The domestic luxury-car field saw output rise by a healthy 11 percent in 1968, but the Imperial went in the opposite direction — down by almost 13 points.
At least on paper, the Imperial should have done much better. It had a newer body and a broader range of models than the Lincoln Continental, yet it was outsold by a three-to-one margin. The Imperial’s share of the luxury-car market fell to 5.2 percent, which was close to the lowest it had been since being spun off as a stand-alone brand in 1955.
What went wrong? The Imperial arguably had some meaningful advantages, such as superior roadworthiness for an American luxury car partly due to its torsion-bar suspension and Torqueflite automatic transmission.
The Imperial’s styling wasn’t iconic, but it had trendy features such as brougham-style rooflines, full-width taillights and a trunk-lid logo big enough to be seen from outer space.
A new front end in 1968 fixed the biggest problem with the previous year’s design, which looked inordinately busy. In addition, the trim on the modernist dashboard was switched from a fairly generic woodgrain to more distinctive “antique bronze.”
Even so, Motor Trend magazine wasn’t impressed with the Imperial’s looks, suggesting that the car “may not turn many heads with its Dowager Queen styling” (Sanders, 1968; p. 68). Neither were Richard M. Langworth and Jan. P. Norbye, who described the Imperial’s design as “conservative and not very distinguished” (1985, p. 207).
Meanwhile, Popular Mechanics reported that in a survey of Imperial owners, almost 38 percent of respondents ranked workmanship as their biggest dislike (Hartford, 1968).
Workmanship issues undercut ownership experience
The Popular Mechanics owner report on the Imperial started off in a decidedly unflattering manner for a luxury car.
“Whistling down the pike isn’t the thrill to some Imperial owners that it is to others,” wrote auto editor Bill Hartford. “The problem is that high-speed driving only worsens the problem of air and water embarrassingly leaking into this regal automobile. Imperial owners tell us there’s only one reason for their discomfort: poor workmanship” (1968, p. 100).
Owners also complained about spotty paint jobs, doors not closing tight, and sloppy trim and upholstery fit. That’s not a good sign for an automobile that cost twice as much as the average new car in 1968. Yet a Popular Mechanics survey found that almost 48 percent of respondents bought an Imperial because of past experience with the brand. The average owner had had 2.65 Imperials — and some more than a dozen (Hartford, 1968).
“All in all, Imperial owners are an overwhelmingly faithful lot,” concluded Hartford. “They love their car and, even though there are some things that make ’em fighting mad, it’s obvious they’re not going to switch” (1968, p. 228).
Imperial didn’t grow with booming luxury-car market
Perhaps the core problem was that the Imperial inspired the loyalty of past owners but wasn’t winning over many new ones.
So while the luxury-car field saw total output soar by 74 percent between 1958-68, Imperial sales stayed relatively flat. To make matters worse, Imperial production in 1968 — a good year for the U.S. auto industry — was slightly lower than it was in the deep recession of 1958.
While Chrysler was having trouble simply maintaining the Imperial’s sales, Ford had an instant hit when it unveiled the Lincoln Continental Mark III. The personal coupe consistently outsold the entire Imperial lineup.
Ironically, the Imperial saw sales jump in 1969 after losing its unique sheetmetal. Alas, that was only a temporary reprieve. Sales continued to struggle through 1975, when the brand was mercifully discontinued.
Also see ‘Car Life’s faint praise for redesigned 1967 Imperial hints at why it wasn’t a hit’
Langworth and Norbye argued that making the Imperial share more body parts with the Chrysler “doomed” the brand because it “just wasn’t ‘different’ enough to cause many buyers to opt for one instead of a New Yorker” (1985, p. 210). That may not have helped, but until 1975 sales were comparable to the supposedly good-old days when the Imperial had unique sheetmetal.
The fundamental problem was that Chrysler was in over its head. The Imperial’s failure to gain traction illustrated how the automaker wasn’t big enough to compete model for model against General Motors and Ford.
Instead of spending a boatload of money trying to build a stand-alone luxury brand, might the No. 3 automaker have been better off sticking with its previous strategy of only offering the Imperial as a limited-production, top-end Chrysler?
NOTES:
Production figures and specifications are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Flory (2004, 2009), Gunnell (2002) and (Wikipedia (2022).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International; Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- ——; 2009. American Cars, 1946-1959: Every Model, Year by Year. McFarland & Co.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Hartford, Bill; 1968. “Chrysler Imperial: Gorgeous on the Outside, Gutsy on the Inside.” Popular Mechanics. April issue: pp. 100-101, 228 (linked via Imperial Webpages).
