What killed Plymouth's Formal?

[traintech55]

I have read a lot in this thread, and the one thing that is not addressed is the quality control on the Plymouth , (and Dodge), Formals. The Chrysler was better. I owned a number of them, and they all had the same problems, The fit and finish of the interiors was terrible, big gaps between the panels, Everyone I owned leaked water into the trunk because of the side marker lights, (This is why they are all rusted out today). My 1975 Gran Fury Custom was my first new car, and I did not feel it was worth the $6,500.00 I paid for it.

 

[68 4spd Fury]

I was always in powertrain, not platform engineering. That said, (and obviously I wasn't there), I can only imagine the time of panic and "shoot from the hip" decisions that happened at that time. I was their though through the 09 time and can attest to a rapidly changing environment.

 

[CBODY67]

ONE thing that must be remembered is that what we see as "new" in the showroom was approved for production about THREE years prior. Or more. In the later 1960s, CAR LIFE magazine did an article on how car companies planned their models. What was revealed, then, and proved later on from what I saw in GM Parts, was that when the new model is approved, there is a 5-6 year plan put together. Which ALSO details when re-freshes are done. Only if things go suddenly wrong is that play book ever altered.

As for "changes" in that last model year? In the world of vehicle design, there is a certain "life" to each part (and contract length with the vendor) that is unique to that particular car. When the "design life" limit is reached, they can either extend it as it is or do something different, but similar, for the same $$$$$. So, if the cost is the same, "Let's do something better!" Even if it's only for one model year.

As for the R car, it has Iacocca's fingerprints all over it. First "pillared hardtop" in then-recent Chrysler history. Straight belt line moldings (at the bottom of the side windows which Bob Eaton didn't like, by his admission of such in a K-car introduction) are two items. At that time, only Ford used the pillared hardtop designs on their 4-doors. But we know that Chairman Lee was directly focused on the K-cars as "the future".

By observation, that pillared hardtop design had POOR window sealing. And their window regulators weren't that good, either, by observation. More things to give a new customer a bad impression of "Chrysler Engineering"! And send them right back to GM.

The R-car is basically a B-body with an inch more in the wheelbase. PLUS an isolated K-frame similar to the later '60s Imperials that had such. That, plus the 3" of padding under the carpets, gives the cars a quieter and smoother ride. AND, if you pull all of the carpets out, you'll find (on the factory dual exhaust cars, at least) a contoured pad to mount a floor shifter for the automatic transmission with! Think Cordoba 300 (factory real dual converter/dual exhaust 360 w/buckets and floor shift).

Obviously, to me, IF Chrysler had not been playing into the whole "max fuel economy" mentality of the time, they could have easily had a "Euro Touring" option package to go with the Open Road (think "police" suspension option. Add the Magnum GT wheels and the later 318 4bbl to round out the basic package. A Chrysler R-car with the standard Slant Six just didn't cut it. Missed opportunity? Cost to do it would have been minimal as most of the items already existed elsewhere. A f-dr Chrysler stable mate to the Magnum GT? When the Nissan Maxima was billing itself as "4 Door Sports Car".

The Mirada was neat, with the Cordoba a bit less so. The LS Cordoba should have been "300", but didn't have the guts a 300 should have, even in a time when a "hot" engine was 165 horsepower. A Mirada with a 360 4bbl HO would have been a Z/28 competitor, I suspect. Back then.

ONE thing that I noticed that Chrysler seemed to have it all over GM on, in the later '80s cars, was that ALL of Chrysler's soft bumpers and related fillers had paint on them that always matched. NONE of the Chevys did, by comparison. We were told it was due to the same paint as on the metal, but the flex agent shifted the color a bit. In reality, probably more of a paint supplier issue for GM, I suspect. But why did the Chrysler products always match, no matter what?

