All video stills are from MyMopar.com.
If your YouTube algorithm looks anything like mine, you may be a subscriber to a channel called MyMopar.com, which regularly uploads classic Chrysler Corporation dealer filmstrips. While I normally watch any dealer film with a wry grin at the producer’s questionable analysis of their product, I couldn’t help feeling bad for the Imperial salesmen of 1970. Their task was impossible.
Let’s get this out of the way: Cadillac sold nearly twenty-five times more units than Imperial did in 1970, and the general tone of the video demonstrates a dirge-like quality that is missing from many dealer filmstrips. The pitchman actually stops talking a few minutes in and lets the pictures speak for him, with a bit of canned orchestral music playing for ambiance. In this snip, Chrysler is comparing instrumentation as it always did, although it’s a bit half-hearted for the Imperial. The owner of a Charger R/T may be interested in an ammeter, but an Imperial owner is perhaps less likely to care.
That may be because they tended to be…well, you know.
The video spends several minutes comparing interior dimensions and luxury features, the little things that salesmen could point out to potential customers.
Invariably, dealer filmstrips have a pretty girl who’s been instructed to look a little happier riding in the home team’s product. Here, said pretty girl’s smile is a smidgeon more satisfied when she’s riding in the Imperial.
Dealer filmstrips always make me happy, but I’m at my happiest when they reduce a comparison to the absurd. It’s clear that exactly nobody will change their mind and buy an Imperial based upon its fender-mounted turn-signal indicators, but there they are.
Over halfway through the film, the speaker returns and suggests that salesmen take their prospects on an extended test drive in both cars (how that would be arranged is left to the imagination). Here is where the combination of “Torsion-Aire” ride with leaf springs will show the Imperial to its greatest advantage. Whether or not the torsion bar front suspension was an actual improvement over Cadillac’s coils by 1970 is open to debate, but it was always a selling point in Chrysler Corporation’s sales material.
The video raises an interesting but flawed argument: Since the Eldorado uses a similar torsion bar/leaf spring setup, Chrysler engineering is therefore proven to be superior because even Cadillac has copied it. No mention is made of engineering or cost-cutting challenges specific to the Eldorado that may have led to that decision.
Interestingly, an angle I expected the filmstrip to use is left unexploited. Although I prefer the Cadillac’s styling, I find that the Imperial looks more modern; however, the speaker simply claims that both cars are good-looking and leaves it at that. This was early enough in Chrysler’s fuselage styling cycle that they were still using it as a selling point in other films and materials, but that is an avenue left largely unexamined in this film.
Something else the video fails to mention is the powertrain, and that might be because the Cadillac’s engine was larger and more powerful (at least according to its factory horsepower rating). Regardless, Chrysler was rightfully proud of its 440/Torqueflite combo, and its accolades are a little jarring in their absence.
Even the ending seems a bit half-baked: “The New Choice for Driving!” The Imperial had been in production as a unique brand for well over a decade by 1970, along with its “Torsion-Aire” suspension and big-block engine; there was certainly nothing new about it. There was also no catching Cadillac and the speaker so much as admitted it in his narration. The message to the salesmen was clear: Get out there and do your best. The Imperial is a nice car and maybe you’ll luck out and sell one or two this year.
It’s more likely that salesmen gave the Imperial short shrift and focused on the other Chryslers (such as the similar looking and much cheaper New Yorker) in the lineup. When one considers the Imperial’s model-year sales of only 11,816, many certainly saw this video as a waste of their time.
But I don’t. I love these old films, and if you share my enthusiasm for classic dealer filmstrips, head over to MyMopar.com at Youtube and subscribe to their channel. I thank them for posting this one.
While turn signal tell-tales likely won few conquest sales, Cadillac did add them to their models in 1971 to appease the few buyers who cared about them.
They added them back. I believe the ’68s had them (maybe just the Eldo), I know all the ’64s did.
Didn’t the “Caddy” ones have other lights in those (fender top) pods too?
Remember ad’s showing them , supposedly lighting up for other reasons.
Perhaps they “monitored” something?
My favorite Imperials are 1957-62. I had a green ’62 from 2008-2014. YouTube also has Imperial vs. Cadillac & Lincoln filmstrips for 1957, 1959, 1960 and a few other years. The difference in tone between the late ’50s/ early ’60s Imperial filmstrips and 1970 is quite noticeable. More enthusiastic in the ’50s, and the cars looked great!
