Lest we forget what the US was doing in the same period as some of the other cars featured here this past week, let’s look back at a couple of American products. With the benefit of hindsight, American car (not truck/crossover) offerings seem to have been much broader in the immediate post-war period, and the Chrysler corporation is a good example of this. Chrysler offered everything from basic captive imports (Simca and then the Plymouth Cricket) up through the ultra-luxurious Imperial Crown (if that name doesn’t convey a certain level of ambition, what name does?). Taking the role of number three in the big 4, their products were often also the most interesting – they had to come up with compelling ways to differentiate their products from the two dominant players. To start, let’s look at this 1966 Dodge Dart wagon for sale for $2500 in San Jose, CA.
Posts Tagged ‘crown’
19 Cents per Pound – 1968 Imperial Crown
July 22, 2014Sometimes the mind boggles at how much stuff you can get – junk or not – for $900. Originally listed at $5653 for the pillared sedan, or about $38,000 in 2014 dollars, this was a car designed to compete with Cadillac for the billing of top American luxury car. And if you weren’t busy doing stupid hippie things in 1968 like protesting against wars, for freedom, or for efficiency, you could seal yourself off from all the racket in a 5000-ish pound cocoon gliding along courtesy of Chrysler’s 350hp 440 V8, which gave a monstrous 480 lb.-ft. of torque. Check out this 1968 Imperial Crown for sale for $900 in Centralia, WA.
Alert! Alert! – 1959 Toyopet Crown Custom Wagon
March 11, 2014The warning is coming a little late, but if there had been a warning in 1958 about Toyota’s first tentative step in the American swimming pool, what would the Big 3 have said? “So you’re telling me this pipsqueak manufacturer from Japan that made milling machines, has a car that looks like our 2/3-scale European Vauxhalls, Opels, and Fords (which by the way, nobody is buying), and can’t even build a V8 or an automatic transmission is going to dominate the world market in 50 years? What kind of pills are you taking, boy?” So you can’t entirely blame them for being surprised when ten years later, the Corona experienced an astronomic sales climb that forced them to think seriously about small cars. Or should have (instead, we got Pintos, Vegas, and Chevettes). Check out one of Toyota’s earliest forays, this 1959 Toyopet Crown Custom wagon, for sale with bidding at $3550 and just over one day left to go, in Moreno Valley, CA.