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1985. The Complete History of Chrysler Corporation 1924-1985. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Sanders, Bill; 1968. “Luxury: The great American dream.” Motor Trend. May issue: pp. 56-63 (linked via Imperial Webpages).
- Wikipedia; 2022. “U.S. Automobile Production Figures.” Page last modified Jan. 26.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES
- oldcaradvertising.com: Imperial (1968); Lincoln (1968)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Imperial (1968, 1969); Lincoln Continental Mark III (1971)
Thing is a lot of people still looked at Imperial as a limited edition top end Chrysler. I was going through images online of the 67-69 Chryslers and Imperials and quite a few pictures were labeled “Chrysler Imperial” To people back then moving up to luxury Imperial would always be a Chrysler, as to us it will always be “Dodge Ram”. Meanwhile, Chrysler Corp used as much Chrysler sheet metal as it could get away with starting in 67. I would imagine the 1967 Imperial buyers accepted that, and figured that at least they would get a car that was put together right. They were wrong and by the 68 model year word was out. As for Lincoln, they were offering a personal luxury coupe and personal luxury sedan, luxury cars you didn’t need a tugboat to help park. Imperial only carried a distinctive body from 57-66, and the Exner creations were an acquired taste. Cadillac was still the standard of the world then, Lincoln owns a niche market, and Imperial was for Mopar dealers and executives to drive to the country club.
In writing this story I noticed that a number of automotive magazines referred to the 1968 Imperial as a Chrysler Imperial. Was that because the automaker was already starting to move the Imperial back to a sub-brand status?
It’s likely due to the corporation’s inability to separate the marque from parent brand in the public’s mind. I own a 68 and just as described, poor workmanship plus borrowed GM technology (looking at you Auto-Temp) that worked poorly when new, and not at all a few short years later. Love the car because it represents Chrysler Corporation when it was the 5th largest industrial company in America an Imperial was it’s finest product, even if the only tool in the designer’s toolbox that morning was a straightedge.
Once again, Chrysler had two problems with the Imperial: In most urban areas it shared the same showroom floor with Plymouths and Newports, and the sheetmetal after 1967 was like a deluxe New Yorker. The second and bigger problem that after 1966 almost all of Chrysler’s full-size cars suffered a myriad of workmanship issues. G.M.’s C-bodies at least were distinctive enough apart in 1967-1968 to maintain their brand identity with the Cadillac at the top hierarchy, and did not suffer from the quality issues that the Chryslers did (even though the 1967 Olds 98 was butt-ugly, in my opinion).
I think Imperial’s “original sin” as a brand was its artificiality – while Cadillac and Lincoln had been founded independently of GM and Ford, and then given a great deal of divisional independence, Imperial started out as a niche Chrysler model that the management found potentially more profitable as a separate brand.
Artificiality in itself is not a problem as long as you make sufficient effort to distinguish the new product. Unfortunately, Chrysler seemingly found it difficult and made Imperial follow a similar styling language to the Chryslers that it should have been set apart from. Elwood Engel’s work on the 64-66 cars was a step in the right direction, but a too late and half-hearted one (who wants a wraparound windshield in a 1966 car?), which pushed Chrysler into a damage control mode of reducing the costs of fielding Imperials by switching them to the C-Body and reducing brand-specific elements until the LeBaron became the New Yorker Brougham.
Just offhand, but I wonder if “Imperial” became a little awkward, reeking of colonialism. I may be looking at this through 21st century eyes. However, Studebaker was in no hurry to revive the Dictator nameplate.
That’s an interesting idea given the political dynamics of the times. I would imagine that those drawn to luxury cars might have had less concern about the implications of the word “Imperial,” but at least some potential buyers might have been sensitive to public sentiment.
What’s interesting about the brand is that earlier in its life the Imperial’s persona was quite loud, e.g., the 1961 strikes me as being more outrageous than the 1959 Cadillac (go here for further discussion). However, by the 1967 redesign the Imperial had a more understated, modernist persona.
I suspect that the fundamental problem was that Chrysler was aiming too high — they just didn’t have the cachet for a luxury brand. Imagine if they had instead settled for a high-end New Yorker somewhat along the lines of the 1963-64 Salon. And if Chrysler executives felt that they needed to ride around in a corporate limo, they could have stretched a New Yorker and slapped on an Imperial nameplate. That would likely have saved the automaker a boatload of money that could have been better spent elsewhere.
We could wonder also what if Imperial was a separate brand more early, almost right from the beginning in 1926 or 1927 if things would have been different? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Imperial
Or what if Chrysler had acquired Packard right after WWII?