From a driving point of view, the earlier Imperials had a very satisfying level cushioned ride (Torsion-Aire), very easy power steering and sharper handling, more power, the excellent TorqueFlite transmission which was less “busy” than Hydramatic. They also had transmission push-buttons and a dash lever for directionals, both of which were more novel and interesting than convenient (and no PARK position). Cadillac doors close with a solid “click” and the car seems better made overall. (Though both are excellent).
By 1970, ugh–the magic has gone. That Imperial rear looks pretty ugly next to the Cadillac–those “frowning” taillights! The filmstrip writers seem to be grasping at straws trying to find Imperial advantages that make any real difference. The 1970 Cadillac is “nice”, but it really doesn’t excite me. Next stop–“Malaise”!
My favorite Imperial is by far the 1957: It had great Forward Look styling, the greatest dashboard of the 1950s, a 392 Hemi. No thanks myself on the ’70, but I’m not the biggest fan of the fuselage cars. They’re cool but not really up my alley. I love the filmstrips though.
My favorite Cadillacs are the ’54 and ’55, and then probably the ’62.
I too like the 57 Imperial a lot. I was seven when it debuted and for a kid at that time it was soooo modern and cool. I did love the 62 though, the best of the free-floating Imperial taillights and gone were the ridiculous fins of the 61. I was sold when I first saw them on the cover of Motor Trend! Imperials were so wonderfully quirky – easy to have mixed feelings about them.
I’ll take a 56 Cadillac over the 54-55. That year they got rid of that conical steering wheel hub ornament that knocked out Sammy Davis Jr.’s eye when he crashed his 54 Eldorado.
The 61-62 Cadillacs were the last of the great ones. Friends had a 61 back in the day so I’m partial but the 62’s styling was more refined and introduced a favorite feature of mine – cornering lights!
My father had a ’62 convertible when I was a toddler. I want one so bad…
Me too! This one’s at the Gilmore Car Museum.
I thought Caddy had the tell-tales on the fenders through the 60’s. My father’s ’62 & ’66 both had them instead of lights on the dash.
Thanks for the tip regarding the channel – I’ll take a look.
As for the cars, I think the Imperial looks great – modern, if somewhat anonymous. The Cadillac has more gravitas, though.
You’re welcome! There’s a surprising number of digitized dealer filmstrips out there.
Pictures make the Imperial look bigger than the Cadillac. Even the pretty girl seems to have more head room.
It’s an inch taller and 4 inches longer than the Deville. The styling accentuates its mass.
Image was/is incredibly important to the top-tier luxury market. Combined with very strong brand-loyalty, well, Chrysler management seemed to realize that, by 1970, cost-cutting for the slow-selling Imperial downgraded it to just a fancy Chrysler. Ford and GM did a much better job of differentiating Lincolns and Cadillacs from the other divisions top cars.
Chryslers, by that time, were seen much more as a ‘hustler’s’ kind of car, one for a mover-and-shaker. Chrysler products, in general, had much more of a performance image. A Caddy or Lincoln was seen as something quite a bit more sedate and calm for someone who had made it and didn’t need to be an aggressive, brash salesman, anymore.
One of the best examples of this is how much the 1976 New Yorker Brougham sales improved over what was essentially a stripped 1975 Imperial (although the NYB could be loaded-up to nearly the same level as the Imperial, and at a higher price, too).
So, yeah, the 1970 Imperial might have looked more modern and stylish than its Cadillac and Lincoln counterparts, but it just wasn’t what appealed to that demographic.
The bottom line is, while I’d go for a 1970 Imperial, I’ve never been rich, either.
The challenge Chrysler faced was this: by 1970, even my grandmother, who didn’t follow the auto industry, could identify a Cadillac on sight, and knew what driving one was supposed to mean (i.e., the owner was rich and successful).
Show her a photo of this Imperial, and she would not be able to immediately identify it. Once told, she would refer to it as “a CHRYSLER Imperial.”
In her mind, a Chrysler was still special, but certainly not Cadillac-special. Tell her that it cost as much, or even more, than a comparable Cadillac…and it would be game over.
Aaron, thank you so much for sharing that channel, and also for the great writeup. It was only later in life that I stopped calling it a “Chrysler Imperial”. I can’t imagine that the average consumer got it right.
