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Identifying the First-Gen Ford MustangWhen Chrysler Tried to be Cadillac
Chrysler spun the Imperial into its own brand in the 1950s, establishing a new luxury marque with the goods to take on Lincoln and Cadillac.Just Imperial
Branding can be everything when it comes to cars. The 1950s was a time of wild experimentation and fierce competition in the automotive industry as Detroit’s “Big Three” vied for market share during the post-war boom. To stand out, car companies sought not just new designs but new branding. Some, like Edsel, failed spectacularly. Others, like Continental and Imperial, fared better.
The history of the Chrysler Imperial spans from the mid-1920s through the early 1990s, long enough for the automobile to be reimagined several times over. The pre-war Chrysler Imperial was Walter P. Chrysler’s foray into the luxury car market, taking on the likes of Cadillac, Duesenberg, and Pierce Arrow, as the company began swallowing up smaller carmakers like Dodge and launching new brands like Plymouth and DeSoto to fill out its lineup. The Imperial 80, introduced in 1926, made a splash with its 92-horsepower straight six, garnering its selection as that year’s Indy 500 pace car.
The Imperial continued to top Chrysler’s range throughout the 1930s and ‘40s. The Imperial 8 introduced an eight-cylinder engine in 1931. Chrysler’s novel “Airflow” design of 1934 was the first ever designed using a wind tunnel and extended across the lineup, including the Imperial. Upon returning to production in 1949 (following an industry-wide production car hiatus due to WWII), the Imperial Crown earned the distinction of being the first production car to feature standard four-wheel disc brakes (the same year as the Crosley Hot Shot).
Starting in 1955, Chrysler established Imperial as its own separate brand apart from and above Chrysler and badged accordingly. The new Imperial line coincided with a nearly identical move from Lincoln which spun off its top model, the Continental, into its own separate division that same year. (You can read more on the Continental Mk. II here.)
The “100 Million Look” Imperial
The establishment of Imperial as its own marque also coincided with the elevation of Virgil Exner as Chrysler’s head of design. His “100 Million Look” for Imperial took the car in a radical new direction starting with a mammoth arching egg-crate grill and a heap of chrome accenting from stem to stern. Signature flares included the gunsight taillights and prominently sized eagle emblems. The design had its antecedence with the Imperial Parade Phaeton, a trio of specially built parade cars, from 1952. The Parade Phaeton was a stretched version of the Imperial with a passenger partition between the front and rear seats and featured an additional windshield for those rear seat passengers.
The 1955 Imperial was offered as a “Newport” two-door hardtop or four-door sedan or limousine. The sheer size of the Imperial made for regal curb presence. Four inches were added in overall length to stretch the Imperial to 223 inches in total with a 130-inch wheelbase. The limousine version, the Imperial Crown, was even bigger with a 149-inch wheelbase. And the Imperial wasn’t just long, it was also wide at 79.1 inches, allowing for the widest shoulder width of any production car on the market.
Power came from Chrysler’s first hemispherical engine, the 331-cu.-in. FirePower Hemi V8 which made 250 horsepower and came paired with a two-speed PowerFlite automatic transmission. The “Air Temp” air conditioning came as a $535-addon (ringing up to $6,300 in today’s dollars), and the Imperial itself was stickered at $4,720 ($56,400) while the limo version, of which 172 were built, was priced to $7,737 ($92,000 today).
The 1956 model year Imperial saw an already enormous car go even bigger. Total length stretched to 229.6 inches while the wheelbase added three. Smaller tailfins came in, a full-length side spear was added, and the Newport name was dropped for a more regal Southampton which attended the new Southampton four-door hardtop body style. The Hemi V8 was bored out to 354 cu.-in. for 280 horsepower.
More significantly, the Imperial introduced a new three-speed TorqueFlite automatic mid-year. The TorqueFlite featured a push-button gear selector, a popular innovation of the period with other examples including the Packard Ultra-Matic, the Edsel Teletouch, and the Merc-O-Matic from Mercury. The 1956 Imperial even improved in-car entertainment with an all-transistor radio, the 914R by Mopar, a first in a production car and a $150 option as well as the Highway Hi-Fi record player.
