1954 Chrysler Custom Imperial - Happy New Year

My New Year's Resolution is to blog more about cars I don't have affinity for or find little interest in. So, let's swallow that bitter pill and see what we have here with this, oh gawd, 1954 Chrysler Custom Imperial currently for sale with no reserve on Bring-A-Trailer. 

Like a Hyundai Genesis was a top-of-the-line Hyundai model before it became a separate make in 2017, from 1926 through 1954, a Chrysler Imperial was the Chrysler division's top-of-the-line model before being spun off into its own division from in 1955. This 1954 Chrysler Custom Imperial, therefore, is the last of its kind and in more ways than one. 

Our '54 Custom Imperial here was part of Chrysler's first post-war models introduced in 1949 and it shares it's biblically long 131.5-inch-long wheelbase with the Imperial Crown it was slotted below.  All '49 Chrysler's. including the New Yorker and Windsor, which rode on a more reasonable but still ginormous 125.5-inch-long wheelbase, featured "pontoon", three-box styling. You either love it or hate it. Guess how I feel about it. 

Its hood was as long and bulbous as it was to cover Chrysler's flathead inline six- and eight-cylinder engines. It became a but a styling doodad after Chrysler introduced their first "Hemi" V-8 in 1951 that was substantially shorter than even the old Chrysler six. 

Hemi or no Hemi, this was not a "fast" car. For '54, the "Hemi", which Chrysler marketed as the "Firepower" V-8, was rated at 235-gross horsepower, figure 140 net, and tasked with hauling approximately 4,500-pounds, despite a 3.54 rear axle, no one was going anywhere quickly in this thing. Seller claims the engine has not been turned over since sometime in 2014.  

Frankly, that the engine might not be running I think the least of the problems this car has. The doors and trunk lid don't line up meaning the frame, which is rusty, may be bent. The paint, which is not original, is it's all but falling in some places. There's "bondo" in the rear quarters and the brightwork is corroded. Odometer shows just 65,000 miles but the gauges don't work so who knows how many miles are on it for real. Seeing how cars would wear out well before 100K years ago, I doubt the actual mileage on this is that much higher. 

Car has power steering and a two-speed automatic, no air conditioning, brakes are hydraulic drums, but they're not vacuum boosted so braking is by appointment only. The interior is an older restoration that is not to factory specification. 

Part of me wants to take this home and give it a hug. The other part of me wants to see it crushed into metal pancake or used in a demolition derby. I have no use for most cars before 1960, there are some exceptions, pre-1955 Chrysler's are not one of them. 

In addition to Imperial being spun off into its own division, all Chrysler's were new for 1955 with wonderful new designs that made these cars look like the updated pre-war relics they were. As I write this in late December 2025, the current bid for it on Bring-A-Trailer is a tell-tale $1,954. This is a parts car at best, freakishly expensive resto at worst. Parts won't be easy to come by and ones you do find will be expensive. This is no catalog car. At the least of cost of admission appears to be reasonable. 

Chrysler closed their Imperial division after 1975. 

1984 Ford LTD Crown Victoria Two-Door - You Had to Be There

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Can't tell you the last time I saw a first-generation Ford "Panther" let alone one in this condition and a two-door too! This 1984 Ford LTD Crown Victoria popped up on Facebook Marketplace recently somewhere down in Georgia. Asking price was a seemingly not unreasonable, given the shape it's in, $7,500. 

The Ford Motor Company first came out with these cars and the similar Mercury Marquis in 1979; Lincoln got a so-called "Panther" in 1980. "Panther" was Ford's internal code name for the full-size chassis that was significantly smaller and lighter than the chassis it replaced. There is no formal documentation why Ford called the chassis, "Panther". One thought is it followed in the tracks of the Fox-body chassis, which was named after the Audi Fox; Ford keeping with an animal theme for its chassis'. 

The new chassis was to help the Ford Motor Company be in compliance with government mandated fuel-economy requirements enacted in the wake of the 1973 OPEC embargo. The thinking was that a lighter car would get better gas mileage. 

If I wasn't doing handstands over the downsized General Motors makes and models, I was less thrilled with the smaller Ford's. Now, while I'm a GM girl at heart, I'm not allergic to the charms of a handsome Ford but Ford's styling en masse in the 1970's had gone completely off the rails. From the Mustang II to the LTD II to the god forsaken Granada, Ford design was derivative at best, boring at worst. The clean sheet boxy "Panthers" only adding to the literal as well as figurative malaise.  

Introduced in 1979 as the Ford LTD, a top-of-the-line trim package was added in 1980 they dubbed "Crown Victoria" resurrecting an obscure Ford nameplate last used in 1955 and 1956. Trust me, if you think "Crown Victoria" sounds old and farty now, it smelled of mothballs back in 1980 too. 

All full-size LTD's became "LTD Crown Victoria's" in 1983 to distinguish the cars from a new for 1983, mid-size, "Fox-body" based LTD that replaced the Granada. I know. Not confusing at all. Mercury was worse. Their new for '83 Foxer was called "Marquis", the old Panther was called "Grand Marquis". 