Chrysler still owned the police car market with the Formals. There are design attributes which tend to reflect this, too. Which probably carried on with the R-cars (where they might be more evident). I always wondered why the center of the Formal's trunk floor was so high, but with those deep pockets on either side. The gas tank was raised so it wouldn't be so easy to "drag off" when the police cars might go off-road. Same with the exhaust system on the R-cars, ALL of which hangs above the lowest level of the rocker panels, plus the higher gas tank level. I noticed those things, one night, as I laid under my '80 Newport (on jack stands as I was putting a factory dual exhaust under it). No wonder the foot wells are a bit higher, too.

When the Formals came out, I was impressed that it seemed that Chrysler fixed many of the issues which they created with the '69-'73 cars. Getting back the airy feel to the cabin (ala '65-'68), for example. But as others have pointed out, there were some other issues with the Formals (wiper linkage) that I wasn't aware of. Still, I liked them.

Problem with them was that they didn't get a lot of conquest sales from other makes. EXCEPT that Fenner Tubbs in Lubbock sold lots of New Yorkers to former Buick/Olds/Pontiac owners due to the much better fuel economy the Chryslers would do compared to the GM brands. A good year for the cotton farmers didn't hurt, either.

By observation, where there was a strong Chrysler dealer in the metro area, there were many more Chrysler products on the roads in that region. Fenner Tubbs was that dealer in Lubbock, since 1941. When it was sold years later, that ended that deal, by observation. The Dodge dealer up there, whose General Mgr was a former Chrysler MID guy, was more modern but didn't do nearly as well as Fenner Tubbs seemed to (circa 1972-1980), from what I could tell.

It seemed to take a confirmed Mopar owner, that was used to all of the Chrysler idiosyncracies to keep buying Chryslers after that first one. PLUS a good dealer to take care of the cars! GM buyers, by observation, tolerated a more mediocre product and when it broke, it didn't make headlines on the evening news. Just part of ownership, but then too, GM dealers were found to try to keep dissatisfied buyers buying GM cars, Ford was 2nd in line, and Chrysler was 3rd. Allegedly, in some cases, helping them to buy another brand . . . or firmly motivating them to do so. NOT good times for Chrysler, back then.

All of that changed with the introduction of the LH cars. Chrysler's "Customer ONE" program got the dealers (and employees) more oriented to deal with "new people" buying Chrysler products. GM had a similar program a few years later about "Exceeding Customer Expectations" . . . a 3-day seminar for Owner/Operators/Managers, as everybody in the dealership got the "short course" 1-day seminar. Not a lot of rocket science, just awareness of many issues from the customer's point of view.

In the Chrysler Master-Tech programs, there are a few such programs going back into the earlier 1960s, BUT they were not as good as the GM program was, by observation.

Enjoy!
CBODY67

 

[PeugFra]

... the one thing that is not addressed is the quality control on the Plymouth , (and Dodge), Formals. The Chrysler was better.

The Formals were assembled in different places, Chrysler at East Jefferson and the other two at Belvidere and initially also Newark. IF the assemblies had different approaches to quality control, that could explain this divergence.

 

[CBODY67]

I wouldn't call it "different approaches" as such, but "different orchestration" as every assembly plant had the same "build instructions" and "quality control goals" as the other Chrysler Corp plants would. BUT how these things were implemented on the plant floor, with the same parts from the same suppliers, could vary. Just as the many inspection marks/daubs/stamps could vary by not only plant, but the particular shift when the car went down the line, and the persons doing/overseeing how things were done.

Things like panel gaps and alignments would be design issues, but loose/missing fasteners and such would be a "line issue".

When I was reading through the factory warranty coverage on our '66 Newport (after we got it when the '67s came out), I noticed that tightening fasteners was covered in the warranty. Probably similar to squeaks and rattles. But this should have been addressed at the first, 3000 mile oil change/maintenance service visit, not near the end of the 12 month initial warranty period, I suspect.

