and calipers, insulation hardware etc.

Same subframe; 

Edited November 16, 2019 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[Mahoning63]

Here's the link to that Curbside Classic article and quote in Comments section by Paul Niedermeyer about U.S. tax rate. The article about GM's 1980s fwd cars and background must have been in a different CC article. Will post it if I find it.

 

https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-review/vintage-reviews-and-commentary-1981-cadillac-the-year-caddy-stopped-firing-on-all-cylinders/

 

"I’d say the bigger deletion was the huge impact US personal income tax rates made: in the 50s, the top incremental tax rate was like 92%. Kennedy’s tax cut of 1963 brought that down into the 50%range, and it came down more later. And Reagan’s 1986 tax overhaul brought it all the way down to 28%. In the 50s; the income compression in the US was one of the highest ever seen anywhere in the world due to these high incremental rates. It explains why Cadillacs were the car of choice for most rich folks, because most of them really couldn’t afford a much more expensive car.

But that changed dramatically during the subsequent decades, so the big rise in Mercedes’ price reflected the huge increase in disposable income of the affluent, who were growing as a class in size as well. To them, a Cadillac was just a cheap, garish, overdone Chevy, sold by the millions, and that was certainly not a way to display one’s new-found purchasing power."

[Mahoning63]

Paul thought the '75 Seville was one of GM's deadly sins and should have been based on the Opel Diplomat with its DeDion semi-independent rear.

 

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/09/curbside-classic-gms-deadly-sin-11-1977-cadillac-seville/

 

I don't think Seville was a deadly sin. Certainly it was more than a little white lie but GM must be given credit for doing SOMETHING. Plus a cool little group of hatchbacks the same year. And it really helped itself the with '77 downsizing. The other two Detroiters just lumbered along, one fascinated with The Box, the other keep'm moving with colorful (late) Joe Garagiola. 

[Pfeil]

30 minutes ago, Mahoning63 said:

Paul thought the '75 Seville was one of GM's deadly sins and should have been based on the Opel Diplomat with its DeDion semi-independent rear.

 

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/09/curbside-classic-gms-deadly-sin-11-1977-cadillac-seville/

 

I don't think Seville was a deadly sin. Certainly it was more than a little white lie but GM must be given credit for doing SOMETHING. Plus a cool little group of hatchbacks the same year. And it really helped itself the with '77 downsizing. The other two Detroiters just lumbered along, one fascinated with The Box, the other keep'm moving with colorful (late) Joe Garagiola. 

 

I don't think it was a deadly sin either, In fact I think it's a great balanced car. Take it on the track where you will see the difference of how it performs with other Cadillac's or it's domestic competitor Lincoln Versailles. Only problem with some Cadillac owners is the Oldsmobile engine in the Seville. However the gen 2 short deck Olds is a great engine with a great bore stroke ratio, just don't buy it in diesel form.

 

Edited November 16, 2019 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[WQ59B]

2 hours ago, Pfeil said:

 

NO they do not share the same windshield and No they don't share the same OUTSIDE sheet metal, but they share a partial floor and trunk area and most importantly they share since they are a SEMI UNIT body the SUBFRAME with the F and X bodies which allows the fine tuning of sway bar diameter, steering boxes, spring assy's. spindle rotors and calipers, insulation hardware etc.

So; nothing remotely of consequence in either the frequency of interchange or the interchange component itself (floor pans, or a subframe).
Yet there's still 'truth about cars' op-eds perpetuating a hard erroneous narrative. Well; it's a domestic, so you 'gotta hate it', I guess.

Seville, a first-ever, much smaller domestic luxury car, outsold the entire Mercedes U.S. line in '77 ( or '78) with a single model. It was a crushing success.
But there was a latent demand for such a car from Cadillac. The question is, were any Imperial-potentials looking for the same thing?

Edited November 16, 2019 by WQ59B (see edit history)

[Pfeil]

11 minutes ago, WQ59B said:

So; nothing remotely of consequence in either the frequency of interchange or the interchange component itself (floor pans, or a subframe).
Yet there's still 'truth about cars' op-eds perpetuating a hard erroneous narrative. Well; it's a domestic, so you 'gotta hate it', I guess.

Seville, a first-ever, much smaller domestic luxury car, outsold the entire Mercedes U.S. line in '77 ( or '78) with a single model. It was a crushing success.
But there was a latent demand for such a car from Cadillac. The question is, were any Imperial-potentials looking for the same thing?

Re read what I said.

[bryankazmer]

As others more knowledgeable than I in these cars expound on the details, it is absolutely an example of GM's parts bin engineering. Bit of F car, bit of X car, bit of Olds and then the resulting Frankenstein has a lower cost but is not perceived as a distinctive luxury car. If the goal was to be better than Ford's similar job with the Versailles, it was a success.  If it was to compete with European cars of similar size , it failed.

 

But it's hard to be objective from today, because most cars were pretty awful in 1975.  

