We’re going back to Imperial today and we’re in 1967. The early 1960s were a turbulent time for Imperial, when the D-body served as the second generation Imperial car from 1957 to 1966. In 1967, Imperial Senior Designer Elwood Engel led Imperial’s transition to a new shared platform. Say hello to C.
The flagship of the luxury class Imperial no longer stood on its own dedicated body-on-frame platform as it migrated to Chrysler’s largest C-body in 1967. While the C-platform was a unibody body and certainly more modern than the outgoing D-body, it has long been known for its granite-like strength, and has given Imperial its reputation as the luxury car of choice for drivers. After the rest of its lineup switched to unibody in 1960, Chrysler felt it had enough engineering experience to switch Imperial as well. The D-body was also quite old in 1966, and Chrysler had introduced the modern C-body for its cars in 1965.
Imperial shared the C-body with all major Chrysler cars of the time: Town & Country, Newport, 300 and New Yorker. While it was a new direction of product for Imperial as a brand, it certainly wasn’t the first time Chrysler’s flagship had shared a platform with New Yorker and the company. Keep in mind that in the 1940s and 1950s, Imperial was essentially a trim variant of the largest Chrysler after falling from its beginnings as a touring coach. The split of the Imperial brand in 1955 should put an end to sharing and similarity. Unfortunately, money was tight and the sale no longer justified a unique platform for a single model.
The wheelbase of the Imperial shrank by two inches to 127 as a result of the change to the C body. Other dimensions also withered: the total length was 224.7 inches, compared to 227.8 in the previous year. The width performed better, as the occupants are satisfied with shoulder pads with a total width of 79.6 inches instead of 80. Overall height increased from 55.8 to 56.7 inches against the long and low grain of the era. Imperial was still longer than any Chrysler, with its luxury-enhancing inches on the wheels. A comparable New Yorker in 1967 was only 218.2 inches long. The new platform helped add weight to the Imperials as the 1967 model weighed 5,200 pounds over the D-body’s chunky 5,500. If any of these numbers sounds unusual for a passenger car, keep in mind that the current Cadillac Escalade weighs between 5,600 and 5,800 pounds.
Production shifted with the new model from Warren Avenue Assembly (Detroit), where it had been since 1963, back to Jefferson Avenue Assembly, Imperial’s historic manufacturing base. Imperials were also built at the Belvidere Assembly in Belvidere, Illinois. It was the first time an Imperial was built outside of the metropolitan Detroit area.
Imperial returned with four body variants, one more than in 1966. The two-door hardtop coupé and the convertible, the four-door hardtop and the band member, which has not been seen since 1960: a simplest four-door sedan, were offered. The serial nomenclature this year was CY1 (M, H), because Imperial was again missing a “basic” model designation, although there was a basic Imperial without an appended secondary equipment designation. Mid-level trim was the crown, and again the flagship was LeBaron. Although it shared a common platform, Imperial had its own body panels and wasn’t a badge swap from the New Yorker.
Elwood Engel continued the general Continental-like styling direction that he had established with the Exner-free revision of the Imperial in 1964. The most notable setback was the full-width front grille with four built-in headlights that lost their housing from last year. The block lettering on the front returned to Imperial, now inside the grille instead of above it. The leading chrome strip along the bonnet and body side that had been on the Imperial for years disappeared when the body chrome was low on the door. The hard-sided body lines softened and went in the direction of the hull design that Chrysler would define for much of the 1970s. The wheels weren’t set as deeply into the body as the cars of the late 1960s moved away from “bathtub on piano wheels” setups. Door handles became the push-button and grab handle design and were no longer flush as in the previous year. Wrap-around windshields, a detail of the past, were gone, and the roof treatment was a little thinner and more glassy. The wrong Continental kit bulge on the trunk was also gone. The Imperial’s new rear end was much less rocket-inspired and had a horizontal louvre look with a grille that mimicked the front. The large imperial logo in the middle of the rear, which served as a fuel filler flap, was carried over.
The interior styling was not far from last year. The dashboard was still wide and level, although it was now angled away from the front passengers, not toward them. Dials and controls were all designed horizontally, with buttons and switches built into the dashboard rather than on separate pods near the driver. Vents have been built into the dash instead of being mounted underneath. The steering wheel was exactly the same as it was in 1966.
The incredibly rare Imperial sedan built by Ghia was no more and was relocated to a more practical build and position. Chrysler hired the Ambruster-Stageway company to build its Imperial sedans. A name change meant that the special sedan was now called the Imperial LeBaron Limousine; the historical name Crown Imperial has been dropped. Ambruster, based in Fort Smith, Arkansas, was a company known for making six-door sedans for airport transportation and other very long utility vehicles. For sedan orders, Ambruster Imperial added 36 inches, most of which went into the center section of the car. There was also a short extension between the tailgate and the wheel arch. Middle row passengers looked rearward in the 1967 sedan, unlike previous sedans that used a skip seat setup. Between the rows there was a sideboard for drinks. The resulting 260.7-inch car was longer than a Ghia car, and also longer than a Cadillac Series 75 for marketing purposes.
