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How I Think That General Motors Had Paved The Way For Chrysler To Develop The LH Platform

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#1 ·
How I think that General Motors had paved the way for Chrysler to develop the LH platform is GM's decision to launch the H-platform GM-70 cars in the mid 1980's to replace their conventional V8-powered frame-on-body predecessors (in coupe and sedan form, thankfully; the wagons continued in the generation of GM Full-Size car in 1977 up until the redesign of their B-platform in 1991), and GM felt that they just had to develop their groundbreaking and what they referred to as "world-class" front-wheel-drive, transverse-mounted engine and unibody Full-Size cars that were only negligibly larger than GM's A-platform Celebrity/6000/Cutlass Ciera, and were produced in their brand-new, state of the art plant in Hamtramck, Michigan where the Dodge Hamtramck assembly plant once stood; were styled-like about 90% of GM's products at the time-distastefully styled by Irv Rybicki (the GM-70 cars looked like nothing except a 'larger Cavalier'), and as usual of GM's constant cost-cutting measures-designed and built these cars with shoddy build quality when compared to their conventional V8-powered frame-on-body predecessors; and this "large" front-wheel-drive platform that GM had developed is what I think is just a lengthened and widened version of GM's A-platform that had underpinned the Celebrity/6000/Cutlass Ciera.
To top all of this off, GM had to continue using the venerable 88, 98, LeSabre, Electra/Park Avenue; and Bonneville names for what I refer to as these fake Full-Size cars; while GM continued manufacturing their real Full-Size cars as Station Wagons across the Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile; and Buick brands, continued building the Caprice in 2-door coupe and 4-door sedan forms; and had rebadged the Pontiac version of the Impala/Caprice-which was called the Catalina/Bonneville as simply the 'Parisenne' so that Pontiac could continue to have a conventional V8-powered frame-on-body to sell alongside their ultra-modern front-wheel-drive Bonneville. And of course, Cadillac continued to build the Fleetwood/Brougham to compete neck and neck with the Town Car and keep the conventional V8-powered frame-on-body Luxury car market alive for the time being.
In a nutshell, GM tried to show the buying public that they don't need to have a conventional V8-powered frame-on-body car to have all of the interior room, trunk space, and luxuries that they were well accustomed to; and the buying public wasn't as receptive to these cars as they had traditionally been towards their conventional V8-powered frame-on-body predecessors.
My connection with Chrysler and the LH-cars to the GM-70 cars and GM's H-platform are that alongside having acquired AMC and Jeep from Renault in 1987 and having picked up Francois Castaning from Renault as part of the deal to purchase AMC and Jeep, and Chrysler having felt compelled to use the bones of the Renault/Eagle Premier, Renault 25; and the Renault 21/Medallion for the development of the LH (such as the LH being developed with a conventional north-south mounted engine while still being front-wheel-drive and the 42LE transaxle being developed for the north-south engine layout), is that Chrysler must have heard about GM having shown buying public that they don't need to have a conventional V8-powered frame-on-body car to have all of the interior room, trunk space, and luxuries that they were well accustomed to with their H-platform cars; and Chrysler heeded on that "advice" set forth by GM and had comprehended that rather than redesign the M-platform or even resurrect the R-platform that was used for the St. Regis/Gran Fury/Newport/New Yorker; that they could use the bones of the Renault/Eagle Premier, Renault 25; and the Renault 21/Medallion to create their own modern unibody front-wheel-drive car.
It seems to me that the Concorde had competed with the 88 and the LeSabre:







It seems to me that the LHS and LH-platform New Yorker had competed with the 98 and the Electra/Park Avenue:

It seems to me that the Intrepid and the Eagle Vision competed with the Bonneville:

 
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#2 ·
The USA Pontiac Parisienne resulted when Pontiac tried to move everything down-sized with the '82 model year. Replacing their B-body cars with a smaller A/G-body sedan. Pontiac obviously felt, or was testing the waters for GM, that they would lead the downsizing effort, getting credit for leading GM in that direction. Did NOT work. So for the '85 model year, Pontiac took the Parisienne model from the Canadian market and mad it a USA model. Easiest thing they could do! I don't know that Pontiac ever recovered from that failed adventure.