When we got our '72 Newport Royal, I let everything settle-in for about 5000 miles (as an article in "Popular Science" magazine had suggested). It had wind noise, rattles, and such like our '66 never had. So, I came in one weekend from college and went over the car. Tightening every fastener I could get a socket or wrench on. Many of them could go another 1/4 to 1/3 turn! Afterward, that took care of the "loose feel" the car had, for the most part. I also did some of my wind noise fixes (which I had already done to the '66 Newport), which helped too. When I was done, I was satisfied that it was as it should have been.

IF I'd been a complaining customer with a mediocre dealer service department/service advisor, I probably would have been an unsatisfied customer and would have not gone back (for anything). Not that the same things might have happened at a GM or Ford store, but there could be a higher probability it could happen at a larger, metro Chrysler Corp store, by observation. There were a few exceptions, though. But I also knew that keeping a tech tied-up on warranty work (with the things mentioned) was not profitable for the service department NOR would it have been something that their "best technician" would have been assigned to do. But, again, there were exceptions that worked well for all involved. MUCH of it would have included just how well the service advisor knew the products and how to best communicate what was done to the customer.

Enjoy!
CBODY67

 

[PeugFra]

Problem with them was that they didn't get a lot of conquest sales from other makes.

Judging by the market share losses I would add, Plymouth lost a lot of sales to other makes.

The pitch in this 1974 ad strikes me as odd:

"Tough it is. Dull it isn't." As if the ad wants to make up for the modest appearance of the new Fury. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but apparently lots of people didn't.

 

[CBODY67]

The Plymouth heritage of tough and dependable cars started with taxi cabs. Which then led to law enforcement vehicles (at the time, the flathead 6 had comparable power to the Chevy and Ford flathead V-8). Ask any old Ford guy and they'll probably talk favorably about the Ford V-8, but then probably mention (as one of my customers did) that when they went to a car show, they had to have a trailer as the car would probably overheat).

Which then led to Petty, Sr. and a Plymouth with 6-ply truck tires on the sands of Florida in what would become NASCAR racing on the beach.

Plymouth Taxis and Plymouth Police Cars HAD to be tough to survive as they had to. Plus their "common man" pricing didn't hurt, either.

In '55, it became "tough with style and new V-8 power". And things progressed from there. Until . . . the gasoline crisis of about 1973 hit. At the new 55mph federal speed limits, the Chrysler products had a distinct advantage over the similar GM and Ford products.

In that time frame, I was in college at Texas Tech and frequented Fenner Tubbs C-P often. For service and to look at the cars on the lot. To help their sales, they had one of each platform in their demo fleet. They'd fill them at the Shell station across the street and then had south toward Post, TX (and the edge of the caprock). Then turn around and head back. Using the factory cruise control set to 55mph. Fury 360 2bbl was 19.66 mpg, Newport 400 2bbl was 20.33mpg, and the NY 440 was 20.66mpg. They had the results printed on company letterhead and notorized. Then they were placed with the sales brochures on the showroom floor.

If a customer was interested in a New Yorker (seeking to trade-in their LeSabre, Delta 88, or Olds 98, but didn't believe the mpg figures, their salesperson would find the car they were interested in, hand them the keys for the weekend, and finalize the paperwork on Monday. Every time! Even if the NY returned 18mph or so, it was better than the 12mpg of the GM products. SO, they sold lots of Chrysler formals that year. Plymouth probably got left by the way-side in that deal as most dealers stocked 360 or 400 2bbls rather than 440s, I suspect.

Certainly, you could option a Plymouth just as a Chrysler NY could have been, but the price would have been more than nicely-optioned Newport. Which would make the Chrysler a perceived better deal. BUT this same thing existed at GM and Ford, too! Just depended upon what the customer wanted and how it would be perceived.

On the other hand, when the Plymouth minivans were discontinued, it would be suspected that those loyal Plymouth owners would have moved up to a Dodge, but that didn't happen. They still sold the same vehicle, but with a Chrysler nameplate, at a lower price than the Plymouth minivan had been. BUT those loyal Plymouth owners didn't want the stigma of "performance" (Dodge) or "luxury" (Chrysler) surrounding what they drove. They wanted a reliable vehicle that didn't allude to how much money they didn't have. Lest somebody suspect they were sand-bagging what they earned? So, those loyal Plymouth owners left the Mopar fold and went elsewhere. IF they'd wanted something sporty or more luxurious, they would have probably already been there, but weren't. Same thing happened with Oldsmobile when it was deleted, too.

