1979 to 1983 Imperials

Burton Bouwkamp wrote:

The 1981-1983 Imperial two door model was by command of Lee Iacocca after he asked, "where the hell is our Cadillac/Lincoln entry?" The 1981 model was derived from the Cordoba platform and had its own sheet metal, instrument panel, etc. It was a pretty good looking car. We built it but we couldn’t sell it - so it faded out of production in 1983. I think we built a total of about 17,000 over the three years. (It seems that every time we got a new CEO we resurrected the Imperial. We had buried the previous one in 1976 or 1977. Lee came to Chrysler in 1978.)

I also remember too well other times that we tried to be competitive in the luxury car market because I was Director of Product Planning from 1968 to 1975. It took more merchandizing and manufacturing and product commitment than the management was willing to spend to penetrate the luxury car market. Part of the problem was selling and servicing Imperials from the same dealerships as Plymouths. Imagine waiting in line behind several Plymouths to get your Imperial serviced - or being approached in the showroom by a "what do you want?" Plymouth sales person

I remember the 1981 Imperial well because I was Director of Body Engineering from 1979 to 1983. To try to stimulate sales we even did a "Blue Eyes" special model that was the color of Frank Sinatra's eyes. The buyer also got a console full of Frank Sinatra cassettes with the car. (Frank and Lee were buddies then and called each other "Chairman.") My car is blue but it’s not a "Blue Eyes" special.

Key links

1969-1973 Imperials

The Imperialist (Dave Duricy's site)