The Chrysler Corporation certainly took their time responding to the personal luxury car juggernaut in the 1970's, an epoch that evolved out of the muscle car fad of the 1960's. Like a sophomore coming late to a keg stand, when they finally arrived in 1975 they came with four personal luxury cars simultaneously. All of them following General Motor's recipe of a long hood and short decked automobile built on a mid size chassis; Chrysler using their ancient but rugged mid size "B body" chassis that could trace its roots back to Chrysler's ill fated downsizing of 1962. Chrysler, the division, had the most popular Chrysler personal luxury car with their Cordoba. A lot of the Cordoba's sales success was that it was hawked magnificently in a series of TV commercials by a pre "Fantasy Island" Ricardo Montalban.
Across the showroom floor in Chrysler-Plymouth dealerships, Plymouth recycled their "Fury" moniker this time gluing it to a rather handsome hard top. They even peddled, for 1975 only, a "Road Runner" version with a "heavy duty" suspension and a standard 318 cubic inch V-8 with a two barrel carburetor. Somewhat more powerful engines were available than the 135 horsepower 318 but none them came anywhere near the fire breathing MOPAR powerhouses of even just five years prior. By the way, love the hardtop on this car and yes, those rear quarter windows rolled up and down. The 1975 Plymouth Fury was also available as an ungainly looking four door sedan. Oh, and starting in 1975, buyers were asked to not confuse the mid size Fury with the full sized and hold the "d", "Gran Fury".
Stand alone "middle child" Dodge got two personal cars for 1975. There was the Coronet coupe (above) that not only looked a lot like Plymouth's Fury coupe, the four door version was all but indistinguishable as well from Fury four door sedan. The big difference between the Coronet and Fury lines for 1975 was that Dodge also built a Coronet station wagon.
Curiously, Dodge also got a personal luxury car that sure looked like a Chrysler Cordoba. Well, for all intents in purposes, it was a Cordoba with save for a different front grill, tail lights and interior door panels. Some versions even had the Dodge trident logo on the steering wheel. To add insult to injury Dodge stooped so low as to call it "Charger". The pain. Oh, the pain. Would a Cordoba by any other name smell as sweet?
To say the 1975 Dodge Charger was not an attractive automobile is to say the say thing about the Chrysler Cordoba; and you know how I feel about the Cordoba. However, as they say, "what's in a name?" Well, in most cases it means nothing but in the case of Chrysler's four personal luxury cars in 1975, their 1975 Cordoba/Charger (and Coronet/Fury) was the embodiment of badge engineering gone completely and utterly wrong. In comparison, General Motor's personal luxury cars had a familial resemblance but they were all distinctively different automobiles.
Legend has it that Richard Petty hated the new Charger so much he refused to drive it in NASCAR races. Instead, he drove a 1972 based Charger until, per NASCAR's provincial rules allowing discontinued makes and models to be raced for only three years after its body style is discontinued, 1978. Dodge, perhaps taking a note from "The King", redesigned what was the Charger for 1978 and rechristened it with another famed MOPAR moniker, "Magnum". Mattered little to Mr. Petty. He disliked that car as well and in 1978 switched allegiances to Pontiac and their new "Grand Prix". Taste, as always being like armpits and if nothing, being on the taste buds of the beholder.
Unfortunately, while 60% of Chrysler sales in 1975 were purportedly Cordoba's, and that success could be directly tied to marketing, Chrysler's quadruplicate of personal luxury cars did little to stave off the company's financial ruin and eventual near death. Cordoba sales dropped precipitously in 1976 and 1977 before a fairly extensive redesign of the original in 1978 that did away with a lot of what made the 1975 model distinctive. Again, that mattered little since they had issues larger than what a phalanx of niche targeted two door sedans could possibly remedy.
No doubt Chrysler's shameless badge jobs on these cars were due to their being strapped for cash after nearly two decades of bad decisions, horrible quality, bad timing and bad luck. They hardly had the resources to design, engineer and tool up to produce four distinctively different automobiles for their myriad divisions like GM was able to do.
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