So the loyal Plymouth minivan owners didn't bite for the Chrysler product at the same price. Or that sporty Dodge, either. Same "under the skin" vehicles, similar selling prices, different customer demographics.

Marketing failures. Dealership "ownership experience" sub-optimal situations. Plus some traditional quality control issues. And then came Volare and all of the negative publicity it got! Oh well . . . .

Nice to see a good survivor Plymouth, though!

CBODY67.

 

[PeugFra]

Brand image is of overriding importance, but somewhat difficult to grasp for a European that didn't grow up surrounded by American brands. Besides, image, not the product, changes according to the market. Formal Plymouths in Europe were definitely regarded as upscale. In Finland, for instance, they were associated with bank directors and high-ranking government officials.

So for Plymouth America it's in the first place tough, dependable, built to last. Add some basic amenities and a friendly price tag, and you get a value buy. In addition a Plymouth should not be too flashy in appearance. Did I leave anything out?

In what points did comparably priced Chevys and Fords differ from this image?

It would have been nice to see mileages for Ford and GM products on that Lubbock - Post run.

 

[GregG48203]

Plymouth Taxis and Police Cars

Another point to mention is the success of Mopar's B-bodies: possibly the result of the mid-70s gas crisis. This may have taken sales away from the larger cars. Detroit taxicab companies seemed to love their B-bodies as much as New York loved their Checkers.
The popular midsize Fords I recall from this time were the Torino Elite (same market as the Charger SE & Monte Carlo) and later the Disco Bird (1977-79 Torino-based T-bird).

 

[CBODY67]

The Torino Elite (which "Motor Trend" claimed was built on the heavier Cougar frame) was a really nice car. Optioned with the factory trailer package and the 351HO, made a nice personal luxury car with good performance for the time. A Cordoba competitor, as was the later '77 T-bird (especially with the more luxury-oriented options, but few performance -oriented options).

Here's an observation on some of the later-deleted cars. In the case of the '90s Camaros and the Thunderbird/Cougar coupes, when the main sales brochures get to be bland and much more "just there", that's an advance sign that the company is seeking to orchestrate "the end". In the case of the Camaro, there was little more than a model listing and the then-requisite Camaro police car having a Mustang pulled over on the highway. The T-bird brochure was just bland. No fancy photography to accept the car, just pictures in front of bland houses, by observation.

When all of the out-cry from loyal Camaro owners happened, Chevy figured they needed to do something (which resulted in the Monaro-relative platform we later got, but made in America) and suddenly, the brochures had lots of fancy photography and a few two-page pictures which could be "poster quality" items. Lots of interaction with the Camaro clubs, too. THEY got the message and figured out how to make it happen. Just as Ford listened to loyal Mustangers when it was discovered that "the next Mustang" would be fwd and built in Mexico (which became the Ford Probe!). They extended the Fox-body and improved it in many ways, engineering and style-wise.

These are advance side issues which happen several years prior to "the end", by observation. Consider, too, that also in the case of the T-bird/Cougar/Lincoln Mark, those cars were getting to the end of their toolings' life. The Mark died first, the T-bird, later, and the Cougar was kept alive long enough for it to have a "50th Anniversary Edition".

In the case of the T-bird/Cougar and the Camaros, those last years had some minimalist orientations on the interior design, which were carried-over for a few years, basically unchanged. What had been industry-leading designs which drew much praise from the automotive press (when introduced, in the case of the T-bird) went away in basic silence.