Chrysler had shown their Portofino show car, with "cab forward" architecture. A big deviation from normal designs of the time, but a major influencer of the LH cars. At that time, Ford's possible venture into cab forward was that the base of the windshield of their Crown Vics over-hung the 5.0L V-6, almost all the way to the carburetor!

GM had downsized their full-size cars to fwd cars, but were wider than the K-car platforms, which made them look more normal. Their near-vertical rear windows maximized interior room and trunk space, too, which was good. As nice as the K-New Yorkers were, they were not as spacious as a similar Cadillac deVille sedan. SO, Chrysler had to do something!

The Eagle Premier was a strange car. Boxy shaped. One of our Mopar club members bought one. A decent car. Another member worked on the cruise control system for them (outside vendor sourced, he worked for the vendor). He was impressed with how the cars rode and drove when a convoy came through Fort Worth on a shake down run. So the LH cars combined the Premier chassis with cab forward architecture. Good thing that Chrysler did not use the Renault electronics!!!!!! The radio in the Eagle Premier had to be sent out once every year, it seemed, for repairs. Which took months at a time. NOT to forget that many new Premiers (later badged as Dodge Monacos!!!) needed full-body wiring repais, under warranty!

Then, enter one Bob Lutz who was a big force in getting Chrysler to be a better car company at the time. As a result of that and some other synergies, the LH cars came in sooner (3 yrs) and under budget, which meant they were making money sooner, which is very desirable to happen! At the time, the LH cars were a great value and was NOT a copy of somebody else's car . . . that the consumer knew of. It might have had a Renault platform, but everything else was Chrysler-designed. They were priced right, had very good rear seat legroom, good trunk space, and good styling.

To me, the Eagle should really have been Plymouth. It would have been easy to Euro-ize Plymouth a bit instead, which would have maintained continuity of the Plymouth name and products.

When I test drove an initial production Eagle sedan, I knew before I got off of the parking lot that it was much better than the K-cars were in driving feel and response. More like the Chryslers I used to drive and liked a lot. But, there still should have been a Plymouth.

The long-term issues with the LH cars was that some of their materials were not really long-lived. Like the deck lid trim on the Chryslers. Looked good for the first years, then with time, plastic shrinks . . . which ours did. It came loose on one end, which was re-attached with molding tape. Now it's loose again. They needed to have gotten better plastic. But that's not nearly as bad as the side moldings on the Buick Roadmasters were the thick vinyl side molding was fused to stainless steel . . . they ALL had issues with staying stuck together, over time.

ONE thing Chrysler did in the pre-LH era was to educate ALL of their dealer personnel on how to treat customers. As they knew they would be getting a lot of non-Chrysler customers who would be buying the LH cars. Chrysler's "Customer ONE" program was born. Which was copied a bit by Buick a few years later.

Just some pleasurable recollections,
CBODY67
 
#4 ·
I think that's a fair assessment. You are, however, ignoring the impact of the Ford Taurus on the market as well. As a large (large for FWD at the time) FWD sedan, the Taurus took in a ton of sales and showed all of Detroit that the market was going FWD. Remember, with Chrysler, the Boca Raton accords stated that they were to be a FWD company going forward, and they even considered dropping the Ram trucks as they didn't want to be in the RWD/4WD truck business and FWD car business at the same time. They kept the trucks for a couple of reasons: Cummins deal saved the Ram line, but the AMC management influx rejuvenated the Dodge Truck division and they developed the 1994 Ram "truck of the year" and sales jumped WAY up! :)
 
#5 ·
It's a shame they didn't implement more tactics GM used such as making a coupe version as GM did with the W Body and the Riviera and Eldorado. All they offered was the underpowered Mitsubishi clones. No Chrysler V6 powered coupes for Mopar enthusiasts when the V6 was a hot market. It would have also been nice in the second generation to keep the bulletproof 3.3 or gain the 3.8 instead of the troubled, underpowered, coarse, not as efficient (compared to GMs 3800) 2.7.

I liked GM's strategies just not the whole package that went with them as they felt weird, had too many problems, and didn't like the styling.
 
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