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Originally Posted by Sandy G
Always thought they looked like what a 2-door Lincoln might have looked like in '63...Wonder if Elwood Engel, who was the guy behind the '61 T-Bird & Lincoln, had anything to do w/them ? Chrysler stole him from Ford, his 1st thing for them was the '64 Imperial, which looked a LOT like the '61-'63 Lincolns...Wonder why ?!? (grin) In any case I'm VERY glad a "Car Guy" like Jay has one..
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Good eye Sandy! Yes, he and people in the Chrysler studio working under him. I don't think any single person has been given credit for it, so it was probably a group effort. A lot of Mopars starting showing up in '63 with the squared off look and wide C pillars similar to T-Birds and Connies.
You also bring up a good point that Chrysler didn't really have a personal luxury car like the Eldorado, Toronado, or Mark III. Not until they came out with the new Imperial in '81, but that was way too late in the game. Even with a Frank Sinatra edition and the Chairman himself pitching them on TV.
According to the book, Chrysler tried to give all the turbine cars away to museums and offered to pay the taxes for any that were kept. However, only a few museums took them and Ma Mopar didn't want to save that many for themselves, so they destroyed them. It's kinda like CBS not keeping or selling their early color prototype TV's. They weren't good enough to be sold, and they had no use for them afterwords.