Remember that what we see in the showrooms is the result of decisions made at least THREE years prior by the manufacturers. It can be a serious game to predict what others will do and how each one reacts to research/predictions of future conditions. Some hits, some misses, and some "innovations" which others don't seek to follow (which resulted in the USA Pontiac Parisienne when the downsized (mid-size) Bonneville didn't work, in the 1980s. It was neat to watch what was happening and see WHY it happened, back then. Little fun in doing that now, at least to me.

For a time in the 1980s-90s, it seemed that the OEMs were sequencing their totally new platforms such that Ford had one one year, Chrysler the next, GM the next. End result, by observation, EACH got one vehicle that was the Motor Trend CAR OF THE YEAR. Maybe not in that particular order, but there DID appear to be some advance planning going on, to me. But even THAT award has become much "muddier" with the inclusion of foreign brands in the mix with the USA brands. It IS neat to see their issues with all of the contenders and road test data from them, though.

Kind of sad to see so many former iconic USA brands (which many of us grew up with, which used to be really neat stuff) become eligible for inclusion in the Orphan Car shows!

Enjoy!
CBODY67

 

[PeugFra]

The table in the first post is based on numbers from Flory (American Cars, 1973-1980), that appear to be a bit low for civil 1976 and 1977 Plymouth production, as compared to Godshall's numbers in his Collectible Automobile article. I adjusted the market share percentages accordingly:

1973: 12.26%
1974: 9.58%
1975: 8.64%
1976: 4.75%
1977: 4.16%

The steep market share drop from 1975 to 1976 remains, though.

Looking at Godshall's data I noticed something else. A breakdown per trim level shows this:

1975 Gran Fury Base 10,480
1975 Gran Fury Custom 44,031
1975 Gran Fury Brougham 18,290

1976 Gran Fury Base 10,515
1976 Gran Fury Custom 20,902
1976 Gran Fury Brougham 8,093

The 1975-to-1976 sales drop is exclusively in Custom and Brougham, whereas Base remains stable. Base sales probably contain some police and other fleet orders as well, which may be the reason for its steady performance. Private customers oriented on Custom and Brougham-like offerings really ran away from Plymouth in 1976!

A good reason to consolidate the poorer performing trim levels in only one, so in 1977 there are only two trim levels left. A direct comparison is somewhat complicated, as Base gained a 2-door hardtop. The breakdown:

1977 Gran Fury Base 19,069
1977 Gran Fury Brougham 28,483

The 1977 Brougham (28,483) is stable if compared to 1976 Custom and Brougham taken together (28,995) and it's Base making the clear gains. Factoring out the 1977 Base 2-door hardtop there is stil a healthy uptick in Base sedan and wagon sales: from 10,515 in 1976 to 16,297 in 1977.

The 1977 Brougham was not able to share in the general 1976-to-1977 sales rise. Moreover, agencies like North Carolina Highway Patrol and Texas Highway Patrol ordered Broughams for their fleets, so I suspect that in private customer sales Brougham lost still further ground.

... for some reason, the car-buying public did not find the big Plymouth as desirable as the Impala & the LTD. Fleet sales are well and good, ...

Now, because I originally opined that it was the Brougham fashion that killed Plymouth's Formal, I may be blind to other possible explanations. Probably the growing fleet-car image also contributed to its demise. The 1972 TV-ad line "What do you get when you call the police? A Plymouth" had become a liability.
The combination of Broughaminess spreading through the automobile world and the fleet image Plymouth got stuck with turned out to be lethal.

 

[Fratzog]

Here is a bit of a historical anecdote. Based on my memory of the era what hasn't received a lot of attention is the impact of the oil embargo. Plymouth in particular appealed to the low end "value conscious" buyer. My Dad was representative of that type of buyer as were many others in our town at that time. Dad drove full size Plymouths and Dodges and at the time he had a 67 Dodge Polara. I still remember his frustration with quality issues and the poor level of service at dealerships. When the price of gas spiked that was it. He had had enough and went car shopping. In that period there was a huge explosion in small economy car sales with people abandoning the full size gas guzzlers. The small foreign offerings were perceived at least to be much higher quality and of course better fuel economy. Plymouth being a low end offering was likely particularly hit hard by this trend. I remember walking through dealerships with my Dad looking at the some of the following. He eventually settled on the VW. From my recollection the only full size cars that survived a few years longer were the large personal luxury cars although they all downsized eventually.

