Interesting 1970 Magazine Article
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Samplingman
Old Man with a Hat
What was this "25" mini-car? The only one I remember was the foreign born Colt, but the article mentions one designed and built in the US?
fc7_plumcrazy
Old Man with a Hat
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FY1 yellow and EV2 orange were available on Chrysler but limelight (FJ5) wasn't.
Silver (EA4) was a C-body only colour in 1970 and could not be had on a Cuda.
Maybe it was a 71 model in GA4 gunmetal?
Carsten
Carmine
Old Man with a Hat
But Chrysler's car, with the code name 25, isn't expected to be on sale before the fall of 1971.
I have seen the early design work on this car. It was essentially a Duster with the rear lopped-off. "25" refers to the number of inches chopped from the Duster's length. Imagine a Gremlin mixed with Duster. Would have flopped, probably better they didn't build it. They had no powertrain that would have done much better than a Duster in terms of fuel economy, at least not until '81.
The smart money would have been spent on powertrains and "Americanizing" the European Horizon at an earlier stage, rather than almost completely re-designing it in the mid-later 70s.
I don't know that I believe the '69 C's were as a big a disaster as they claim. Certainly we know they did quite well in fleets... How many non-Mopar police and taxis in that era? Not saying they didn't exist, but Mopar was a leader in (albiet lower profit) municipal orders.
polara71
Old Man with a Hat
Carmine
Old Man with a Hat
Not profitably in a country with gas at $2.25 per gallon... not unless you have the scale to sell those same/similar cars in other markets where fuel is taxed up to $8-10 per gallon.
That is the question that has vexed American manufactuers since roughly 1960. There have been ebbs and flows, regulations and cultural shifts along the way, but the problem remains to this day. Chrysler, being the smallest of the D3 has struggled the most.
Very interesting read, thanks for the mega post!!
Looking back the car that switched my interest to Mopar was a 64 Fury 2drht with a 318. I simply fell in love with the look at first sight and bought the car with zero research.After driving it for awhile, I made another impulse purchase and traded the '64 in for a '68 Fury 318 convertible. I didn't research anything, I bought the '68 because it was a drop top and I liked the vertical headlights. I know nothing abut Mopar and essentially nothing about the car it'self. After a long road trip my love affair with the '68 soured. Everything was wonderful except it was a gutless wonder on the highway. I started to "look" into cars and decided I still liked the Fury car, it just needed to be custom ordered to get it right. So the '70 440 convertible was built. At the time there were rumbles all across the car industry mostly having to do with the previous 10 year love affair with muscle cars and he doom and gloom pending of fuel shortages and skyrocketing fuel prices. After '70 people started to look at fuel cost and many as the previous article pointed out, started to look at smaller cars. At the same time, all the manufacturers started cutting costs and the new cars were getting worse ever year. I remember looking at the cars around me in the 70's and thanking my lucky stars that I bought when I did. By the end of the 70's and the early 80's all new cars "looked" cheap and people migrated to Japanese imports. I never looked at or even considered owning another Mopar again until I saw the 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited with a Hemi. Now it appears after only 10 years, Mopar has screwed up the pooch and taken all the joy out of the Jeep. My next purchase will likely be Mercedes or BMW. I still love my Fury and my love for early Mopar 440 muscle cars, I just don't much like the new stuff.
Looking back the car that switched my interest to Mopar was a 64 Fury 2drht with a 318. I simply fell in love with the look at first sight and bought the car with zero research.After driving it for awhile, I made another impulse purchase and traded the '64 in for a '68 Fury 318 convertible. I didn't research anything, I bought the '68 because it was a drop top and I liked the vertical headlights. I know nothing abut Mopar and essentially nothing about the car it'self. After a long road trip my love affair with the '68 soured. Everything was wonderful except it was a gutless wonder on the highway. I started to "look" into cars and decided I still liked the Fury car, it just needed to be custom ordered to get it right. So the '70 440 convertible was built. At the time there were rumbles all across the car industry mostly having to do with the previous 10 year love affair with muscle cars and he doom and gloom pending of fuel shortages and skyrocketing fuel prices. After '70 people started to look at fuel cost and many as the previous article pointed out, started to look at smaller cars. At the same time, all the manufacturers started cutting costs and the new cars were getting worse ever year. I remember looking at the cars around me in the 70's and thanking my lucky stars that I bought when I did. By the end of the 70's and the early 80's all new cars "looked" cheap and people migrated to Japanese imports. I never looked at or even considered owning another Mopar again until I saw the 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited with a Hemi. Now it appears after only 10 years, Mopar has screwed up the pooch and taken all the joy out of the Jeep. My next purchase will likely be Mercedes or BMW. I still love my Fury and my love for early Mopar 440 muscle cars, I just don't much like the new stuff.