You’re welcome Joe, I hoe you enjoy it! It just goes to show that it takes forever to build an image, and not too long to squander it (in Cadillac’s case).
I’m certainly a Cadillac guy. Have been for over 40 years and still proudly own two from the 80’s. When it comes to older cars, I’ve only owned one Chrysler (1987 5th Ave). Most of my older cars have been Caddy or Lincoln. However, in this comparison, I just love the Chrysler looks more than the Caddy. It looks cleaner and fresh and I like the interior better as well. But I’d never kick either to the curb! Love them and love these old videos. Thank you so much for sharing. I’ll be checking that channel out.
You’re welcome Dan, hope you enjoy the videos!
What a crappy sales presentation:
“One of the biggest reasons Cadillac dominates the luxury car field is because a lot of people are brainwashed.”
Nothing like insulting your prospects in order to get them to buy, right?
Instead of comparing Imperial to Cadillac – compare Imperial to New Yorker. Then tell me what makes the Imperial special enough for its cost. All those “advantages” cited by the narrator also appear on the cheaper New Yorker. The cars are differentiated by cosmetics. Same cars. They look alike.
The Imperial looks like a Chrysler. The Cadillac looks like a Cadillac.
A crappy sales presentation by a narrator who sounded like he had a huge chip on his shoulder.
That woman looks way too happy about having a “oh shit” handle. Any MoPar experts out there know if the ’70 New Yorker got those, too?
It looked to me like she’s holding a marital aid, so no wonder.
I’ve ridden in a NYer of that vintage, but I only remember how much road noise came through (or under) the doors. There aren’t any in the few I see in an image search.
I did notice that the Imperial definitely bested the Caddy in terms of having more grab handles. “A little older”. Right. I have noticed that the older one gets, the more useful those things are for hauling yourself in and out of a vehicle.
This is being presented to salesmen who’d rather move a Duster a day than spend a week on one Imperial sale.
Everyone watching would be aware that Imperials only sold to hardcore Mopar fans who’d “made it”, they either showed up because it was mandatory and/or there was free food (and given the times, drinks) on Filmstrip Day.
I saw another dealer filmstrip where they compared the 1970 Dodge Charger against the Pontiac GTO and the Chevrolet Monte Carlo instead of the Chevelle.
In 1970, ChryCo probably still believed Dodge sat a step above (non-Monte Carlo) Chevys and Plymouths. Whether consumers still made that distinction is an open question. Within about a decade or a bit more, even Chrysler itself stopped even trying to make that distinction.
The crap on her face is a nice touch.
That is an interesting trifecta of cars. I get the GTO comparison, but the Monte Carlo seems like it fits a different part of the market. Being new for 1970, maybe Dodge didn’t realize that yet.
This or the guys who did the filmstrip got a foreshadowing to know where the Charger next battlefield will be but Chrysler decided to be on the same ring with the Cordoba (who was originally planned to be a Plymouth).
Wow. Filmstrips are a medium that had totally vanished from my consciousness. But that advance-the-filmstrip ding transported me right back to junior high school.
I don’t know why I love filmstrips so much. They didn’t show them in school when I was a kid (I probably missed them by five or ten years), but I went through a filmstrip phase a while back. Now I have an old projector and about 100 filmstrips that I’ll pull out from time to time. It’s nerdy, but it’s kind of nice being in a dark room with the floating dust looking at a 1960s representation of a periodic table or maybe a driver’s ed filmstrip every once in a while. It’s a lot more handy (Jam Handy?) when someone digitizes them.
You can probably guess this, but if one were the teacher’s pet, you were permitted to have the job of sitting by the projector and advancing the film.
Ha ha, I stopped being the teacher’s pet after about the 6th grade when I had a sharp change in attitude about other people telling me what to do. But I would have been a great film advancer before that!
Sometimes it was a benefit of being the teacher’s pet. But often it was a benefit of being the only kid who gave a crap. I was the kid who not only wanted to work the equipment but also seemed to care about the content of the filmstrips.
I’m not sure what all of the other kids did while I was running projectors and watching filmstrips.
I’m still not so sure what they’re doing. 😉
Great YT channel, didn’t know it. Oh my, that Cadillac looks much more classy and expensive. A no-brainer decision.
