Economies of scale would probably be the biggest difference between Imperial and a more widely produced car such as Chrysler, Plymouth, or Chevrolet.
Example:
Take a small bit like a radio knob or something. It takes a cast to mold it and then five seperate manufacturing steps to make either car's knob. Each step requires a tool to complete the step.
Each tool costs $1000 to aquire. Make 2000 knobs for the Imperial line, or make 200,000 (different, but same machine tool cost) knobs for the Chrysler line. The $5000 cost for the 5 units of tooling spread across 2000 Imperial pieces winds up costing the imperial buyer $2.50 per unit and the 100,000 unit Chrysler knob costs $0.05 each. Five cents versus $2.50 all over the car and you're starting to see some HUGE production cost differences.
Add in the fact that the Imperial item get dipped thrice instead of once, gets hand inspected, and maybe takes 25% more material or more expensive material.
That is without labor or other factors that were not in my example.
Next, pick your favorite year, 1955-1975 and look at the production numbers that Imperial and Cadillac had. Most Cadillac production numbers,for Cad during this time were ten times higher than Imp.
Imperial had "better" materials and workmanship with one tenth the volume to absorb fixed costs like tooling and design and so forth, but they engineered the hell out of them anyway! How Chrysler absorbed the extra manufacturing costs for Imperial for 30+ years without skyrocketing past Cadillac out of that price segment is something I'd be interested to hear about....
One way would be to increasingly share parts across lines, as the fuselage cars did with Chrysler, Imperial, and Plymouth (Idler arms not withstanding), but by the time that it came to that, Opec was busy putting the writing on the wall for big cars....
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There's a story that I read about Henry Ford and the Model T. He had his people go into junkyards and tear apart tin-lizzies to find out what was (statistically) worn out at the car's time of death and what wasn't. The report came back very rosy that EVERYTHING was wearing out, for the most part. The only item that consistently showed no wear was a kingpin that held something major together, but was static and didn't "do" anything else. A big bolt, basically.
To the shock of management, which thought that the report had meant that they were making their cars with the proper planned obsolecence/wear-out-able factor, Henry ordered that the kingpins be reduced in mass 25% (or whatever, I can't remember) and he saved several tons of steel over the course of the years, the cost of which all went to the bottom line and added up into hundreds of thousands of dollars after awhile......
So why was Chevrolet so much cheaper to buy than an Imperial? Go unbolt one of your car's parts and hold it in your hand. Then go to the parts counter and request the similar part found on the competition's car. I think that you'll see a difference right away based on weight alone, and more material costs more to begin with, let alone what it took to manufacture that part out of its base raw material. My toes noticed when I dropped the front bumper on them!
All that and I got my really nice 1973 for $1000. What a steal compared to any new car under $75k today, and no microchips to fry later. Think a top car of today will still do all of its gadgety-things when the silicon gets brittle? I'm in heaven. It's a buyer's market.
Subject: IML: why Imperials were so epensive, more thoughts on chromed stainless
More thoughts on my stainless,
I have been working on updating the story of my '60 "LeCrown". My car went off the lot
for $8067 when new. I found that amount to equal $44,570 in 2003 dollars. Why did an Imperial Crown sedan cost twice as much as a fully loaded '60 Impala convertible? Here are my thoughts on the obvious:
Low production
Larger size, huge body and frame, more steel
Finer interior upholstry
Chevrolet, for example, offered almost as many gizmos for 1960, so I don't think that acounts for the balance of the price gap. Was build quality really that much better? I have tried two different trunk lids on my Imperial and neither fits well, and both fit poorly in different ways. There are other small things too, I don't think the cars were quite as "coach built" as some seem to think. So why the price chasm? I think the difference may be that they were outfitting the Imperial with finer details, more expensive cast
chrome parts, grill and tail lights, and detail stuff. I think they were chrome plating stainless!
Lowell Howe told me that the wheelwell stainless was laquered at the factory, anyone find that to be true? Almost all the chrome on my 1952 Pontiac was laquered because it was very thin due to the Korean War and the chrome shortage. ObviousIy not a problem in 1960. Why on earth would you manufacture a piece of stainless, give it a flash of chrome, and then clear laquer it? That certainly would be overkill!
If you read my first e-mail you know I am polishing stainless and the color seems to be affected upon sanding or buffing. Because stainless steel does not need to be protected from rust you would not need to chrome it. However, if you wanted to improve the trims' reflective quality then you might give it a quick chrome. My color change happens very quickly when I am working on the trim. I think Imperial gave their stainless a quick flash of chrome to give it extra brilliance. This would certainly make the car look more expensive and transitions from pot metal to stainless would not be so obvious. These transitions happen at the fender brows, the fin tips, and at the gas door. As I mentioned before, I have never seen 40 year old stainless age this well or have this quality of reflection. I am just trying to repair some damaged trim and was baffled as to why I couldn't get the trim quite back to the original look.
This is my theory and I would like to know others' thoughts on this.
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