[WQ59B]

34 minutes ago, Pfeil said:

Re read what I said.

"they share a partial floor and trunk area" and the 'subframe, which allows fine tuning of steering & suspension & brakes'.
I got that. The structural subframe is shared. However, there was extensive engineering done with every single component (the couple things shared and everything else).

But "absolutely an example of GM's parts bin engineering"? A subframe, some flat panel stampings and the door hinges? Is that all we're talking about?
 

Let's put it this way; if the Seville had a slightly different trunk pan stamping, a slightly different floor pan stamping, slightly different door hinges.... would it suddenly be transformed into a 'success' against the euro offerings? Maybe the stiffening ribs in the Seville's trunk pan could've been stamped at a diagonal instead. Has anyone in the history of either consumer shopping or journalistic hands-on inspection ever examined these things? Does the Nova somehow have a known grossly deficient trunk pan? (OK, it could be flatter).

 

16-month program allowed no time for a brand new Cadillac engine. 500 CI would not physically fit. Olds block was a fine choice there.
GM has been sharing the THM400 since '64 - is that also 'parts bin engineering'? Should Cadillac have only ever used a proprietary transmission?

I'm struggling to see how a handful of invisible components make the Seville a 'gussied up Nova'.
Actually; I'm struggling to see how anyone would proclaim that with any seriousness.

It's a wildly off-base claim, not supported by facts. It needs to die like any other unsupported conspiracy theory.

 

And back to the 'baby Imp'- it seems impossible, given the opinion of some folk, to remotely consider a Plymouth or Dodge body intermediate with a face lift to be the course of action. On one hand we're damning the Seville, while on the other 'Imperializing' a Coronet. ChryCo didn't have the money to keep the Imperial unique/special by '69, so a 100% unique 'baby Imp' in the early '70s would never have even reached the memo stage. Sure, it's fun to do a 'what if', but in that vein shouldn't it be 100% unique, and not parts bin engineered?

[bryankazmer]

Cadillac had 70+% of the luxury market in the 60's, and into the 70's .  By 1980 it was under half, about 20% in 1990, and 7% in 2018.  That's mixing some source info but the trend is very clear.  The actual volume peaked in the 70's at over 300,000 cars/yr.

The luxury market has many more similarly sized players today than in 1970, so it's unlikely anyone could have retained a dominant share.  The market and what customers wanted changed.  Cadillac's efforts to adapt were overall not very successful.

[bryankazmer]

I agree that parts sharing is a continuum, not an absolute, but engine from another division is a big deal.  LaSalles with Cadillac engines are Full Classics.  LaSalles with Oldsmobile engines are not, but are still nice cars.

Any luxury good's price premium is partly on brand and image.  Cadillac lost theirs.  I think the first Gen Seville was not the key step, although the Olds engine is an issue.  The Cimarron (which was much modified from the the Chevy) was a bad step.  The V8-6-4 was very badly received, with good reason.  The less said about making a diesel out of a gas engine, the better.

There is also the question of whether the high production (300k) years made Cadillacs so common that they were no longer seen as exclusive.

[WQ59B]

I agree that very high production is at odds with a luxury product. Cadillac sold 383K in 1979, about where Mercedes has been parked (37xK in '15-17). Cadillac's share percentage was much larger (and with a much smaller catalog). But given that we agree on excessive volume, I further that with; Cadillac should not be at 350K or thereabouts now either (despite a larger overall market), and a contraction of those levels, even in a bigger market, is a positive move, not a 'failure'. Can't have it both ways; can't say 'they built too many' AND say 'they failed because they don't build enough'. This gets right back to my earlier post RE consumers don't care how many are sold, and as long as the brand is operating at a healthy profit, it's pretty much all good. And volume ALWAYS fluctuates for a variety of factors.

The brand is on target for about 155K units in '19, right where they were in the early 60s. A nice, tidy luxury volume, IMO. I'd just like to see the 'product ceiling' punched up a lot more. New Escalade is supposed to be 'up there' as a product.

Cadillac's reputation tarnishing can absolutely be tied to the diesel, the V8-6-4, and the 4100. Too much of too important a criteria, in a short time period. The brand had 500 CI in '76, and 250 CI in '82. Then the Downsizing 2.0 in the mid-80s.
But the '76-79 Seville only elevated Cadillac, not tarnished it. The Olds block never was an issue with the Seville, which was built exceeding volume expectations and rose '76>'77>'78 (don't have '79's numbers handy).

[JamesR]

On 11/11/2019 at 1:18 PM, Matt Harwood said:

 

I think it was quality more than content or styling that changed consumers' buying habits. Domestic automakers sat back on their laurels about a decade too long, pretending that they would own 70-80% of the market indefinitely following the post-war boom of the '50s.