A new option for Imperial this year was Mobile Director, which was only available on the Imperial Crown Coupe. The executive option allowed the front passenger seat to face backwards where a table and desk lamp flipped over the rear seat. The general idea was that a senior executive could work face back while his driver drove towards the office. Said boss would be in the back seat if he had a secretary with him to work in the rear-facing seat. The unusual option package cost $ 317.60 in 1968, or $ 2,558 adjusted. It was so expensive that only 81 Crown Coupes came with Mobile Director, and the option was discontinued after 1968.
The new Wedge V8, the 440 (7.2L), was taken over from 1966. The big block was paired with the same three-speed TorqueFlite A727 as before. In other tech news, power brakes with front discs were standard. Double exhausts, which were only offered with the TNT engine package, were no longer standard. TNT added 15 horsepower to the 440 through two inlets on the air filter.
The new platform and design increased Imperial sales by about 28 percent in 1967, as Chrysler sold 17,614. In 1968 Chrysler discontinued its first generation of the C-body. Aside from Imperial, its C-cars had been sold since 1965, and Chrysler was preparing to take a new styling direction. In 1968 the Imperial series was renamed the DY1 (M, H) and little has changed from the model’s debut year. The bumpers retained their battering ram details that extended into redesigned corner lights that carried the louvred design of the grille. The resulting look was more modern and streamlined than it was in 1967, with a simpler and larger grille design that was only divided in the middle by a small molding. 1968 buyers forego a proud hood ornament as the Imperial poultry moved to the center of the grille. The Heckadler fuel filler flap was now made of metal instead of plastic. The base model without the Imperial designation ended as a year-long offer as it was canceled and the four-door pillar sedan became a crown instead. Customers who wanted an Imperial convertible bought in 1968 because the model was to fall by the wayside forever.
Sales fell as customers expected the hull to look like the following year, to 15,361. Of these, 1,887 were base Crown sedans and 8,492 were Crown hardtops. The unpopular Crown convertible sold just 474 copies on its last appearance, while the top tier LeBaron four-door model sold 1,852 copies. The price for a base sedan was $ 5,653 ($ 46,077 adj.), And it was a small step up to the Crown hardtop at $ 6,114 ($ 49,835 adj.). Crown coupes sold for $ 5,721 ($ 46,631 adj.), While a convertible was much more expensive at $ 6,522 ($ 53,160 adj.). The LeBaron did not apologize for its $ 6,939 ($ 56,559 adj.) Request.
In 1968, the Continental styling of the Imperial of the early sixties looked very upright and conservative compared to other major car competitors that had grown longer, lower, and wider over the decade. There was an all-new Imperial again the following year when Chrysler unveiled its huge hull-style Imperials from 1969. More on this in Part XII.
[Images: Imperial]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC footage, and everything else who knows the truth about cars first by subscribing to our Newsletter.
Related
// load SDK asynchronously (function (d, s, id) {var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName (s)[0]; if (d.getElementById (id)) {return;} js = d.createElement (s); js.id = id; js.src = “https://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore (js, fjs); } (Document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
// switches the mobile navigation to let mobileMenu = document.getElementById (‘mobileHeader’); let siteMobile = document.getElementById (‘main-wrapper’); let mobileBtn = document.querySelector (‘. hamburger’);
if (siteMobile.classList.contains (‘menuOpen’)) {siteMobile.classList.remove (‘menuOpen’); document.documentElement.classList.remove (‘noScroll’); document.body.classList.remove (‘noScroll’); } else {siteMobile.classList.add (‘menuOpen’); document.documentElement.classList.add (‘noScroll’); document.body.classList.add (‘noScroll’); }
// hide header when scrolling down var didScroll; var lastScrollTop = 0; Var delta = 5; var navbarHeight = $ (‘# mobileHeader’). outerHeight ();
$ (window) .scroll (function (event) {if ($ (window) .innerWidth () = 150) {didScroll = true;} else {$ (‘# main-wrapper’). removeAttr (‘class’); }}});
setInterval (function () {if (didScroll) {hasScrolled (); didScroll = false;}}, 250);
// make sure you scroll more than delta if (Math.abs (lastScrollTop – st) lastScrollTop && st> navbarHeight) {// scroll down if ($ (‘# main-wrapper’). HasClass (‘ sticky ‘)) {$ (‘ # main-wrapper ‘). removeClass (‘ sticky ‘). addClass (‘ backUp ‘); setTimeout (function () {$ (‘# main-wrapper’). removeClass (‘backUp’);}, 350); }} else {// scroll up if (st + $ (window) .height ()