Last week, we delved into several Consumer Guide books that surveyed the used car market. American Motors was the object of its affection (or lack thereof), so now it’s time to leave Kenosha and head towards Highland Park, home of the Chrysler Corporation.
The 1970s were a tumultuous time for the Chrysler Corporation. Even in 1970, with several fresh models and interest from the youth market, things were not fine behind the scenes. Chrysler’s surplus of sales bank cars was costing the company A LOT of money, plus there were rising material and labor costs, and high interest rates along with high debt, all leading to compromised profit margins.
Let’s look at it from a kid’s perspective. While at Arden Montessori, I could not help but notice Chrysler Corporation vehicles were the ones with reliability issues. One kid named Paul (who always dressed up as a cowboy) had parents who picked him up in a 1966-67 Charger or a Valiant. Both constantly had stalling issues, if not failing to start (and, yes, I scored an education on Chrysler’s famous starter with no tuition). It could be suggested that Paul’s dad was a motorhead and owned cars that were not street-friendly, but how else does six-year-old me develop a perception that Chrysler products are unreliable?
Cue the Consumer Guide book, which noticeably complained about most of Chrysler’s products . . . except one. That one we will revisit when we discuss Plymouth and Dodge, but for now, we will discuss Chrysler and Imperial. Please note the CG rating scale of 5 being Excellent and 1 being Poor.
Chrysler and Imperial
“Chrysler management decisions during the past decade [the 1970s] have been a comedy of errors … This series of mistakes came from a company that is far ahead of most of its competition in engineering excellence.”
- Cordoba: “While the repair record is no longer good enough to rate … as a best used-car buy, it isn’t a bad car either, if you can do your own engine work.” CG rating: 4
- Imperial: “Higher-than-average owner complaint history for body rattles and rust tendencies.” CG rating: 1-2
- Chrysler LeBaron: “The engineers have done an excellent job of insulating LeBaron from unwanted road noise and surface irregularities without making it too soft for stability and control in emergency maneuvers.” CG rating: 4
- Newport/300/New Yorker: “Chrysler’s large cars seem to have a detonator timed to go off around 50,000 miles … Before that magic point, the cars maintain average or even better-than-average records.” CG rating: 1-2
- Newport/New Yorker (1980): “All these Chrysler R-body models rate a notch below GM and Ford competitors.” CG rating: n/a