 

[CBODY67]

Yes, Chrysler was a bit flat-footed in that time, by observation. The first Chrysler small cars were re-badged VWs, as I recall. Ford had it's association with Mazda (small pickups) as did GM with Isuzu (L.U.V. pickups, "light utility vehicle", as the early brochures noted). Chrysler had their associations with The Rootes Group in Europe (which gave us the Plymouth Cricket) and then added the Mitsu relationship (which brought us the Dodge Colt, a much better product, from what I could tell). Can't forget the Plymouth Saporro!

From the DeLorean book ("On a Clear Day, You Can See General Motors", circa 1981), he mentioned that Pontiac's research had indicated a possible oil/gasoline situation. They'd been doing some clinics on their midsize cars enlarged a bit, which were generally perceived as being equal to their existing Catalinas in attractability. Yet GM didn't pay attention to them, so that project was shelved. A few years later, "it was here", which resulted in the wave of '77 GM cars that were downsized and engineered using "aircraft-style" Fast Fourier Analysis to speed the development process, even simulating crash performance. By observation, the one aspect they didn't design/test for was side impact collisions, for which there were no real federal standards, which came later. But in a front end or rear end crash, they performed nicely AND were usually easily fixed.

Just some observations,
CBODY67

 

[PeugFra]

There is a nice site that collects an amazing amount of Chryco advertising material. Takes even some time to load because of the sheer amount of pics.

After the 1974 ad I showed some posts before, for Plymouth's C-Body you can find one item on the introduction of the opera window on the 2-door, and that's it! No other magazine ads up to the very end in 1977.

Because that site is so comprehensive, I am inclined to think that no particular effort was wasted in pushing the full-size Plymouth to the private customer. It's always a bit risky to argue based on the absence of something, but it could well mean that the private costumer didn't have an important role in Plymouth's sales strategy.

 

[PeugFra]

How come Plymouth's competitors escaped from falling into the Brougham vs. fleet car trap?

With Ford it seems clear: from 1975 on the fleet special Custom 500 gets no mention in the fullsize Ford sales brochures. Only Police and Taxi brochures feature that trim level by name. The LTD brochures and ads do everything to underline the Broughaminess of the LTD, even pitting the top trim level against Buick etc. And, let's admit it, the LTD really looked very Broughamy.

Probably because of this approach there was no cross-contamination between the images the Ford sales department sought to cultivate: Custom 500 and LTD are very distinct in their presentation. As to Plymouth: It's true that the Base trim level is never shown in the sales brochures (apart from 1977), but it is duly mentioned in the listings on the last pages. The lines between the trim levels and the images they are associated with are more fluid, up to becoming blurred.

 

[GregG48203]

advertising material

One aspect of car ads I remember from back in the day: most print ads (for several years) contained a box score of fuel economy numbers. This emphasizes the fleeting nature of some fads (like high gas mileage, safety, vinyl tops, non-functional scoops, etc.).

 

[michiganhotrod1]

One key difference between Chevy and Ford versus Plymouth is how they were sold. In any metro area (where the volume is), a Ford or Chevy dealer sold those brands only. Chrysler + Plymouth was the standard franchise, and from the late sixties on the Chrysler brand put a lot of pressure on Plymouth. There was a de-contented Newport Royal model in the early 70's, and lots of value packages, plus incentive deals that reduced the price spread between brands.
Ford had LTD models and Chevy the Caprice, but the Plymouth VIP was an also ran in sales, mostly because of the competing Chrysler Newport models in the same showroom.
In 1969 my dad bought a Town and Country wagon, after extensively shopping the many local N.Y. dealers. While my dad was famously frugal, he got the T & C for about $300 more than an equivalent Plymouth. It was a more prestigious car, and the trim and interior appointments more than clinched the deal versus a Plymouth (or a Dodge).
The 74 - 75 gas crisis hurt several brands, perhaps ones with performance as a primary focus. Pontiac ran into trouble in this same era, and eventually dropped the Bonneville, also abandoning the full size market. Chrysler's financial distress also didn't help sales either.
There was no "one thing" that killed full size Plymouth sales, but I suspect a lot of the damage was done by the competition in the same showroom.
Mark

