1977 Chrysler Cordoba - I Guess There Are Worse Ways To Spend Your Money

If you won the lottery, I mean really won the lottery, how would you spend the money? If I really won the lottery, I'd take twenty-grand of it and blow it on this gorgeous 1977, "triple-black", Chrysler Cordoba. 

Really? Of course not. I mean, there might be worse ways to spend money, found, won or heaven forbid actually earned, but twenty-grand on a mint condition Cordoba? Yikes. Average "high retail" pegs this at $6,400 and I might go $7,500 and the wife, bless her heart, might greenlight $8000 given the condition it's in and what these cars mean to me, but $20,000? Sorry, Mr. Rork. No way that's going to happen. 

We've heard the stories how young athlete's blow their unfathomably large bonus checks on cars, boats, houses, trips, blow, women and who knows what else. I'm not saying they or lottery winners shouldn't celebrate their newly found wealth with an extravagant purchase or two, but they have to keep their wits about themselves. And my spending twenty-large on this is not me keeping my wits about myself. 

Even in this market I believe buying an old or "classic car", I'll stop short of saying that one of my beloved 1975-1977 Cordoba's are "classic", as an investment isn't the best way to burn a wad of cash. And if this was priced accordingly, I might, just might be tempted to seriously consider it, but I can't do the mental gymnastics work to make this work for me at 20G. 

Chrysler introduced these cars for model-year 1975 as a salvo at the burgeoning personal luxury car market that General Motors had a strangle hold on. Using GM's formula of using an intermediate-size platform rather than a full-size one, Chrysler used their star-crossed "B-body" on these, designers whipped up a car that, in my opinion, actually worked quite well aesthetically in spite of not having a single original line on it. Derivative styling be damned, or whether people just loved emulating Ricardo Montalban, through the end of the 1977 model year, Cordoba sales accounted for some sixty percent of all Chrysler sales. 

Ah, but of course, Chrysler couldn't leave well enough alone as for 1978, they botched the mid-production-cycle refresh. Any distinctiveness Cordoba had went out the opera window and an already large automobile looked even bigger than it actually was. Sales cratered, the second gas crisis struck in 1979, Cordoba was switched to Chrysler's J-body (think elongated F-body or Plymouth Volare chassis) and the moniker got life-flited to hospice by the end of 1983. Just as well. 

I'd love to at least take this grand old dame for a spin if nothing else for the nostalgia trip. Or just to take a selfie with it. I have never seen a Cordoba at a car show. Seriously. Even MOPAR specific shows. I know. Odd. These were like everywhere in the 1970's so you'd think that wouldn't be the case. 

I had a 1975 that I've blogged if not waxed about incessantly. It was not a great car, and I had an inordinate amount of trouble with it but it's hard for me to convey just how important that car was to me and what it represented in my life. That being a transition from my woe-be-gone youth into adulthood where anything it seemed was possible. And all that would come to imply. 

 

1975 Chrysler Cordoba - Dahlink You Look Fabulous

I've blogged a lot about the 1975 Chrysler Cordoba I had when I was a kid. Write about what you know, they say. Well, I think I've said all there is I need to say about it but this '75 popped up on my Facebook wall the other day and it's too similar to the one that I had and just too darn pretty not to do something with. So, bear with me. 

Holy way-back machine, President Reagan. Save for the whorehouse maroon, this interior is identical to my '75 I had from the summer of '83 until I wrecked it on an icy morning in late December of '87. My interior was a dreary black, so I actually like this one better. Note, no power adjustable seat. I sat on a pillow so I could see over the dash better as the set seating position was just a tad too low for me. No tilt either on what was supposed to be a luxury car. 

