Actually, the C-P pairing was the result of the restructuring Chrysler did in the early 1960s, during the Lynn Townsend years. Prior to that, I believe (from reading the Curtis Redgap chronicles), there were separate Plymouth stores for a little while. Locally, I believe the local Chrysler-Imperial dealer also had DeSotos. Another dealer had Plymouth and Dodge. When that dealer closed, the Chrysler store got the Plymouths and the Dodge franchise went to the Dodge dealer's brother's Mercury-Lincoln dealership. With that last move for Dodge, they never did sell many Dodges or Dodge pickups, so by the earlier 1970s, the Chrysler store had all of the franchises. When Plymouth was deleted, that made room for those Chrysler stores to get Jeep as a replacement franchise.
I believe the action to delete Plymouth and put all franchises in one store was part of "The Phoenx Program", which Chrysler operatives hatched in the earlier 1980s or so. Cerberus operatives were considering doing the same thing, but found the old Chrysler program, so they put it into play. It was the recent Fiat connection which broke RAM out as a separate brand, probably for an easier sell in Europe or something?
You can talk about product overlap, but that seems to have been getting a lot of attention for no really good reason, to me. The way you have to consider it is that for each price point you have all of these different CHOICES of how to spend that money, depending upon your particular likes and dislikes in vehicles. So you have one price point that can cover MORE customer demographics, so that should mean MORE customers. If there was just ONE car at that price point, it limits things significantly in who's going to come it.
Even when Chrysler was allegely using too much "badge engineering", there was usually enough "flavor" differences to do justice to the nameplate on the vehicles. In the middle 1970s, I didn't see very many Dodge Charger SE customers that ended up with Cordobas, or Cordoba customers that ened up with a Charge SE. It was possible to spec out the Charger SE very close to what the Cordoba had, but you couldn't build the exact same-equpment car in the Charger SE, unless you did some parts switching yourself after delivery. Like the trunk carpet in the Cordoba rather than what was in the Charger. Some of the interior ornamentation on the instrument panel would have looked out of place in the Charger SE, to me, but was "right" for the Cordoba. As close as the two cars were, they were more different than some might have suspected, IF they'd bothered to look.
I believe it was chronicled in here, at that time, that when Diamler decided to kill Plymouth (which was selling minivans only at the time), they priced the same size of Chrysler minivan less than what a similar Plymouth minivan cost the prior model year. Yet they couldn't sell them to then-current Plymouth customers as those customers perceived the Chrysler to be "more expensive". It might also have been that if those customers had showed up in a Chrysler rather than a Plymouth, it could have sent the wrong message to their neighbors (in their particular neighborhoods). Similarly, if those same people had wanted a Dodge (and the sporty image it usually carried), they could have already been driving a Dodge. But they liked the image of Plymouth and obviously felt more comfortable with that than with a Chrysler or Dodge. Funny thing was that when the next-year sales figures were tallied, the first full model year after Plymouth was deleted, Chrysler's corporate vehicle sales decreased by about the same exact amount as what the last full year of production of Plymouth minivans was! AND, the same thing happened with GM and Oldsmobile! Customers lost forever, it seems, to import brands!
What became "Eagle" should really have been "Plymouth", to me. Plymouth could have covered that "import fighter" orientation pretty well, I suspect, IF the marketing had been "right".
Just some thoughts,
CBODY67
I believe the action to delete Plymouth and put all franchises in one store was part of "The Phoenx Program", which Chrysler operatives hatched in the earlier 1980s or so. Cerberus operatives were considering doing the same thing, but found the old Chrysler program, so they put it into play. It was the recent Fiat connection which broke RAM out as a separate brand, probably for an easier sell in Europe or something?
You can talk about product overlap, but that seems to have been getting a lot of attention for no really good reason, to me. The way you have to consider it is that for each price point you have all of these different CHOICES of how to spend that money, depending upon your particular likes and dislikes in vehicles. So you have one price point that can cover MORE customer demographics, so that should mean MORE customers. If there was just ONE car at that price point, it limits things significantly in who's going to come it.
Even when Chrysler was allegely using too much "badge engineering", there was usually enough "flavor" differences to do justice to the nameplate on the vehicles. In the middle 1970s, I didn't see very many Dodge Charger SE customers that ended up with Cordobas, or Cordoba customers that ened up with a Charge SE. It was possible to spec out the Charger SE very close to what the Cordoba had, but you couldn't build the exact same-equpment car in the Charger SE, unless you did some parts switching yourself after delivery. Like the trunk carpet in the Cordoba rather than what was in the Charger. Some of the interior ornamentation on the instrument panel would have looked out of place in the Charger SE, to me, but was "right" for the Cordoba. As close as the two cars were, they were more different than some might have suspected, IF they'd bothered to look.
I believe it was chronicled in here, at that time, that when Diamler decided to kill Plymouth (which was selling minivans only at the time), they priced the same size of Chrysler minivan less than what a similar Plymouth minivan cost the prior model year. Yet they couldn't sell them to then-current Plymouth customers as those customers perceived the Chrysler to be "more expensive". It might also have been that if those customers had showed up in a Chrysler rather than a Plymouth, it could have sent the wrong message to their neighbors (in their particular neighborhoods). Similarly, if those same people had wanted a Dodge (and the sporty image it usually carried), they could have already been driving a Dodge. But they liked the image of Plymouth and obviously felt more comfortable with that than with a Chrysler or Dodge. Funny thing was that when the next-year sales figures were tallied, the first full model year after Plymouth was deleted, Chrysler's corporate vehicle sales decreased by about the same exact amount as what the last full year of production of Plymouth minivans was! AND, the same thing happened with GM and Oldsmobile! Customers lost forever, it seems, to import brands!
What became "Eagle" should really have been "Plymouth", to me. Plymouth could have covered that "import fighter" orientation pretty well, I suspect, IF the marketing had been "right".
Just some thoughts,
CBODY67