Auto Chronicles is another site with some fun filmstrips. Like you, I could (and do) watch these things for hours:
https://www.youtube.com/@autochronicles8667/videos
Ha ha – I’m subscribed to that channel, too. 🙂 That’s a good one with a lot of ’50s stuff.
This article had me at “filmstrip”. Filmstrips were the day to day highlight of my elementary school through Jr. High experience. I’m not an aggressive guy now nor an aggressive kid back in the day, but I’d pretty much take out all competitors when it came to being the guy who got to sit by the film strip projector and advance it in time to the
“ding”.
That sound still haunts my dreams (in a nice way). And I’ll also note that being the A-V geek helped me find some way of fitting in – in a totally geeky way – in all of the various schools (6, if I recall correctly) I attended between 1st grade and 8th grade. Being that kid who advanced the filmstrip, set up the record player/reel-to-reel tape player/16mm Bell & Howell, etc. opened doors to a lot of what I wound up exploring and finding and doing to this day.
I could still thread one of those textured green movie projectors, in the dark, with my eyes closed. If there was ever any need to do so.
Anyway, it’s good to know that the sales staff at Chrysler Imperial dealers had meetings much like I did in the “film strip room/air raid shelter” at Washington 6th Grade Center…albeit probably with more smoking.
I’d like to see some minutes from one of those A/V meetings, Jeff. 🙂
There’s a YouTube channel called “A/V Geeks” that you might know about; it’s filled with old educational filmstrips.
The other weekend, Catchy Comedy aired a “Bridget Loves Bernie” binge….almost every episode after the 1st had a blue 1972 Imperial 4 door as the vehicle of the Fitzgeralds, and a featured Dodge Polara as the taxi Bernie drove. With the Imperial usually in front of the uptown abode of the Fitzgeralds, or out front of the Steinbergs deli.
Poor Chrysler….they manage to get the Imp featured on a show that was taken off the air after only one season!
Chrysler sure took advantage of product placement in the ’60s and ’70s. If you believed what you saw on screen, Chrysler would have had 50 percent market share rather than GM.
For what it’s worth, the Imperial looks like a much more modern car. More in tune with the ’70s. The dated styling on the Caddy, definitely seems perfect for a loaded retiree.
The model appears like a cross between Diana Rigg, and iconic ’70s vixen Lee Purcell.
Diana Rigg was great in The Avengers and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but I was trying to figure out why Lee Purcell seemed familiar. I watch a lot of ’70s cop shows, and I think she did some TV at the time.
Lee appeared in many of the most popular ’70s crime/detective series. Including The Rockford Files, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, The Streets of San Francisco, and Hawaii Five-O. As well as ’80s series Magnum P.I., Jake and the Fatman, MacGyver and Simon & Simon. She was a staple guest star of ’70s prime time.
Vent windows! We still have vent windows! Chrysler must have thought this was a successful pitch, as they held onto vents in the Imperial (and the New Yorker Brougham that became an Imperial in all but name) till ’78.
Smokers liked vent windows. They also helped with defrosting the windows. They were a feature until Detroit figured out that they cost money and they told everyone that they were old fashioned and truly NEW cars don’t have them anymore. Gone!
So very well said .
Way back when they were called “no draft ventilators” because that’s *exactly* what they did and why they were so great at defrosting & drawing out smoke .
-Nate
On hot days, my brother and I used to crank them all the way open on our un-A/Ced ’56 Olds so the breeze would blast us in the face when in motion. Not too good on the interstate, however. For some reason, the regular windows would crack if opened all the way.
Comparing the suspension springing technologies to the Eldorado was low-hanging fruit because the Eldorado was Cadillac’s premium product. For Cadillac to use coils in their lesser models was proof enough that either Cadillac knew coils to be inferior or that they were a company that wasn’t as focused on realized engineering excellence as Chrysler was. That being said, I had a neighbor with a pristine DeVille that looked like the one in the comparison here. It was better than anything I’ve ever experienced that Cadillac has put their name on since.
“Over halfway through the film, the speaker returns and suggests that salesmen take their prospects on an extended test drive in both cars (how that would be arranged is left to the imagination).”
Was it possible because the successful Chrysler dealer principal’s wife insisted that he buy a Cadillac?
The only reason the Eldorado (and Toronado) used torsion bars is because a coil spring would have been in the way of the driving axles. Period.