 

[PeugFra]

Certainly, you could option a Plymouth just as a Chrysler NY could have been, but the price would have been more than nicely-optioned Newport. Which would make the Chrysler a perceived better deal. BUT this same thing existed at GM and Ford, too! Just depended upon what the customer wanted and how it would be perceived.

Chrysler + Plymouth was the standard franchise, and from the late sixties on the Chrysler brand put a lot of pressure on Plymouth. There was a de-contented Newport Royal model in the early 70's, and lots of value packages, plus incentive deals that reduced the price spread between brands.

Looking at pricing exclusively, the Newport should then be thrown into the mix of Fury competitors, at least for its top trim level. Here are the MRSPs (from Flory) at the start of the 1974 model year:

$4,392 PP23 Fury Gran Coupe
$4,440 PP43 Fury Gran Sedan
$4,442 CL41 Newport 4-Door Sedan
$4,517 CL23 Newport 2-Door Hardtop
$4,581 CL43 Newport 4-Door Hardtop

The Newport took off right from the pricing point where Fury stopped. It probably came down to the right combination of features and the image of the brand in deciding which dotted line was signed.

There was no "one thing" that killed full size Plymouth sales, ...

+ 1.

 

[PeugFra]

So let's pit the sales numbers of the lowest-trim-level Newport against the highest-trim-level Fury:

1973 Newport (CL23/CL41/CL43) 101,778 (75.53%)
1973 Fury (PP23/PP43) 32,979 (24.47%)

1974 Newport (CL23/CL41/CL43) 49,696 (73.62%)
1974 Fury (PP23/PP43) 17,808 (26.38%)

1975 Newport (CL23/CL41/CL43) 41,670 (77.58%)
1975 Gran Fury (PP29/PP43) 12,042 (22.42%)

1976 Newport (CL23/CL41/CL43) 19,290 (77.47%)
1976 Gran Fury (PP29/PP41) 5,609 (22.53%)

1977 Newport (CL23/CL41/CL43) 57,880 (71.98%)
1977 Gran Fury (PH23/PH41) 22,533 (28.02%)

It may be true that overall sales for high-trim Furys could have been higher would they not have been sold alongside low-trim Newports in the same dealership, but a strong correlation between their sales numbers cannot be established. The proportions vary only moderately over the 1973-1977 period and show little or nothing that would point at continuously increasing bleeding of Fury sales in favour of Newport sales. Remember, the uptick in 1977 in favour of Fury is partly due to fleet sales, so maybe for the whole 1975-1977 period Newport did somewhat better than in the preceding period.

But the 1973-to-1974 fullsize Plymouth market share drop (down by 2.68 percentage points) sees Fury Gran Sedan/Coupe actually slightly improving on Newport (up by 1.91 points) and the 1975-to-1976 sharp market share loss in the fullsize segment for Plymouth (down 3.89 points) does not change the relation between Gran Fury Brougham and Newport sales at all (a mere 0.09 points difference). But it was exactly at this point that Plymouth's high trim levels took the most severe beating. Wherever those prospective customers went, you can't see that they went to Newport.

The Newport has often been made responsible for the demise of other Chryco brands and trim levels, just think of DeSoto and the Fury VIP. It seems that in this case at least history has not repeated itself. As long as the cost-benefit balance justified the co-existence of these in-house rivals, Chryco could have carried on the game.

 

[traintech55]

The main increase in fleet sales in 1977 was that Chrysler announced the end of production for the 1978 model year. This is also evident with the California Highway Patrol testing their first "B" body car in 1973.