The Imperial Goes for Broke
The second-generation Imperial was inarguably the marque’s finest hour, though it was also not without its challenges. The 1957 model year saw a transition from Exner’s “100 Million Look” to the new Chrysler-wide “Forward Look” design language with the tag line, “Suddenly, it’s 1960!” The Imperial’s fins got bigger, as did the egg-crate grille. Quad headlights came in, another popular styling element of the late ‘50s. A Continental-like spare tire bulge was offered as an option for the rear deck lid. The Imperial’s curved glass windshield and rear window were another first for a US production car. The Hemi grew yet larger, now displacing 392 cu.-in. The standard Imperial and Crown were joined by the new LaBaron top-of-the-line model, its name referencing that of one of the Imperial’s coachbuilders from decades prior. 1957 was a banner year for the Imperial as the marque racked up 37,593 units sold, nearly four times the prior model’s numbers.
The 1958 Imperial got another set of exterior revisions, most prominently to the grille. Chrysler introduced their “Auto-Pilot” feature, making the Imperial, New Yorker, Saratoga, 300, and Windsor, the first production cars to feature cruise control. The recession of 1958 hit the auto industry hard, depressing sales across the board including for the Imperial which managed 16,000 units sold. Imperial’s success in 1957 had caught the attention of Cadillac, which instructed its salespeople to refer to the Imperial as the Chrysler Imperial. It didn’t help that Imperials were sold through Chrysler dealers while Cadillac and Lincoln had the benefit of separate showrooms.
The Imperial Returns to Form
As was the running theme for the Imperial, more visual updates were in the offing for 1959 with a new grille (six vertical strakes) and a new Silvercrest variant with a two-sectioned roof, the back half could be ordered as either painted steel or as a landau style roof in vinyl or leather. The Hemi was replaced with a lighter and more powerful 413 cu.-in Wedge V8. In 1959 production for the Imperial was moved to Chrysler’s Warren Avenue facility, formerly DeSoto’s, as a newly exclusive production line.
The Imperial also got swivel front seats in 1959. While the 1959 Imperial’s swivel seats were lever activated, the 1960 cars had automatic swivel seats. Which might sound like an improvement except the auto swivel seats functioned on both ingress and egress and the latter tended to shove passengers out of the car. This led to a return to lever activation for the 1961 model year.
The 1960 Imperial got yet another new grille design, this time coming in a V taper and so wide as to wrap around below the quad headlights. The car’s rear fins grew taller and a new “Panelescent” dash adorned the interior. This glowing dash feature used no bulbs for illumination and instead ran current to a five-layer laminate paneling of phosphorescent ceramic. 1960 saw the Imperial rebound in sales, topping 17,719 for the year, and beating out Lincoln.
The Imperial Pivots
The transition from the 1950s and into the 1960s is one of the starkest in automotive history. Within a few short years, the chrome and fins styling that peaked in the form of the 1959 Cadillac fell by the wayside in favor of simpler, straighter lines, smaller fins (if there at all), and tidier grille designs best exemplified by the 1961 Lincoln Continental.
Chrysler’s design head Virgil Exner was slow to adapt. The Imperial is a perfect case in point. The 1961, ’62, and ’63 all bore the design hallmarks that had brought success in the latter half of the 1950s, chrome, fins, and outlandish flourishes. The 1961 model was given massive fins adorned with floating gunsight taillights beneath. Those taillights were moved to float atop the fins for 1962. By 1963, Exner’s contentious relationship with Chrysler executives led to his eventual firing (though he stayed on in an advisory role to qualify for his pension) and replacement by former Ford designer Elwood Engle who, along with John Najjar, designed the aforementioned 1961 Continental.
The 1963 was, therefore, a mix of influences. It was the last Imperial to bear elements from Exner and the first Engle worked on. The fins received new integrated taillights, and a new grille was introduced. The ’63 Imperial was toned down but still a far cry from the elegant simplicity Engle had achieved with the Continental.
The 1964 design, along with minor changes for ’65 and ’66, was a significant departure from prior designs. Engle pushed for a cleaner, less busy design. Fins were shorn, the spare tire hump was moved from the rear deck lid to the bumper, and chrome brightwork was scaled back. The revisions helped the Imperial reach 23,000 units sold for 1964, its best year since 1957. The final model year for the second-generation Imperial swapped in a new 440 V8 (350 horsepower) under the hood with minor cosmetic changes that, yes, included a new grille design.
The Imperial’s Best Years
The Imperial continued for another two generations before taking a hiatus after 1975 and then returning briefly for 1981 through 1983. Lee Iacocca brought back the Imperial name under the Chrysler banner for four more years of production from 1990 through 1993. Despite additional distinctions that included use as Pres. Regan’s inauguration car, the title of longest production car (the 1973 model year’s 235.3 inches), and even a Frank Sinatra marketing campaign and special addition for that brief stint in the early 1980s (Sinatra was a personal friend of Iacocca’s), the Imperial never regained the relevance or flair of its middle age in the 1950s and ‘60s.