 

 

Very true. An acquaintance of mine recently asked me about my old cars, and during our conversation she made the (at one time common) statement that "old cars were made better than the new cars are." She was talking about American cars specifically. I told her that probably hasn't really been true for the last 20 years or so - since that time, American made cars started typically being able to go close to 200k miles without an engine rebuild. The thing is, there WAS a time when what she said was so profoundly, obviously and disturbingly true during the 70's and '80's that the mythology of it still lingers today (as her statement shows.)

 

I remember buying a 1978 Mercury Zephyr  as a used car in the early 1980's. I probably would've owned 10 cars before it, so I had enough experience with cars older than it to make a somewhat semi-educated comparison. The Zephyr was crap, plain and simple - not nearly as solid as the older cars I'd owned, despite having much fewer miles and being in much better cosmetic condition. It couldn't go highway speeds without serious shaking in the front. That could've been damage, but none of my old worn out cars ever did that. I especially remember the factory finishes of that era being atrocious, with lots of small orange peel and very little luster. Cheap plastic in the interior that would break with little effort. I remember thinking at the time that the car makers had maybe adopted a "simpler, cheaper disposable car" policy. Had a early 80's Malibu that was the same way. though it was slightly better than the Zephyr.

 

The thing is, the cars I was comparing the Zephyr to - mostly made from the mid '60's to early '70's - probably represented some earlier stages of the downward trend of American car quality. They were great looking cars from that era, but I remember them rusting out profusely. By comparison, you could still see (at that time) cars from the late 40's and earlier sitting in salvage yards without the rust through that my running driving cars had. Maybe also a function of the road salt use, but the old body panels were just more solid.

Edited November 16, 2019 by JamesR (see edit history)

[58L-Y8]

Interest subject, it certainly has generated much good discussion and many good insights. A bit of daily mental exercise is worthwhile.

 

Imperial: By 1970, it was obviously a corporate vanity project, one that doubtful was ever profitable. For a major company to be taken seriously as one of the Big Three, you had to have a luxury car nameplate in the portfolio. Colbert and Exner had made their best efforts for 1955-’63 to make Imperial distinctive with mostly disappointing results. Townsend gave it a shot-in-the-arm for 1964, let it ride through 1966. It then was folded back onto the volume uni-body, only to see the pattern repeated: a one year sales bounce to quickly settle back to the typical mediocre volumes. Once more for the fuselage body series and again the same result, not an encouragement to commit real resources but here’s where the motivation should have arisen.

 

Quite clearly by this point, there was a limited if steady market for a full-sized ultra-deluxe version of the New Yorker which Imperial had become. We all know their oft-repeated 1960’s mantra: “there will never be a small Chrysler”. By 1970, every medium-priced and luxury competitor had a ‘small’ version, their personal luxury coupes. All such were premium-priced, major volume producers based on shared bodies. But Chrysler wouldn’t join in until the trend was half over in 1975. A corporate management with a grasp of what the public wanted?

 

It would seem a no-brainer to create two new Chrysler models based on the B-Body platforms. First, the low-hanging fruit volume there for the taking: a 1970 Cordoba, which would have been nothing more than a neo-classic restyle of the Charger platform, taking cues for both the concurrent Cordoba de Oro and Concept 70X plus a bit of imitation of its competitors, the sincerest form of flattery.

 

The second would be the Satellite/Coronet sedan-based smaller Imperial to simply test the waters without profit being a primary objective, with modest sales expectations. Benchmark its spec’s on Mercedes-Benz as much as possible, raise the fit and finish quality to M-B levels. Then let it have five-six years to determine if the market would respond to such an effort. As it stood, Imperial had only the 1973 model year to live, got a reprieve for 1974-’75 by dropping to the same platform as all other Chryslers, disappointing results again. The attractive classic styling did live on for 1976-’78 as the New Yorker Brougham.

 

Did Chrysler have really anything to lose if they had tried a new approach for at least one Imperial model?

Edited November 16, 2019 by 58L-Y8
minor out of place word (see edit history)

[WQ59B]

25 minutes ago, 58L-Y8 said:

Colbert and Exner had made their best efforts for 1955-’63 to make Imperial distinctive with mostly disappointing results.

How so??

[Mahoning63]

1 hour ago, 58L-Y8 said:

Did Chrysler have really anything to lose if they had tried a new approach for at least one Imperial model?

 

Absolutely not. And the Chrysler and Imperial division chiefs needed to go into it with a real attitude, like Hud. "Let's us put our bread in some of that gravy while it is STILL HOT!!!" Get with the Plymouth and Dodge chiefs and insist on a staggered launch, the Chrysler coupe and Imperial sedan coming out the chute first, Plymouth and Dodge a month later. The line needed to get the quality right anyway, best if slow ramp up to full volume. And the Chrysler and Imperial ad budgets needed to be front loaded to hit the market hard in October, 1970 while Plymouth and Dodge held back till first of new year. This would ensure that ALL brands won, the new coupe and sedan styles being associated with Chrysler and Imperial and not Plymouth and Dodge. Dodge owners needed to feel they were buying a baby Imperial while Imperial owners needed to feel their car was the standard that others - the competition and even lesser Chrysler divisions - aspired to be like.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Mahoning63 (see edit history)

[Mahoning63]

There's a gentleman with a beautiful '73 Coronet police car devoid of vinyl top and side trim, a good starting point to photo-alter and compare to a '73 450SE. To my eye the Imperial would have been every bit as compelling as the M-B. But not identical. Instead longer, lower and wider as many Americans preferred. And with a style that looked to the future rather than the past, again resonating with Americans.