Carmine
Old Man with a Hat
Your logic is easy to follow until the last statement... Chrysler continues to offer Jeep Grand Cherokees that are multiples of 10 better than what was offered in 2006. If you are satisfied with your current JGC, why would you decide to buy a Mercedes or BMW?
Fratzog
Old Man with a Hat
Not sure that I agree. By the time you pay for a Bimmer or Mercedes you could have one of these...
Jeep's Grand Cherokee Hellcat is bringing all 707 HP to the U.S. in July of 2017
330dTA
Senior Member
I'm familiar with this article and it's points. I sourced the magazine a few years ago, when I was planning an article on Fuselage design. Only to find out that Jeff Godshall had already written it. (In fact he had written two. Both appeared in the Collectible Automobile magazine, and according to Dave Cummins, a former Chrysler design chief, who was there and then, and was kind enough to reply to my email, confirmed to me the Godshall articles to be "pretty accurate".)
But to those Dodge flanks: so the customers didn't like them when new. And now we regard them as one of the best features in their design. - Taste adapts, I suppose. To my eyes those flanks have more than a bit of the '66-68 Chevrolet Impala...
But to those Dodge flanks: so the customers didn't like them when new. And now we regard them as one of the best features in their design. - Taste adapts, I suppose. To my eyes those flanks have more than a bit of the '66-68 Chevrolet Impala...
GregG48203
Active Member
Since the Gremlin was just a Hornet with the rear lopped-off, I can understand the thinking behind the concept. It's appropriate to mention the Plymouth Cricket: Hillman Avenger - Wikipedia (this article also mentions the European Horizon).
Beep Beep Dave
Senior Member
It was a good read, this is my favourite era of cars and the ones I gravitate to the most. I also enjoyed the comments here.
Dave
Dave
Your dad was right about high impact colors being available on the C bodies. But I really do like my 1971 New Yorker with the 440HP engine and sunroof and just about every other option you could get. I park it next to my 1970 Cuda in my garage for a reason. Although I do not drive my cars all that much, I do drive both of these probably the most. Just had the Cuda out this last weekend driving it! Sweet!
330dTA
Senior Member
Lovely car. Because of a childhood contamination, I'm more inclined towards the '70 models. Even as I know them to be inferior to the '71s on many points. As you have pointed out on many occasions. - But that one is truly sweet.
Fratzog
Old Man with a Hat
Godshall had pics of Dave's and my convertibles in that article. I'm not sure if his negative attitude towards Fuselage design was a personal quirk or a POV shared by the whole design team. He was particularly critical of the 69 front bumper design on the Dodges.I wrote him about his attitude and he replied. He insisted that nothing matched Pontiac design of that era. I know that it pissed off both Dave and myself.
rapidtrans
Senior Member
Yeah, the grey one was propably a 71. It was a loaded Grand Coupe 383. (i was responsible for putting his new Sebring Satellite in the shop)
The guys in the garage told dad the high impact colors were very expensive to repair. I think that may have shied him away from them. I have never heard that since and suspect these were custom painted. I believe a high impact red was available also.
So Godshall thought this Pontiac Design was the epitome of great styling? I thought the Edsels looked better myself. He was probaby jealous that Pontiacs didn't look anywhere near the good looks of any fuselage design. And the rear of these Pontiacs was just homely. Who is he trying to kid?
Fratzog
Old Man with a Hat
Yeah I know. Grotesque pointy nose and over the top coke bottle 1/4s are just brutal. Godshall is actually a decent guy who wrote a couple of thoughtful hand written letters to me. Who does that anymore? There's just no accounting for taste.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Even today, Chrysler (FCA) can't make any money on small cars, and not just the Toyota Corolla class of small cars, but even in the larger cars like the Toyota Camry/Honda Accord. Just recently Chrysler stopped production of the Chrysler 200 which tried to compete with the Camrys and Accords, etc because they couldn't make any money - it was actually costing them money to try to sell them. And this was after totally refurbishing the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant to build world class cars. In order to get customers to even consider the cars, Chrysler had to put so much money on the hood, it didn't work. So after only a few years of a completely new product, it was axed. And also the Dart was dropped as well due to poor sales and the same cash on the hood problem. The Asians and others have those markets sowed up. The Dart especially was not a really competitive car, but the 200 was actually pretty good I thought, although Consumer Reports likely killed it after their review.
polara71
Old Man with a Hat
So much has to do with advertising. I see plenty of car ads in various forms of media. The two hundred and the Dart had little to no exposure and if it did receive anything it was poor.
I see many foreign car ads that are good and have been for thirty years while the Domestic market usually has poor ads. The Challenger and Dodge Brothers ads of last year were awesome but they sparingly displayed them .
Remember Dodge dropping the truck? That was a great ad .....
So many didnt even know the cars existed, like the Crossfire
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