We all know how due to Gas Crises I and II, the grand luxury cars of the Big Three had to trim the fat, sometimes with less than stellar results. But did you know that even before gas went up, there was a concentrated effort to make a small luxury car?
Back in the mid-to-late-Sixties, some of the Chrysler engineers felt the cars they were building were too big (said engineers were driving VW Beetles and Mini Coopers at the time).
Somehow they managed to wrangle serious money from R&D for a pet project to drastically shrink the flagship Imperial, shortening them and equipping them with an experimental 250 hp version of the Slant Six.
Mad with power, they even chopped up an ultra-pricey Ghia-built Crown Imperial. They called it the Tiara. That was the last straw. The band of engineers were sent packing and Chrysler destroyed all the prototypes and blueprints. The engineers responsible were never heard from again, though there are rumors they worked on the 1985 GM C-body and ’86 E-body.
Happy April Fools’ Day, everybody!
So the Tiara was the genesis of the Executive Limo?
http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1984-chrysler-executive-limousine-the-ultimate-eighties-folly-mobile/
Who would have guessed?
This one I know for certain is unmitigated bull—-. Apparently it’s going to be an entire day of April Fools, sigh…
Actually, the Tiara did make it into production. However, limited sales ultimately killed it, because of the added cost of stretching an Imperial into a Ghia-Crown Imperial and then chopping it down again. This created an untenable situation in which the smaller car retailed for far more than the larger one. The priveledged few responded accordingly.
The privileged few rushed to their nearest Mercedes-Benz showrooms when they wanted small for more money (until the 80s, at least).
As (April) Fool-ish as this idea is, a well-built smaller car with a powerful six could have made it big the world over as a luxury car, except in the US. Chrysler didn’t have an engineering reputation for nothing.
I considered continuing my comment with a reference to the 1975 Seville which, as we know, was both smaller and more expensive than a standard Cadillac. But where’s the fun in that?
That made me laugh – April 1st – right?
This one’s real:
http://www.hotrod.com/featuredvehicles/hrdp_1107_1959_chrysler_imperial_speedster/viewall.html
I wouldn’t have minded if they’d done that to a basket case, but they didn’t. Why did they have to do it to such a mint-condition Imperial? Argh!
This is a total caricature! A total cartoon car— but I love it!
Chrysler reinvents the Nash Metropolitan methinks not.
Interesting to find mention of these little known but historically significant cars!
This program was started in the early ’60s, as a response to M. King Hubbert’s “Peak Oil” theory. Since Chrysler was not able to compete head on with Cadillac and Lincoln, they thought that they could differentiate their Imperial line by offering a technologically advanced and fuel efficient luxury car.
Chrysler was an Engineering powerhouse in these days, and these cars pioneered many advanced technologies that would later become mainstream.
The all aluminum Slant Six featured a Hemi head and a much improved version of the short lived Bendix Electroject system.
The transmission was basically two Torqueflites in series to give a total of eight forward speeds, and featured a lockup torque converter.
Colin Chapman’s brother, who had moved to Windsor Ontario after the war, headed up the development of the all aluminum unibody which was developed in cooperation with Alcan Aluminum.
Although many on the design team admired cars like the Mini Cooper, the intent of the Imperial was to be a high performance luxury car – more like a cross between a BMW Bavaria and a Jaguar XJ-6 than a Mini.
When the big oil companies caught wind of the program, they bought Chrysler off and had the plans and prototypes destroyed. Allpar had a story a while back, but it quickly disappeared.
Although the Imperial never made it into production, the technology developed lived on. The Bendix Electrojet design was sold to Bosch, and became the basis of the “Jetronic” fuel injection system. A cost reduced version of the Hemi Slant Six found use in Australian Chargers, the Aluminum unibody technology was used years later in the A8 and XJ sedans, and these days multispeed slushboxes are common on many cars…
“The transmission was basically two Torqueflites in series to give a total of eight forward speeds, and featured a lockup torque converter.”
A 727 with Gear Vendors OD on the back is about as long as two 727s in series. If you put something like that in a car as short as the third picture down (red with white top), there’d be almost no room left for a driveshaft. (I know this post was a joke, but since I’ve been fitting a GVOD in a C-body for the past two days, the overall length of such as setup is all too clear in my mind right now.)
There really was an experimental aluminum slant-6 program however. One of the engine blocks is on display at the Chrysler Museum.
Ironically, there were loaded Valiant ‘Brougham’ / Dart ‘Special Edition’ (SE) 4-door sedans towards the end of the model run in the seventies. While not up to Imperial levels of trim, they were definitely going for the small, luxury car market, which seemed to have been created by the new Ford Granada/Mercury Monarch.
To add, while the bosses said “no small Chrysler brand car” in early 60’s, they never said “no small Imperials”!! The engineers were hired back in the late 80’s and worked on the K car derived last Imperial, right?
240 connected slant-6 engines was the real propulsion system for the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.
Nuke propulsion? Just propaganda to coerce the Commies into spending enormous amounts of time and money trying to match the USA.
By restricting access severely to the engine rooms the secret was kept for decades.
The mighty slant-6.
What can it not do?
Well, hurl a space shuttle aloft but if there was a highway headed that way… who knows?
That little maroon Crown Coupe with the white top is the ideal retro car for us old guys.