There is absolutely positively nothing inherently superior about a torsion bar compared to a coil spring. Torsion bars have (and are) widely used on coil spring double wishbone front suspensions when a FWD or 4×4 drive train is used. Coils are a bit cheaper than torsion bars.
A coil spring is just a torsion bar that’s been coiled.
Has anyone scientifically compared mid-50s Packards with and without their Torsion Level suspension? From an owner’s video, it looked like the front bars would act on the rear ones, sort of like the Citreon 2CV, but I couldn’t tell exactly how. Packard had really long ones–did Chrysler feel inferior?
The Packard suspension was very different than Chrysler. Chrysler basically just substituted a longitudinal torsion bar for each front coil spring. The only material advantage on a FR drivetrain was that the factory could accommodate front-end weight differences by simply adjusting the preloading of the springs to provide the desired ride height, rather than having to specify different coil springs as GM generally did; any handling advantage was a result of the spring rate, not the medium.
The Packard Torsion-Level suspension was a four-wheel self-leveling system, with two sets of longitudinal torsion bars (one long and one short on each side). The long bars served as the main spring medium for both the front and rear wheels, while the shorter ones, which Packard called “levelizer bars,” were linked to an electric motor that automatically adjusted their preload to try to maintain a constant ride height. There was also a front anti-roll bar (which is a transverse torsion bar arranged so that it only twists when the lower control arms rise or fall relative to each other), plus a two-part rear stabilizer for lateral axle location. So, the front suspension affected the rear and vice versa.
There are a couple of period road tests of it, but I have yet to find one that provides a really informed evaluation of its on-road characteristics from an engineering standpoint.
In almost every application, torsion bars result in a lower center of gravity than coil springs. When used with MacPherson strut front suspensions as in the Porsche 901 and 3rd generation Honda Civic, torsion bars also result in less steering friction than concentric coil springs. They also reduce the load on the strut towers.
Really this is about Chrysler advertising against GM, who exploited customer ignorance in order to run ads saying that the Airflow had a weak body because it didn’t have wooden framing even though their own cars no longer used wooden framing. At least Chrysler was telling the truth about differences and similarities between their Imperial and GM’s various Cadillacs.
and torsion bars are easily adjustable, coils are not. Also tough enough that tanks use them.
I will say that the adjustability of the torsion bars is nice. Setting the Dart up for a touch of rake was a lot easier than cutting a half coil out of my Mustang’s front springs to get the nose down.
I too fondly remember film strips…..
-Nate
The video raises an interesting but flawed argument: Since the Eldorado uses a similar torsion bar/leaf spring setup, Chrysler engineering is therefore proven to be superior because even Cadillac has copied it. No mention is made of engineering or cost-cutting challenges specific to the Eldorado that may have led to that decision.
See my comment above.
My original comment was tongue-in-cheek, but the argument in the video is funny. The idea that torsion bars were superior goes back to their initial advertising in the ’50s, but as you say above, a spring is a spring. Although Chrysler may have used more sporting suspension settings in some of their full-size cars, it’s not like you see torsion bars in most modern race cars or anything.
Regarding the Eldorado/Toronado’s use of leaf springs in the back (as Chrysler did), it’s as if they spent all the development money up front and ran out when it came time for the rear. Whatever, leafs were fine back then.
What did E/T have in the rear from ’71-78? I owned one for quite a while but never looked or ever thought about it. I know they didn’t go independent until ’79, which was too late for their engineering reputation, not that many people who cared were buying behemoths and vice versa.
Eldorado already had standard level control which was needed to keep camber in range with soft springs. They actually bragged about the Teflon between the leaves on the first Seville, when it should have been given the Corvette’s rear setup. Aside from the prestige, ride, and handling, the car needed more rear seat and trunk room.
The second-generation Toronado and Eldo had a beam axle in back on coil springs, located with four trailing arms — basically similar in layout to a RWD Cadillac or Oldsmobile.
What was arguably Chrysler’s real advantage with TorsionAire wasn’t the torsion bars up front but the unequal axle placement and spring leaf distribution towards the front of the car. This both helped overall handling and cut down on diving with harder stops.