 

Note the taller grill on the Imperial. Coronet was too squat imo.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by Mahoning63 (see edit history)

[8E45E]

3 hours ago, 58L-Y8 said:

Did Chrysler have really anything to lose if they had tried a new approach for at least one Imperial model?

They tried again not once, but twice.  

 

Second attempt was under Lee Iacocca, and his Cordoba/Mirada-based two door coupe which supposedly had a good attention to detail by veteran assemblers on the factory floor, and state-of-the-art digital dash and fuel injection.  It proved to be less than stellar for sales, but then. it was only one body style.  A companion four door sedan may have pushed sales up some.

 

Third attempt was a four door sedan that shared the extended wheelbase 1990-1993 New Yorker Fifth Avenue-based Y-body, except it had hidden headlights and a full-width taillight.  Its sales didn't set the world on fire, either.

 

Craig

[Mahoning63]

Put a lid on both of them and wheel'm down to the curb for Monday morning pick-up.

[WQ59B]

They're not supposed to be high-volume models. There's a lot more to evaluating their validity than merely volume.

I think the vehicle some of you are talking about came a little bit later- the production '80s 5th Avenue. That was a much smaller class than the typical Imperial, and it made a solid impression.

 

Of course, Niedermeyer has already found a completely worn out & beat 5th Avenue and bullied it mercellessly, branding it a 'deadly sin' based on merely his own opinions.

[8E45E]

4 hours ago, Mahoning63 said:

Put a lid on both of them and wheel'm down to the curb for Monday morning pick-up.

Don't even waste your time & effort wheeling them down to the curb.  Just call the 1-800 number on Monday morning for free pick-up right where they sit!

 

Craig

[58L-Y8]

On ‎11‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 4:02 PM, WQ59B said:

How so??

“How so?“ Glad you ask. It’s doubtful there was much pleasure evinced by management executives when reviewing Imperial sales over the decade plus, to wit:

 

1955: 11,432*

1956: 10,684

1957: 37,557*

1958: 16,102

1959: 17,262

1960: 17,703

1961: 12,249*

1962: 14,337

1963: 14,108

1964: 23,285*

1965: 18,339

1966: 13,742

1967: 17,614*

1968: 15,361

1969: 22,077*

1970: 11,816

1971: 11,558

1972: 15,794

1973: 16,729

1974: 14,426*

1975: 8,830

Source: The Postwar Years: Chrysler & Imperial by Richard M. Langworth

 

The asterisks note years with either a completely new body series or a major restyle. For years 1957, 1964, 1967 and 1969, we see the sales bounce then volumes settle back to mediocre levels. Consider after all that investment and promotion, for 1970 they sold only 384 more cars than they did fifteen years prior. Years 1961 and 1974 were major restyles and the sales fell. Even with the increases for 1972-1973, Imperial was further rationalized with other Chryslers for 1974. Management was ready to acquiesce and abandon the luxury segment to Cadillac and Lincoln.

 

For comparison, Lincoln had struggled throughout the 1950’s to establish consistently increasing sales only to fail completely. It's fate was on the block in 1958-’60, it's reprieve the tread-setting 1961 Lincoln Continental.   It opened the decade at 24,820 units for 1960; by 1969, with the Continental Mark III, the total was 69,241.

 

Chrysler really had nothing to lose by trying a new approach for at least one Imperial model.

[WQ59B]

Ahh yes; the domestic sales bugaboo. It's (comparatively) cheap/American, therefore it must have towering volume. With domestics, it's always about the volume.
Mercedes, with numerous models, selling a mere 45,000 in 1978 (like 11% of Cadillac's volume)? WHO CARES, right? Who ever even talks about mercedes' volume being grotesquely deficient / uncompetitive?

Question : what numbers for Imperial would be desirable/acceptable? I mean; to ChryCo, of COURSE they'd love to sell 223K Imperials. Cadillac might love to sell 1 million Caddys.

 

But WE'RE on the 'other side of the fence' as consumers/enthusiasts. If Cadillac was selling 223K and Lincoln 38K in '69, and Imperial moved 22K.... what would people like to see?

