Imperial was originally the up market brand name of Chrysler vehicles built to compete directly with Cadillac and Lincoln models. For much of the 1950s, its cars had rather sedate styling, with much less glitz than that of rival marques, but after 1954, when Imperial became a separate division from Chrysler, all that began to [...]

Cord was founded in 1929, and set itself apart from other American manufacturers in its use of front wheel drive on a series of large, luxurious, straight eight powered machine described L29s. it is form the sarcophagus edged 810/812 Series cars that the marque is best remembered, however.cPowered by the specially designed side valve V8 [...]

Citroen has a proud record of building landmark large cars, from the rule breaking DS, through the SM coupe to the CX. The CX was replaced by the angular; Bertone styled XM, which came as both a hatchback and a giant estate car. But unlike the CX, which sold an incredible million units over its [...]

Citroen knew that replacing the DS would be a difficult job. The car had been in production for 20 years, and in certain aspects of ride and refinement it still had few peers in the big car class. It was with some relief, then, that Citroen fanciers greeted the new CX in 1974, in every [...]

The first fruits of the wedding between Citroen and Maserati were the awesome Citroen SM of 1970, a standing GT car making use of the best from the both corporations. Power came from a smaller V6 version of Maserati’s long lived quad cam V8 which, at 2.7 liters, came in just under the punitive French [...]

The 1948 Citroen 2CV, with its trademark corrugated steel bodywork, was an economy car designed to put rural France on wheels after the Second World War. In all respects, the car was uncompromisingly basic, so as to keep servicing easy and running costs low. Its willing twin cylinder, 375 cc, air cooled engine delivered an [...]

Between 1982 and 1991, sales of so called Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) in the USA rocketed from 100,000 to 900,000 per year. Chrysler had wisely bought up the Jeep brand name and image when it took over AMC in 1987. The company suddenly found itself possibly the world’s best known off roading badge with which [...]

At the Detroit Motor Show in 1989, Chrysler showed a concept car called the Viper, a low, wide and mean looking two seater roadster with a hint of the AC Cobra in its hunched stance. The public loved it. They were even more impressed, and even more keen to buy, when they discovered it had [...]

In 1990, Chrysler boss Bob Lutz was looking at the same situation that had greeted Lee lacocca just over a decade earlier. Even before the global slow down kicked in, the company’s sales had started to slide, and at one point Chrysler shares were almost worthless. Again the management’s answer was, according to Lutz, “to [...]

To give it a presence in international rallying, Chrysler UK developed a high performance version of its hatchback Sunbean model in 1979. This move would eventually produced a car with plenty of character as well as speed. A deal was struck with Lotus to supply its twin cam four cylinder engine, but in slightly bigger [...]