Why aren't I jumping on a plane to Philadelphia and grabbing an Uber to Southampton with a wad of hundreds in my backpack? Well, first off, my wife would kill me. That and I've found that nostalgia trips are overrated. You can't go home again, son. Best to reflect wistfully about what was rather than attempt to recreate what wasn't that great in the first place. Ah, but that big Cordoba was mine. All mine. Derivative styling, soggy torsion bar suspension, spongy brakes, 2:45:1 axle, phlegmy, gas-swilling, emissions clogged engine and all. 

Personal luxury cars like my Cordoba were nothing but fashion statements and were the embodiment of the big on the outside, small on the inside axiom of most American cars of the post-war era. They didn't make any sense then and they certainly make less sense these days in an age of do everything well crossovers. Back then, though, if you wanted to look fabulous, dah-link, a personal luxury car is what you drove. If you're curious, this roof treatment is what called a landau top complete with opera window and opera light. Total schmaltz. And it's amazing. 

By the time I got mine, of course, it was already fairly frayed around the edges but for $750, us beggars couldn't be choosers. It's still the automobile bargain of my lifetime. The $50 Earl Shieb white paint was already flaking, the car was originally silver with a black landau top, and the interior was suffering a bit from use as well. But compared to my wretched Comet, it was automobile nirvana. It put me in the big leagues, and I was a legitimate player. Well, that's what I thought at least. And what's more important than the way you feel about yourself? Especially when you're 19, 20 years old. 

Many give the Ford Motor Company credit for creating that long gone and peculiar market segment with their 1958, four-passenger Thunderbird. Although if you want to split hairs, Studebaker with their Speedster and Packard with their Caribbean sort of-kind of had the idea a good five years earlier.  General Motors didn't have an answer to the Thunderbird until 1962 when they introduced the Pontiac Grand Prix and Oldsmobile Starfire. Throw the 1963 Buick Wildcat in there too but their real sporty\luxury salvo at the Thunderbird was the '63 Buick Riviera. 

Much like the Ford Thunderbird, the Buick Riviera was too expensive for the masses. The personal luxury car market exploded in 1969 when GM introduced the "down-sized" (but still enormous) Pontiac Grand Prix that was priced more affordably. Built off the chassis of a four-door GM intermediate, the long hood, short deck Grand Prix was an instant smash hit. Chevrolet followed suit in 1970 with the first Monte Carlo. The swoopy, "suitcase fender" Monte Carlo came to market in 1973. The rest, as they say, was history. 

Chrysler had nothing to offer until 1975 when they copied GM's recipe of gussying up an intermediate coupe and making it at least appear more than it really was. The Cordoba was perhaps the only bright spot for Chrysler in the 1970's as 60 percent of all Chrysler sales from 1975-1977 were Cordoba's. 

 

These very well-done TV commercials featuring a pre-Fantasy Island Ricardo Montalban are given a lot of the credit for the success of 1975-1977 Cordoba's too. Incidentally, the shots of Mr. Montalban walking to the car were all done on a sound stage. Scrims were used to light the set to create the illusion of a sunset. The building is a backdrop. 

Chrysler sold only about 150,000 or so Cordoba's between 1975 and 1977, a drop on the bucket for Chevrolet Monte Carlo sales, but that was enough to buoy a car company on the verge of collapse. At least for a little bit. An update for 1978 sullied much of the distinctiveness of the original design. Just as well as fashionistas were on the verge of moving onto the next automotive fashion whatever.  Chrysler built a Cordoba through 1983 meanwhile, remarkably, Ricardo Montalban stayed on as a "pitchman" for Chrysler through 1991. 

Fun facts: Cordoba is a city in southern Spain and the car was originally intended to be a Plymouth. The switch to Chrysler (the division) was a last-minute decision. Plymouth did get a version of the Cordoba, but it didn't sell well. Dodge got one too. More fun facts, "Cordoba" was originally a trim package on 1970 Chrysler Newports. Detroit advertising executives who saw Ricardo Montalban in George Bernard Shaw's "One Hell" when the show was traveling through Detroit thought he'd be perfect for the commercial for the car with a Hispanic name.