Or, a thing a mentioned a while ago, what if Chrysler had gone a step up with the New Yorker occupying where Imperial would have been, while the Windsor or Newport step where the New Yorker was leaving a field more larger for DeSoto at the same occasion?
In a comment above it mentioned that Imperial was a Chrysler Corporation companion make, unlike an independent make brought into the fold. The Big 3 companion makes are now all gone. Mercury, Pontiac, Plymouth, deSoto
However good this Imperial may have been in absolute terms, as a luxury car, it wasn’t as different from a Chrysler as a Cadillac was from a Buick, or a Lincoln from a Mercury. Not that there was anything wrong with Chrysler engineering or styling as such, but it’s a bit much to ask people to pay the premium for an Imperial when its roots in a lower-priced (though still very nice) car are all too apparent. It invites the question ‘Well, what do I get…?’
In those times, would an Imperial buyer have been impressed by seeing on the same showroom floor a Plymouth and a Chrysler? Would that same Imperial buyer have felt “special” when looking around that showroom and seeing the typical Plymouth buyer and realizing that their salesperson was just as comfortable selling a Valiant as the highest level Imperial? I believe that this is where Cadillac excelled in most of their markets. The Cadillac dealership was a standalone operation with an appropriate ambiance with that level extending to the showroom floor people that the buyer interacted with. Unfortunately, without the sales volume to support being they were going to be compromised. At least for the competition’s Lincoln brand it was paired with the upper level of Ford’s brand.
As for the Imperial as a product, I don’t remember ever thinking of the Imperial as a direct Cadillac competitor. It lacked the Cadillac’s aspirational aura. One item I remember being told about for Cadillacs was that their quality control standards for trim pieces was far higher than for any of the rest of GM – surface blemishes that were fine for a Buick were rejected for Cadillac production.
I would point to a market segment failing by Chrysler was not giving Imperial a competitor to the Mark III. The Mark did more for Lincoln’s desirability than probably anything since the Kennedy Lincoln (and it delivered boatloads of profit to Ford). ChryCo’s sole response was to do a mid-size Cordoba, which did do very well for Chrysler but missed a wonderful market opportunity that could have justified the use of the Imperial name.
The dealer situation strikes me as a potentially unsolvable problem. That said, a hot car such as the four-seater Thunderbird in its early years did fine being sold by Ford dealers. Of course, the T-Bird was competing against premium-priced rather than luxury makes.
It’s interesting to consider whether Chrysler could have reorganized its dealers differently in 1960. For example, what about a DeSoto/Chrysler/Imperial dealer network, with the DeSoto eventually getting smaller cars needed to boost volume? I suspect that it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well as a Lincoln-Mercury pairing, but that illustrates the challenges Chrysler faced.
Like you I’ve wondered whether the Imperial might have been better off with a personal coupe, but I suspect that such a model would have worked best if positioned against the Toronado and Riviera instead of the Eldorado and Mark series. Iacocca arguably aimed too high in his positioning of the 1981 Imperial — if Chrysler was struggling to cultivate the cachet needed to succeed in the luxury car field back in the 1960s, they certainly couldn’t do so in their diminished state in the early-80s.
If Chrysler only had the funds for one personal coupe, it did make sense that they focused on the mid-sized field. The big volume was there, as Ford showed in 1977 when the Thunderbird was repositioned. The T-Bird was also instructive in that it offered some higher-priced models that presumably were quite profitable. Chrysler might have had a harder time selling higher-end Cordobas because the car had a badge-engineered corporate sibling that effectively undercut its cachet. We discuss further the downsides of Chrysler’s penny-pinching here.
As one commentator pointed out Cadillac had stand alone dealerships in areas where the volume could support them. Perhaps if instructions came down from Auburn Hills that if you wanted an Imperial dealership it would have to be in a separate facility preferably not next to or across the street from the present dealership. If Imperial is going to be a tarted up Chrysler for most of its existence at least don’t park it next to a regular one. Another thought: Since you’re not going to lose the Chrysler name, roll with it- Call it IMPERIAL by by Chrysler This logo would be like this on all the cars. Also. All print and TV ads should show in the background a 1930s coachbuilt Imperial in the background. Lincoln and Cadillac had heritage going back to the brass era. This is an important factor when you are selling Luxury. Try to build on the heritage you have.
I would have to disagree a bit with the notion that the Mark III was a big factor in the divisions success.
