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1964 Chrysler Imperial

08.11.2019

/exposition/hall-of-70s

chryslerimperial1964

You might know the saying. The crisis is here we must eat smelly cheese, drink old wine and our cars don't even have roofs. This particular one is a California car. Sold in a town named Ventura as non-functional. It once broke down and she never took it again on her regular trip with daughter to Bakersfield. Not pleased by the called technician's finding of serious engine failure forced her to put up and advertisement. Having shortly studied weaknesses of Imperials we decided to respond to the ad. The elderly lady thought we must have been joking that we intended to ship the 2.5 ton vehicle to Europe. We reassured her that we are indeed so crazy but as we didn't bargain, saying: "time is money" she agreed to seal the deal. So what was it that was wrong with the car? Old Imperials of this generation suffer from internal corrosion of exhaust mufflers. Fragments of their partitions used to break lose simply blocking the pipes. Car with clogged up exhaust pipes is no good to take you anywhere. We were lucky this was the case of our car. We had a brand new exhaust fitted in Los Angeles and the problem was gone. This car model was designed by Mr. Elwood Engel and The Chrysler company promoted the Imperial brand to a separate luxury division beginning with the 1955 model which is also in possession of our Museum. The Imperial saga lasted throughout several generations up until 1975.