Automotive Playback: Ricardo Montalban and the "New Small Chrysler"

Ah, the 1975 Chrysler Cordoba as pitched by Suaveness, himself. Passionate. Expressive. Soft Corinthian Leather. Ricardo Montalban was the perfect pitchman for Chrysler's "New Small" car. Measuring just under 18' long (if built today, it'd be longer than the Lincoln Town Car), the new personal luxury coupe debuted at the perfect time.

It was such a sharp contrast to the year before, when Chrysler had introduced the wrong vehicles at the worst possible time. Just a month before the Energy Crisis began in October 1973, Chrysler unveiled its all-new full-size '74 models. Models that turned out to be the biggest cars Chrysler would ever offer - a full 200lbs heavier than their "fuselage style" '73s were. They therefore burned more gas than ever before, just as fuel prices doubled overnight and began to be rationed. While the '73 models had sold an impressive 234,229 units, the longer, lower, wider star-crossed '74s saw sales drop a ghastly 50% to 117,373 deliveries.

To their credit, Chrysler reacted quickly by taking its evergreen B-body midsize car platform and reworking it to produce the Cordoba for the fall of '74. It was the smallest Chrysler since 1964 and had all the chic luxury touches of the day. A chrome stand-up Rolls-Royce-type grille was flanked by Jaguar-like round tunneled headlights and parking lights. At the side, a Landau half-vinyl roof featuring opera windows and coach lamps recalled the classic luxury cars of the '20s. And inside, deeply cushioned seats, offered in velour or that famous "Corinthian Leather" were there to ensure serene cruising, or lots of sliding around on those steep mountain switchbacks.

If all of it sounds silly to you, you have to understand the times. Midsized 2-door "personal luxury cars" were all the rage in the 1970s. Monte Carlos, Torino Elites, and Cutlass Supremes sold in the hundreds of thousands to members of the "Me Generation" who had grown out of their late '60s muscle cars and into higher-paying jobs with better salaries.

Farrah Fawcett had just begun shilling newly declawed Mercury Cougars. So Chrysler took a decidedly more masculine approach and tapped Ricardo Montalban and his illustrious accent to do the work for Chrysler's new car.

And it worked far better than Chrysler had expected. Alone, Cordoba sales in '75 outsold the entire '74 Chrysler line, finding 150,105 homes that model year. It was a good thing, too, as big Chrysler sales fell again, to 101,444 '75s sold. The Cordoba would go on to continued success, selling more than 660,000 examples through 1979. By '80, Chrysler was in downsizing mode, and while Ricardo (fresh from his recent success on ABC's Fantasy Island) was called in to do the pitchwork for the new Jenny Craig'd car, the Cordoba's bloom had worn off and sales fell into the doldrums. Chrysler would quietly drop the nameplate after 1983.

So it back, relax, and experience the Mariachi guitar as it accompanies the mellifluous telling of the tale of a man and his Chrysler in 1975.