While it certainly didnt hurt the image and profitability of Lincoln-Mercury – it was considered for the most part a breed apart from the familiar 4 door. The 4 door Continental went from success to success during its meteoric rise from from dating from 1961. While the company publicly indicated — the ”classic look would continue”many did plainly see the subtle updates. And the revision of 1966 in particular.
the 1968 Mark III certainly fulfilled Iacocca’s dream on many levels – the public viewed it positively – but mostly as a variation on a personal car – a super Tbird for instance.
I happened to see a restored to perfection 66 Lincoln Continental convertible in Coral Gables a few days ago. In my eyes it was visually smashing in a way that is unknown in luxury cars today – esp the painted up Fords that carry the Lincoln name today. That was the Lincoln’s calling card – a car that convinced you it was ” your way of Life” – as Lincoln put it back then.
Consider the mindset of the luxury car buyer. Many of us when we get to our 40s-50s-60s and when we can afford it/have fewer family obligations will gravitate to purchases that were considered “aspirational” when we were younger. The luxury car buyer of 1955-75 grew up in the 1930s. He would remember Cadillac V-16s and V-12s and Lincoln KBs – perhaps with bespoke bodies. There are some “Chrysler Imperials” that are full-classics, but did they ever come with anything but a flathead straight 8 like lesser corporate & rival medium-priced cars?? Perhaps in the mind of the elite there was not enough prestige associated with a New Yorker+.
Imperial began looking too much like Chrysler in the later 60s, just as DeSoto got styled too close to Chrysler in the early 60s. Result was the end of DeSoto and Imperial, as the namesake make for the corporation could not be tampered with. Today however, Chrysler as a make is in danger of discontinuation, leaving Dodge as the only survivor.
Jeff, keep in mind also the Imperials are not just sharing the showroom, they’re sharing far more sheetmetal than say, Cadillacs and Buicks did. If you’re buying an aspirational luxury car, you want people to damn well know it! When you get down to it, what does the Imperial have that Chrysler doesn’t? Nothing, really. Everyone could tell a Cadillac in an instant. In an era when cars were the ultimate status symbol, this was crucial. Everyone in the car business knew this, it was a truism that didn’t need explaining.
I remember when these late 60’s
Imperials were roaming around. Gosh knows they got a lot of TV and Movie exposure. The Beverly Hillbillies , Dragnet and the movie ”Goodbye Columbus ” showcased them. We called them back then Chrysler Imperials mostly. No one seemed to care. But possibly a reason this model didnt rev was because the press at the time always refered obliquely to the Imperial as the loser. Its sales were marginal and was not seen frequently enough to make an impression. The Imperial began the postwar years as a mildly upgraded version of the top Chrysler. Many couldnt tell the difference. That was when American and auto fashion were more conservative. That was Imperial back then . After 1953 when GM brought out its Fabulous 4 did style come to the 1950’s. Many other worthies soon followed. Chrysler getting on the band wagon hired Exner to bury the old Chrysler of K T Keller. Exner went too far and it spilled into the 1960’s with its admittedly and ridiculously overdone 1960 – 1962 moders. Continental ended that. 1967 rolls around and Imperial did what Lincoln did later- mover to the cheaper widely used platform – but losing some individuality. The 1967 was too conservative for the swingin 60’s. An old mans car in a young age. Possibly the reputed bad workmanship didnt matter. The young prestige buyers bought Thunderbirds , Rivieras Toronados it seemed. Imperial was woefully out of step. 1969 brought up with the times sheetmetal. But problems remained. The 1968 Imperial was a grand looking car. Just a bit irelevant.
Question on the production number chart. What does it look like when it only reflects the full size Cadillac, Lincoln and Imperial? My thinking is that this may be a more direct comparison since Chrysler never had a comprable car to Lincoln’s Mark II or Mark III, Cadillac’s 67 and onward Eldo or the earliar 1957-58 Eldo Biaritz and Brougham (stainless steel top).
I am not expecting Imperial to look remarkably better but it might be a fairer comparison.
I do this website on a volunteer basis in my spare time with my left hand. When I am working on a story I invariably need to draw a line and say, I have time to do X but not Y. One reason why I repost articles is that over time I can add depth and complexity to a story. So perhaps the next time I repost this one I will think about whether to break out personal coupes from totals.
My current sense is that it wouldn’t tell us much. For one thing, in 1968 the personal coupe field was in its infancy, so sales were a relatively small part of total luxury-brand production. Remember that the Mark III didn’t come out until mid-year, and some reference books categorize first-year sales as 1969 models. In addition, regular Cadillac models utterly dominated the market at that point whereas Eldorado sales were fairly marginal.
