As
the North American International Auto Show kicks off in Detroit, TIME
and Dan Neil, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive critic and syndicated
columnist for the Los Angeles Times, look at the greatest lemons of the automotive industry
The
glamorous Imperial marque was, by the late '60s, reduced to a trashy,
pseudo-luxury harlot walking the streets for its pimp, the Chrysler
Corporation. By 1971, only the Imperial LeBaron was left and it shared
the monstrous slab-sided "fuselage" styling of corporate siblings like
the Chrysler New Yorker and the Dodge Monaco. Appearing to have been
hewn from solid blocks of mediocrity, the Imperial LeBaron two-door is
memorable for having some of the longest fenders in history. It was
powered by Chrysler's silly-big 440-cu.-in. V8 and measured over 19 ft.
long. The interior looked like a third-world casino. Here we are
approaching the nadir of American car building — obese,
under-engineered, horribly ugly. Or, it would be the nadir, except for
the abysmal 1980 Chrysler Imperial, which had an engine cursed by God.
The Imperial name was finally overthrown in 1983.