 

Let's pick a random number; 75K. Where were those other 53K units going to come from? Not from mercedes; Imperial buyers weren't interested and mercedes/bmw didn't have competing product nor sufficient volume. Maybe some could be pulled up from the next tier down, but an Electra 225 sedan was $4611, and an Imperial Crown was $6411- a huge price jump.
I guess the only logical answer would be pulling sales from Cadillac, except the juggernaut of Cadillac sales from '65-79 seems to have been impenetrable. Lincoln didn't make any progress stealing from Cadillac, they were just floating higher in the water. Lincoln went from 13K in '60 to 25K in '61, and Cadillac sales only wavered downward by 4K units (and I strongly believe it was the redesign, not Lincoln snatching buyers).

Consumer-driven markets are never going to result in 'volume equality' among competing brands. Look at modern day audi vs. mercedes' numbers.

Yes, eventually OEMs kill off what's not glowing golden on the balance sheet, but it's a damn shame in too many instances.

If ChryCo had a crystal ball and could see the annual sales starting in '59 and reaching forward to the end, and turned to each other in '58 and just pulled the plug, we'd never have had Chrysler's unique and interesting take on top tier luxury. Electro-luminescent, stainless-steeled, squared-wheeled, tail-finned, chrome-eagled futurism, unrealized.

 

I'm a car enthusiast. The long-running narrative that many domestic models are •crap• or at the very least 'a Major Problem' merely because they didn't sell XXX thousand units is, to me, like going to the shore and only staring down at the sand all day. SO MUCH more going on than the sales chart.

 

 

[Mahoning63]

I think we have to assume that Imperial was dropped after 1975 because it wasn't profitable, and not just for the '75 model year but for years prior. Else, why would an OEM walk away from a profitable brand?

 

My original post assumed that Imperial was struggling to make a profit in the Sixties, and put forth a strategy that accepted Imperial's low volumes as reality and tried to build a new business case around it: smaller package, higher content, higher pricing, higher per unit margins. Beyond that, the new Imperial could have sparked a new way of thinking for the rest of Chrysler Corp. Imagine the lesser brands beginning to add content to its small cars while GM and Ford did not. And focused more on quality. And drove stronger pricing, not sales, as a result.

 

Re: '81 Imperial. Yes the team worked hard at the appearance details. Yes the I/P had lots of tech. Yes the interior materials were top notch. Yes the engine was fuel injected. And yes the car was carefully assembled in its own factory. But... why still a solid rear axle? Why standard rear drum brakes? Why the pillow soft ride? Why the cheesy honeycomb wheels? Why the bumpers sticking out when new S-Class were tucked in? And worst of all, why copy Mitchell's dead-end sheer look and an ancient Rolls-Royce limo butt? Four square lathered in cheap tinsel is one reason why the Big 3 sales fell apart in these years.

 

Clearly Imperial was targeting a different consumer than the Euro imports. They, as we now like to say, phoned it in.

 

To add to earlier post, here are the numbers on that series, from Imperial Club. Note that they are for Calendar Years. Bad time to launch a car given the company's very public troubles but still, these numbers stink!

 

1980    6,241*
1981    3,466
1982    1,746
1983    932

[Mahoning63]

Not to mention the grill that the '81 Imperial stole from Lincoln, itself having stolen it from Rolls-Royce. Was there anything on that Lazy Boy Imperial that was original? Ten years earlier at least Engel's team was writing their own music, and boy was it sensuous.

[Rusty_OToole]

The Imperial was Iaccoca's attempt to repeat the success he had with the long hood short deck formula at Ford with the Mustang, Cougar, Tbird and Lincoln Mark III. The classic rear styling was conceived before Cadillac, it was a coincidence both came out about the same time.

Unfortunately the time had passed when that kind of car made a hit with American luxury car buyers, even with Frank Sinatra's endorsement.

Incidentally Car and Driver tested the Imperial in the same issue as the VW Rabbit. The V8 Imperial got practically  the same hiway mileage as the 4 cylinder Rabbit. 25 vs 26 MPG.

[8E45E]

3 hours ago, 58L-Y8 said:

“How so?“ Glad you ask. It’s doubtful there was much pleasure evinced by management executives when reviewing Imperial sales over the decade plus, to wit:

 

1956: 10,684

1957: 37,557*

1958: 16,102

 For years 1957, 1964, 1967 and 1969, we see the sales bounce then volumes settle back to mediocre levels.

It is true the unbelievable gain for 1957 was due to the sensational across-the-board restyle all Chrysler lines received. 

 

In Imperial's case, I suspect the huge gain was also from Packard owners who did not want what was essentially an overdressed Studebaker President.

 

Craig

[WQ59B]

4 hours ago, Mahoning63 said:

I think we have to assume that Imperial was dropped after 1975 because it wasn't profitable, and not just for the '75 model year but for years prior. Else, why would an OEM walk away from a profitable brand?

 

My original post assumed that Imperial was struggling to make a profit in the Sixties, and put forth a strategy that accepted Imperial's low volumes as reality and tried to build a new business case around it: smaller package, higher content, higher pricing, higher per unit margins. Beyond that, the new Imperial could have sparked a new way of thinking for the rest of Chrysler Corp. Imagine the lesser brands beginning to add content to its small cars while GM and Ford did not. And focused more on quality. And drove stronger pricing, not sales, as a result.