Beyond all that, I think that total brand output WAS an important measure because it showed how Imperial was falling behind the competition as product proliferation began to infiltrate the luxury-car field. I’m not surprised that Chrysler downgraded the Imperial in 1969 — only two years after Cadillac introduced the Eldorado. The automaker may have recognized that it either needed to ramp up its investments by adding a personal coupe or let go of the goal of competing model for model in the luxury-car field. In light of Chrysler’s financial troubles in the early-70s, I think they made the right decision to retrench. It arguably should have happened earlier.
I very much agree that Imperial had a problem that they did not solve which could be from an inability to fund it or management miscalculation on grasping how large the market for the luxury personal coupe was. This is where the excitement for that segment was and likely generated massive profits.
Cadillac Eldo Mark Category Total
1967 17930 17930
1968 24528 24528
1969 23333 30858 54191
1970 23842 21432 45274
1971 27368 23858 51226
1972 40074 48591 88665
1973 51451 69437 120888
1974 40412 57316 97728
1975 44752 47145 91897
I further agree that Imperial had a fundamental problem not solved by Chrysler management. Was the Imperial a gussied-up Chrysler trim or a truly unique offering? Here they were horribly inconsistent and didn’t do the little things that could have set the Imperial apart form the Chrysler line, mildly increase the engine size so it wasn’t the same as every other ChryCo offering.
What was the compelling reason for the existence of the Imperial? Were the proponents the senior ChryCo execs had something nicer to drive as they went around town?
Now, going back to my earlier item of looking at Imperial production rates against Lincoln and Cadillac, the Imperial does not do so poorly against the Lincoln sales when the Mark is backed out. One might wonder if that is how ChryCo management viewed the world?
Yet a Popular Mechanics survey found that almost 48 percent of respondents bought an Imperial because of past experience with the brand. The average owner had had 2.65 Imperials — and some more than a dozen (Hartford, 1968). This REEKS of the true believer. My father and I owned about 9 Corvairs over the years. I know the type. They’ll buy Imperials till the day they die because they liked the gunsight taillights or their uncle had a 1933 Roadster with the side trunk to put his golf clubs. Not enough to keep the brand afloat though
I owned a 1964 Imperial Crown Coupe for several years and as improbable as it may seem, Chrysler was seemingly marketing this new model as their answer to their competitors’ Riviera and Thunderbird. The first line of the brochure copy reads “Now the Imperial raises the personal car concept to full scale luxury levels” and continues to describe the “executive aircraft type seats” and “town car roof”. This all sounds like an attempt to make their equivalent to Cadillac’s Coupe de Ville seem more like a Thunderbird even though longer than the Cadillac. The Crown Coupe had a very tasteful, almost “sporty” interior that abandoned the gimmickry and ostentation of earlier Imperials but its gargantuan size obviously made it a lame attempt as a so called personal car.
Good points, Dan. The marketeers were presumably on a different page than the product planners.
I owned a ’68 Crown Coupe and have driven both Lincolns and Cadillacs from that era. Based on that experience I can tell you (and I’m surprised no one else here has mentioned this) that one of Imperial’s biggest problems stemmed from the unibody/ leaf spring/ torsion bar setup: Imperials didn’t ride nearly as well as their competitors. Also, Lincoln and Cadillac had engines exclusive to their brand; within a year or two the 440 was available in something as lowly as a Barracuda or a Coronet. Now, imagine if the Mopar engineers had mounted two 225 slant sixes on a common crankshaft to create a 450 cu in V12, and made it exclusive to the Imperial. And for what it’s worth, little old Syracuse, NY, had a stand-alone Chrysler-Imperial dealership (Lewis Goodman, if memory serves) for many years.
Having driven the same brace of cars as you over the years, I respectfully (but firmly) disagree with your assessment of the drivability of the makes discussed. The Imperial is a far, far better driving experience than a contemporary Lincoln or Cadillac, whether you are in town or on the expressway. Perhaps the build quality was not worthy of a luxury car (though I can say the same for Lincoln and Cadillac from that era as well), but an Imperial’s ride quality was easily superior to it’s domestic competition.
I think the only thing that Chrysler could have done to really compete in the luxury market was buying Packard at the end of WWII. They would have gained a proving ground and an established brand and while they probably would have been fine with the ’51 design, I can see them integrating bodies asap. Imagine the ’55 Imperial with a broad Packard grille in place of the splits.
They would still have the problems of an aging plant but they could have moved everything to Utica or just bought one of the many surplus defense plants. And it’s also worth remembering that Chrysler not Ford was the #2 automaker at the time.
I dunno. It would Chrysler immediate cachet in the luxury car field and generate good will for Chrysler for rescuing Packard. However, which would be worse? The Packardbaker or the Exnard?