Why Ford called the new for '83' Fox-body sedans "LTD" is a question us mere mortals will never get an answer to. Best we can surmise is it seemed the Fox-body cars were to replace the Panthers but seeing how well the Panthers were still selling, there's no accounting for taste, there was a stay of execution. A very long stay as it would turn out.  

If you're scratching your head over this being a two-door, well, I guess you had to be there; back in the day, two-door cars were way cooler than their four-door counter parts. For the most part, the Big Three all offered two-door versions of their four-door sedans. Lincoln even had a two-door Continental in 1980 but that was shelved for 1981 and beyond. 

Four-door sedans actually evolved from two-door sedans, but once four-door sedans became de rigeur,  sales of two-door models began to wane. Manufacturers continued to sell them, though, often times adding raked windshields, lower rooflines and longer doors to exaggerate the long hood, short deck ethos of more sporting automobiles.

                            

Albeit it's sparse, our two-door LTD "Crown Vic" here as some semblance of the two-door elan older Ford two-door sedans had by the trunkful. On the left is a 1969 LTD, the right is a 1970 Galaxie 500 "Sportsroof". 

Even by the late 1970's, the market for two-door sedans was waning. When Chrysler downsized their full-sized fleet for 1979 as well, there were no two-door models. Ford deep-sixed the two-door LTD Crown Victoria (and Mercury Marquis) after 1987. 

Ford dropped the "LTD" from these cars when they redesigned them for model year 1992. Ford continued to build Panther-platform Ford Crown Victoria's, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Cars through 2012 making the Panther one of the longest running vehicle platforms in automotive history. 

1975 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe - Chevrolet's (and GM's) Last Full-Size Hardtop Coupe

After my soliloquy on a "pillared hardtop", 1976 Buick LeSabre coupe, thought I'd do a quickie on a 1975 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe, General Motor's last "true" full-size, hardtop coupe. I knew it would be a challenge to find one and it was. There aren't that many "pillared" 1974 and 1975 Impala "Custom Coupes" out there either these days let alone these "hardtop" coupes. I hope you like green. 

Technically, all automobiles that have a fixed roof are "hardtops", but in automotive terms, a "hardtop" is a car with a fixed roof that has no center pillar or post emulating the look of a convertible with its top up or closed. The Big Three, well, Three and Half if you count AMC, built hardtop four-door sedans and station wagons as well. 

On paper you'd think the differences nuanced but they're really not. Here we have two 1975 Chevrolet Impala coupes, the one on the left is a 1975 Impala "Custom Coupe", note the upright post behind the passenger door. The one on the right is our vomit green "Sport Coupe"; there's no post behind the door. Buyers paid a $51 tariff for the post. It's a matter of taste as to which you prefer. 

I thought the pillared coupes made the hardtops look dated when they first came out. Not unlike how the rubber nosed third generation Corvettes made the chrome bumper models look quaint. Funny how things age. 

If there was any upside to the pillared coupes, it gave the cars much needed rigidity. They still weren't bank vaults, though. If you've spent any time behind the wheel of any 1971 to 1976 GM B- or C-body, you know how they shimmy-shimmy, cocoa-pop. The hardtops in particular. The convertibles were a shuddering joke. 1976 Impala Custom Coupe pictured above from a Chevrolet brochure with its suspension lowered to give it a more sporting look. 

For an Impala, this green machine is as well optioned as a Cadillac. Power windows, door locks, air conditioning, tilting steering column, a six-way adjustable power driver's seat and a 180-horsepower, 400-cubic inch, 4-barrel V-8. 

Naturally, the interior is color-keyed or matching and shows off General Motors injection molded plastics prowess at the time. 

You haven't driven a mid-1970's car until you've driven one with a vacuum actuated fuel-economy gauge. The thinking behind it was simple and subtly brilliant; the more vacuum the engine has the better the fuel-economy. Go heavy on the gas pedal or floor it, reducing engine vacuum, and the gauge will let you know how bad you're being. 

I know I'm not alone in feeling this car's styling suffers mightily from the five-mile-per-hour safety bumpers fore and aft. Like the so-called pillared hardtops, though, it seemed progressive, evolutionary and modern when first introduced. Most of us car wonks who are fans of GM's heavy-iron 1971 to 1976 full-size models think less of them now. Upside, though, the big bumpers, which have shock absorbers behind them, did help protect cars from damage in low-speed collisions; something you can't say about today's vehicles that suffer $2,500 of damage of front or rear end damage by just breathing on them. 

Chevrolet introduced their first two-door a hardtop in 1950 which they dubbed, "Bel Air". They built two-door hardtops through 1975, a four-door hardtop was added in 1956 that they built though 1976. When GM downsized their full-size cars in 1977, there were no hardtops. 