 

Re: '81 Imperial. Yes the team worked hard at the appearance details. Yes the I/P had lots of tech. Yes the interior materials were top notch. Yes the engine was fuel injected. And yes the car was carefully assembled in its own factory. But... why still a solid rear axle? Why standard rear drum brakes? Why the pillow soft ride? Why the cheesy honeycomb wheels? Why the bumpers sticking out when new S-Class were tucked in? And worst of all, why copy Mitchell's dead-end sheer look and an ancient Rolls-Royce limo butt? Four square lathered in cheap tinsel is one reason why the Big 3 sales fell apart in these years.

 

'80-83 Imperials volume is not at all bad for an exclusive, limited production, top shelf ultra-luxury coupe.
mercedes sold 9K SLs in '82, reached 15K by '84, slid to 4K by '93, and struggles to move 2K now.

• Imperial had begun to be 'sucked back into the fold' when it was downgraded to a Chrysler chassis, and Corporate failed to put hardly any effort into styling (tho the interiors were quite loaded). Just watched a modern video review of a '69, and the exterior is mind-numbingly bland. ChryCo turned the tap off. Sales dropping from the mean were inevitable. The earlier years were quite awesome tho.

• Solid axles excelled in ride isolation. In order to get an IRS to match a live axle, a lot of tech & engineering went into them specifically toward that goal. This finding was held by numerous engineers who had tried many different systems, including from Rolls, Maserati & Opel. Cadillac echoed that finding when developing the Seville. IRS is of course better suited to high-end handling, but this was not the Imperial's (or the s-class's) mission.

 

• s-class bumpers were only 'tucked in' (as much as the Imperial's were) on the Euro-spec models. In the USDM, s-class bumpers were bookshelves. Meanwhile, the Imperial was pretty early in transitioning to body-colored bumpers (yes; the center horizontal was chrome but the valance was body-color). And the whole assembly was integrated into the front fascia, not a dangling, bolted-on chrome bar with huge rubber end caps. Looking at pics of '80 S's, instead of engineering a bumper that fit, they added thick chrome bars below the headlights to attempt to fill the yawning gap there. Mercedes really didn't become product-competitive until the '90s (when they excelled).

mercedes also had terrible interiors in this period (70s-80s), cheap plastic consoles, bad plastics in & out, exposed fasteners all over, and those giant black rubber steering wheels that must've been overstocks from the truck division. Often times it was the only black thing in the interior.

Edited November 18, 2019 by WQ59B (see edit history)

[Mahoning63]

Re: sales, here's a period article from Imperial Club and note the comments about ride and handling.

 

http://www.imperialclub.com/~imperialclub/Articles/81CarDriver/index.htm

 

Says they planned to build 21,000 Imperials the first year. That number probably came from Marketing which means the business case was probably built around it or something close to it. Let's say the break-even was roughly half that, 10K units. That means there was no business case at the sales rate they got, which  averaged around 4K annually over three years. To make money they would have had to increase the price from $18,000 to something well into the 20's. Do that and the 4K average drops to 2 or 3K . Drop that and pricing would have needed to go to $30K or more. Do that and...    Point is, there was most likely no business case for this car.

 

Makes one wonder if there ever was a business case for a stand-alone Imperial design. Cadillac post-war shared its standard sedan body (foorpan, door inners, roof, glass) with Buick and later Olds too. Imperial and Lincoln tried to do their own bodies beginning in 1957 and 1958, respectively. Imperial benefited from a Chrysler chassis, stretched for more rear legroom. Lincoln shared T-Bird chassis, again stretched. I don't know if '57 Imperial's door inners were shared with Chrysler, might have been. '58 Lincoln's were definitely unique. Point is both marques were adding more cost to their cars vs. Cadillac while trying to earn profit on less volume. Presumably they thought this was the only way to beat Cadillac in the late 50s. It took Imperial 10 years of suffering before it came back to the fold. Lincoln took 12 years. Mercedes sold taxis and low end versions in Europe and elsewhere, high end versions only in the U.S. which was a huge market for it. That broad sweep is how they made their business case work.

 

If you don't like the '69 Imperial what you are probably saying is that you don't like the Chrysler Corp. large fuselage design, because Imperial and Chrysler shared bodies and roof, Dodge and Plymouth a 2 inch shorter body taken out in the rear door. Imperial had a unique 3 inch longer axle-dash vs. Chrysler from '67-73.

 

There was a brief moment in time when Imperial might have upped its price several thousand dollars without reducing sales too much. The year was 1960 and the car, a more fully realized vision of what Exner had wanted, '58 D'Elegance being his vision. Some here might have seen this recent work-up in Curbside Classic.