I had a 1971 Imperial by Chrysler. Imperial LeBaron as the Crown was discontinued. That’s what they called them in ’71 as Imperial was no longer a separate brand in the Mopar fold. I sold my ’72 MG Midget (which was small enough to fit in the Imperials trunk) to get the ’71 Imperial coupe. It was white, with a maroon interior and a maroon paisley print vinyl top. I loved the dash board on the ’71 Imperial. Front lit instead of back-lit. In all of these pictures, the Imperial looks much wider than the Cadillac.
I’ve been a Cadillac girl since I was 4 years old when I first saw my aunt and uncles 1956 Cadillac coupe de ville with those wonderful dagmars. Their next car was a 1959 Cadillac coupe de ville. They made such an impression on me.
I’ve owned many Cadillacs over the last 60 years. My first was a 1956 Cadillac Fleetwood at the age of 13.
I love Cadillacs, but I have owned a couple of Lincolns and the one Imperial. The Imperial was a great car. I really liked it. I like the styling of the ’72 & ’73 also. Those years it was even bigger.
The fender mount direction signals were always cool on the Caddys and Imperial. Cadillac switched over to “monitor” lights on the front fenders and rear backlight, around 1971. There was a white dot indicating the low beam headlights were functional through fiber optics. A blue dot showing the high beam headlights and a yellow dot showing the parking lights/turn signal.
In the back above the rear backlight were two red dots, monitoring the taillights. Backup lights were not monitored.
Getting back to Imperial, my favs were the ’57 through ’59, (they were massive!), the ’64 through ’74, after that they were merely rebadged New Yorkers. The ’67 model year was the last for the convertible.
I’m a member of barn Finds and there have been several Imperials on there recently. I’d love to get the “black beauty” 1973 Imperial LeBaron Baron.
Imperial offered full gauges. This illustrates how Chrysler misread the tea leaves. Cadillac Buyers did not care about gauges except for speed and fuel measurement. Oil pressure and amps are hard to figure out and temperatures fluctuate. It’s all confusing. This is a luxury car. Buyers want to listen to their Easy Listening 8 tracks and not worry about such high tech things.
Chrysler advertised that the Imperial offered full gauges. Cadillac buyers did not care. Oil pressure and Voltage is confusing and temperatures fluctuate so who needs that? Cadillac buyers wanted to listen to their Easy Listening 8 tracks and chill.
Cadillac added a dash temperature gauge with the early Northstars, but so many owners freaked at the fluctuation caused by the electric cooling fans that they eventually “dampened” the gauge so it went to the mid point and stayed there–until the engine overheated, which many did when the head bolts loosened and the gaskets failed.
I prefer the Cadillac as 1970 is one of my top favorite years of the Cadillac’s, especially in the looks/powertrain department, I find the mirrors on the 1969-70 fuselages to be way outdated, if this was a 1971 Cadillac vs a 1971 Imperial I would’ve chosen the Imperial
One thing I’ve never liked about this generation of Cadillac 4 door hardtops is the greenhouse. It feels about 5/6ths of what it should be. You can see it best in the shot of the rear ends. The lower body is crisp and well proportioned.
I agree, and that was true of the ’67-8s hardtops, too. The ubiquitous vinyl roofs don’t help. But the Fleetwood 60Ss and the rare pillared Sedan de Ville/Calais have a larger and taller greenhouse–and more rear legroom. Unfortunately, because the pillared Deville had to share roofs with Buick and Olds, it lacks the crispness and Veed backlight of the Cadillac hardtop.
The Cad is pretentious and gaudy, the Imp: clean, elegant and timeless, as well as mechanically superior. I know which I’d want, and did have: ‘a 69 LeBaron, a wonderful car.
+1. Well-said.
I think the biggest problem with the Imperial was that it didn’t offer that much more than a New Yorker or a 300 yet was significantly more expensive.
A Cadillac was definitely a different car from a Buick Electra or Oldsmobile 98, although plenty of Buick and Olds buyers weren’t fooled and were happy with their less expensive but just as luxurious choices.
In fact, Cadillac would later find itself in that very same spot. What did a Caddy offer over a Buick or an Olds?
I remember Dr. Marcus Welby drove a 300. Perfect car for a professional, suited for someone who had to do a lot of driving. But why spend more on an Imperial?
Thanks for the MyMopar link! One of their tech filmstrips is purely astonishing. Dodge route vans from ’48 to ’54 had independent rear suspension with two u-joints on each side for parallel action. VW and GM took almost 20 years to catch up with Dodge vans!