At the height of their popularity, or at the height of production where buyers had few options, hardtops accounted for nearly a third of car sales in the United States. Hardtops fell out of favor in the mid-1970's due to manufacturers concerns over government mandated roll-over safety regulations, that never materialized, and shifting consumer tastes. 

 

1976 Buick LeSabre - GM Moves Away from Hardtops

This 1976 Buick LeSabre is another one of those oldies that the current owner wanted to get rid of rather than store for the winter. It's for sale out in Toledo, Ohio which is a good 90-minutes west of us here on the west side of Cleveland. Asking price is $8,500 which I guess is reasonable for a clean, fifty-year-old, full-size, two-door Buick. Even if it was half that price and, in this condition, if I was in the market, I'd walk right past it. Why? That rear roof. 

There's just too much going on here. The roll down rear window behind the door, the offset center post or pillar, a second and massive rear side window that's stationary, the "carriage" vinyl top and last but not least, the painted roof panel. Throw in the rear windshield, please don't call it a "backlight", and that's six disparate design elements or themes clamoring for our attention. 

Ah, this is much better. This is what the Buick LeSabre coupe of this vintage started out as back in 1971. It's in all its center post free, hardtop glory. There's an airy elan to it the 1976 LeSabre doesn't have. Mind you, this is no 1970 Electra hardtop coupe, but I wouldn't kick it out my garage. 

Apparently, in anticipation of rollover safety regulations that never materialized, in the mid-1970's, The Big Three began moving away from hardtop coupes towards so-called "pillared hardtops"; curiously, hardtop sedans stuck around at GM through 1976. Seeing how popular hardtops had been, can't blame GM for attempting a "hybrid" of sorts. This car is from a 1974 Buick brochure, and without the "carriage" top, I think it better looking compared to the 1976 LeSabre. Still too damn fussy, though. 

In the mid-'70's, Oldsmobile had the same roof on their version of the Buick LeSabre coupe, the Delta 88. The lack of a vinyl top on this 1976 Delta 88 makes the look, subjectively, the best it could, I still  think it fussy. The battering ram rear bumper adding to the literal and figurative malaise. 

No hybrids over at Chevrolet, though as they went all in with their pillared coupes. When I was a kid, I thought these big Chevies looked fresh, new, modern and exciting. The switch away from hardtops to pillars a natural evolution of design of sorts. Funny what ages well and what doesn't. 

Chevrolet built their hardtop Impala Sport Coupe through 1975. Try to find one of those for sale in decent shape.  

                      

Pontiac hemmed and hawed transitioning away from hardtop coupes. Their 1974 "Grand Ville" was a "traditional" hardtop...

For 1975, the Grand Ville got a rear roofline similar to Chevrolet's; Pontiac dropped the Grand Ville nameplate for 1976. They kept the roof though, they just glued "Bonneville" where Grand Ville had been. The Catalina, as the Bonneville had been in 1974 and 1975, had a "hybrid" roof like the Olds 88 and Buick LeSabre had.  

On GM's longer wheelbase "C-body" that underpinned Cadillac's, the Oldsmobile 98 and Buick Electra, designers went with the chunky pillared like Chevrolet (and Pontiac) had but with smaller side windows. To me, at least, these cars look as cohesive as two train cars coupled together. This is a 1976 Cadillac Coupe deVille. 

The Chevrolet Impala\Caprice, Olds 88 and Buick LeSabre were built on GM's "B-body" chassis. 

Meanwhile over in Dearborn, Ford wasn't having any luck with the look either. In fact, in the case of this 1977 LTD, they had a worse time with it. 

Subjectively, of the big The Big Three, Chrysler did the best job transitioning away from hardtops with their 1974 to 1978 Chrysler New Yorker, this is a 1977 New Yorker Brougham. The trick was that gigantic, stylized C-pillar, more like a flying buttress, and a smaller side or "opera" window cloaked behind a thickly padded "carriage" type vinyl roof. Like the 1976 LeSabre, there's a lot going on and on paper, nothing works. However, unlike the Buick, though, here, my blog, my opinion, it does work, the old, "sum of its parts" two-step doing its thing. 

I pity the fool attempting to change lanes in traffic in this thing, though. 

Chrysler's Newport coupe remained a hardtop through the end of its production run in 1978. Begs the question why this was given these cars were built on the same 124-inch wheelbase as the New Yorker.  When Chrysler introduced their downsized full-size cars in 1979, not only where there no hardtops, there weren't even any coupes. 

The center post, off set or not, did give these cars much needed structural support. While not literally convertibles with steel roofs welded down, like GM's earliest hardtops were back in the late 1940's and into the '50's, GM's class-of-1971 full-size cars weren't exactly the sturdiest cars ever made. While there was a fair degree of flex dialed in to give them a cloud like ride, that flex became more like a furious shudder as the cars got older and got some miles on them. 

When GM downsized their full-size models for 1977, while there were coupes, plenty of them, there were no hardtops. 

This one appears to still be for sale although winter has clamped down on us big time already so it may be mothballed. Comment below or shoot me an email if you're interested and I'll send you the link.