 

S-Class without IRS? Mission failure. The car was sold everywhere in the world. Ride and handling, which are  always a balance, favored handling outside of the U.S. and for obvious reasons. Within the U.S. the balance was changing in this time frame as more Americans experienced better handling cars, plus packaging benefits, plus fact that more and more folks didn't want to be totally isolated from the road. Non-independent rears held on longer for FWD cars because most of the action was happening up front and trunk package didn't suffer.

 

Your point about shelf on M-B bumpers is well-taken. Think M-B's solution looked more integrated, Imperial's grafted on and with broken surfaces where M-B was continuous. In black the Imperial looks like a car Darth Vader would have driven.

 

M-B had "solid" looking interiors and analog gauges and yes, lots of vinyl. High quality "M-B Tex" but vinyl nonetheless. How did they get away with it? Because the whole car, interior and exterior, left the impression of a bank vault. And the seats were supportive. I remember sitting in the back seat of my neighbor's brand new '79 Seville, bumming a ride home from high school. We hit a bump and the  entire rear bucked. When we came down my @ss hit the floorpan under the seat. Up till then I was pretty impressed with the car, it had soft power that moved it out quickly and quietly. But after that I was left with impression of a nice car with a few inexcusable weaknesses: cheap suspension and cheap non-supportive seats.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Mahoning63 (see edit history)

[WQ59B]

• The 'GM shared body' issue likewise gets overstated. What that meant was the same hard points (cowl) and a lot of the same mounting points so Fisher could build them on the same jigs. Fisher= body shells, Divisions = chassis/everything else. And usually (not always) the same greenhouses. But make no mistake, the commonality as far as Fisher was concerned was strictly minimal. As each Division was billed separately, there was a very negligible cost savings by having a Cadillac, Buick and Olds on a C-Body. Later, certainly by the '80s, the inbreeding was chronic.

• The Imperial was a letdown stylistically once it went to the fuselage body. Dodge & Plymouth big cars actually came out better, with visual detail. The Imperial was stately, it was imposing, but it sorely lacked detail/definition, ESP compared to even '67-68. Go back to the dynamic '60 and forget about it. I don't think the '69 Imp holds up well at all next to a '69 Cadillac. Maybe that's just me.

 

• I'm familiar with the '58 D-Elegance, my friend Don Butler designed a lot of it while at Chrysler and I have copies of the factory photos. That car had some very interesting detailing but some of the proportions were off vs. the segment's established look. It would have had to gone thru some revisions.

• Here's the period bumpers in question. Mercedes's has zero integration, and was apparently approached with the same mindset OEMs had in the 1940s (or a Mustang of 1965) :

Edited November 18, 2019 by WQ59B (see edit history)

[WQ59B]

I disagree heartily that mercedes' interiors in these years (60s, 70s, 80s) gave positive impressions. They were spartan and loaded with cheap plastics. Door panels were flat & featureless, with VW-esque armrests. Seats often showed exposed hinging hardware. Plood was of shelf-paper quality. Switchgear was always black plastic. Seats were decent, but no better than the buckets in full-size 60s Pontiacs (which were actually pretty good). It's just really hard to get past the #1 interface the driver cannot avoid- those non-adjustable truck steering wheels staring up at you. Not sure when mercedes eventually made power steering standard, maybe they were a cheap fix for the lack of PS.

[padgett]

a) "I'm struggling to see how a handful of invisible components make the Seville a 'gussied up Nova'." lived with one for a while so am allowed. Sure looked like a NOVA. Same-same my '78 Sunbird V8 was a "gussied up Vega" (and broke many of the same things. Good thing 13x6 Vega GT wheels were plentiful since I kept cracking the right front - had to check after every run after once crossed the finish line with the whole hub broken out).

b) after he retired my father had a 250C that he loved (of course previously had a Karmann Ghia and an ID-19). I always thought they were underpowered for Florida two lane blacktops but fine for the "slow corner". Also need to remember that the Merc headlights and bumper were "US only". Home country ones were much better looking.

c) GM had tilt steering in the early 60s. I always liked the wheel all the way down.

d) Or a Studebaker Lark. Have always felt Mercedes makes the world's best taxis and to fit European roads they were denied long noses.

e) Only thing I remember about Chryslers from the doldrums is "a door is ajar" and the Cordoba "rich Cornithian  leather".

f) Pontiac introduced the "integrated front bumper" in 1968. 1973 Grand Am was the first four door I liked since the 1958 Seville and has the 5 mph bumper. Didn't get one because the planned SD455 was cancelled due to the Pontiac-EPA shenanigans that were going on.

 

Unlike many "I wuz dere." and working for GM in '73.

Edited November 18, 2019 by padgett (see edit history)

[Mahoning63]

46 minutes ago, WQ59B said:

the commonality as far as Fisher was concerned was strictly minimal. As each Division was billed separately, there was a very negligible cost savings by having a Cadillac, Buick and Olds on a C-Body.

 

Yes, it would make sense that Fisher billed all three brands similar amounts for their bodies. The key is that the cost was lower vs each having its own unique body,  because all three divisions shared:

 

 - Engineering cost to design the bodies

 - tooling cost for the body stampings including roof

 - facility cost to set up the body shop

 

These are big line items in their own right and become huge if a division goes its own way. Who pays for it? The customer. Cadillac's sharing with B/O is one reason, and a big one at that, why Cadillac was so profitable from 1940 - 1980 and it's how Escalade prints money now.

 

I was referring to the Eighties S-Class bumper. That car launched in the U.S. same year as '81 Imperial. What you showed was a Seventies M-B. One can argue that the 240D was closely priced to Imperial but we are talking about design state-of-art.  

Edited November 18, 2019 by Mahoning63 (see edit history)

[Pfeil]

48 minutes ago, WQ59B said:

• The 'GM shared body' issue likewise gets overstated. What that meant was the same hard points (cowl) and a lot of the same mounting points so Fisher could build them on the same jigs. Fisher= body shells, Divisions = chassis/everything else. And usually (not always) the same greenhouses. But make no mistake, the commonality as far as Fisher was concerned was strictly minimal. As each Division was billed separately, there was a very negligible cost savings by having a Cadillac, Buick and Olds on a C-Body. Later, certainly by the '80s, the inbreeding was chronic.

• The Imperial was a letdown stylistically once it went to the fuselage body. Dodge & Plymouth big cars actually came out better, with visual detail. The Imperial was stately, it was imposing, but it sorely lacked detail/definition, ESP compared to even '67-68. Go back to the dynamic '60 and forget about it. I don't think the '69 Imp holds up well at all next to a '69 Cadillac. Maybe that's just me.

 

• I'm familiar with the '58 D-Elegance, my friend Don Butler designed a lot of it while at Chrysler and I have copies of the factory photos. That car had some very interesting detailing but some of the proportions were off vs. the segment's established look. It would have had to gone thru some revisions.

• Here's the period bumpers in question. Mercedes's has zero integration, and was apparently approached with the same mindset OEMs had in the 1940s (or a Mustang of 1965) :

 

The bumpers on the Mercedes are a add on for U.S . regulation. Please consider a European model where the bumper was integrated. I don't think  Mercedes is going to build a world  car just to please the U.S.   There were many cars where this happened. Just look what happened to the Nissan's Datsun Z car in 1975 compared to the 69 1/2 model . Still, in the picture above at least the Mercedes looks like a car where as the Chrysler looks like something that came out of Hollywood Si-Fi of that era. And when Mercedes was ready on it's own timeline design something else like the car pictured in the below thread happened. 

Edited November 18, 2019 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[Pfeil]

4 minutes ago, Mahoning63 said:

 

Yes, it would make sense that Fisher billed all three brands similar amounts for their bodies. The key is that the cost was lower vs each having its own unique body,  because all three divisions shared:

 

 - Engineering cost to design the bodies

 - tooling cost for the body stampings including roof

 - facility cost to set up the body shop

 

These are big line items in their own right and become huge if a division goes its own way. Who pays for it? The customer. Cadillac's sharing with B/O is one reason, and a big one at that, why Cadillac was so profitable from 1940 - 1980 and is how Escalade prints money now.

 

I was referring to the Eighties S-Class bumper. That car launched in the U.S. same year as '81 Imperial. What you showed was a Seventies M-B. One can argue that the 240D was closely priced to Imperial but we are talking about design state-of-art.  

That is a great well proportioned car

[padgett]

Have to remember that in 1970 GM had over 60% of the domestic market and by the late '60s the Gov was talking about monopolies and breaking out car lines. GMs response was to eliminate the divisions (and company) independence by separating divisions responsible for things like carbs, radios, transmissions, HVAC, ignition and starters, & assembly from the individual car lines with a longer term goal to move to "corporate" engines (mostly only happened with small blocks).

[WQ59B]

Correct- the generational break on the s-class was MY81 in the U.S., but the pic I posted was a 1980 model.
Daimler did do a nice nosejob on the '81-up car, modernized it by a good 15 years right there (heavy side cladding aside). Still I contend it wasn't until the 1998 redesign that it was truly fully integrated.

 

9 minutes ago, Pfeil said:

The bumpers on the Mercedes are a add on for U.S . regulation. Please consider a European model where the bumper was integrated. I don't think  Mercedes is going to build a world  car just to please the U.S.

 

I'm of course aware of the US regs requiring the bumpers be brought up to federal crash-worthiness, but it was mercedes that came up with that 'solution', not anyone else. And it was that solution that was competing with Imperial, not the off-shoire Euro version. If daimler had no intentions of adapting to the US market, why not just pull out? Obviously they set their sights squarely on this market, and made many many changes to better fit in it over time.  The bumper solution wasn't one of them, and the front end was cartoonish and heavily dated as a result.

Seems an appropriate spot to ask; if mercedes was unwilling to build relatively attractive/well-fitting bumpers for a major market, should Imperial have engineered a brand new IRS for that same market?