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Junkyard Gem: 1976 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham Hardtop Coupe

Even after OPEC served notice that cheap oil would no longer be a given and notorious eco-fanatic Richard Nixon decreed a national 55 mph speed limit, plenty of Americans continued to buy enormous coupes equipped with big-displacement V8 engines and cubic yards of cushy upholstery as the early Malaise Era ground on during the middle 1970s. In 1976, Ford offered the Lincoln Continental Mark IV, the Mercury Marquis Brougham, and the Thunderbird. The General had too many such cars to list here, including the Buick Electra and Olds 98 Regency Coupe. Chrysler was right there in the battle for Broughamic supremacy that year, with the New Yorker Brougham at the very top of the company's prestige ziggurat. Here's a raggedy-but-still-opulent New Yorker Brougham Coupe, found in a Denver car graveyard during the winter. Just look at that spacious Whorehouse Red™ interior and its pillow-topped Corinthian Leather split-bench power seats! I admire this luxury so much that my band in the late 1980s recorded a hymn to the Chrysler New Yorker. This car appears to have the $598 (about $2,750 in 2020 dollars) St. Regis option group, which included a "boar-grain" padded vinyl roof and opera windows. A few years later, Dodge offered a full-sized model called the St. Regis. The New Yorker Brougham was the most expensive model offered by Chrysler in 1976 (the Imperial went on hiatus for the 1976 through 1980 model years, only to return as a much more modest car). The buyer of this car got rung up for at least $7,269 (about $33,520 after inflation).  Curb weight wasn't quite as high as this car's imposing bulk might suggest: 4,752 pounds. That's a bit less than a new Dodge Durango today. A junkyard shopper scored the engine, which would have been a 440-cubic-inch (7.2-liter) V8 rated at a startlingly low 205 horsepower and all the torque in the world (actually, 320 lb-ft). Numbers like that prove that we now live in the Golden Age of Car Engines; even the base V6 in the current Charger makes 292 horsepower out of half the displacement of the 440. Even in a car this swanky, any kind of an audio system cost extra (contrast that to 2020, when even the humblest econoboxes have standard-equipment Bluetooth-ready rigs with many speakers). A plain old single-speaker AM radio cost $99 ($457), while the top-of-the-line AM/FM/8-track set '76 New Yorker buyers back $375 ($1,730). This is the AM/FM stereo radio, which cost $197 ($908). Not legal for sale in California.

Fiat Chrysler denies GM's 'preposterous' bribery allegations

DETROIT — Allegations by General Motors that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles bribed union officials are “preposterous” and read like a script from a “third-rate spy movie,” FCA lawyers wrote in court documents filed Monday. GM, in a court motion last week, alleged that Fiat Chrysler used foreign bank accounts to bribe union officials so they would stick GM with higher labor costs. But in a response, the Italian-American automaker fired back, calling GMÂ’s claims “defamatory and baseless.” GM alleged in a court filing last week that FCA spent millions on bribes by stashing the money in foreign accounts. The allegations of new evidence were made in a motion asking a federal judge to reconsider his July dismissal of a federal racketeering lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler. In trying to revive the lawsuit, GM alleged that bribes were paid to two former United Auto Workers presidents, as well as a former union vice president and at least one former GM employee. In its response, Fiat Chrysler said GM has to know that the prospect of getting the judge to overturn the dismissal is slim to none. “So this motion is apparently a vehicle to make more defamatory and baseless accusations about a competitor that is winning in the marketplace.” FCA denied allegations by GM that FCA paid two “moles” to infiltrate GM and send inside information. The company also denied that foreign bank accounts were involved. “That GM has extended its attacks to individual FCA officers and employees, making wild allegations against them without a shred of factual support, is despicable,” FCA lawyers wrote. GM's claims are based on the alleged existence of foreign bank accounts, which are legal, Fiat Chrysler wrote. “There is not one well-pled allegation in the proposed amended complaint (by GM) that these foreign bank accounts were used to pay bribes or facilitate any other illegal conduct,” FCA's response said. GM contends that bribes were paid to former United Auto Workers Presidents Dennis Williams and Ron Gettelfinger, as well as Vice President Joe Ashton. It also alleges money was paid to GM employees including Al Iacobelli, a former FCA labor negotiator who was hired and later released by GM. GM alleges that payments were made so the officials would saddle GM with more than $1 billion in additional labor costs.

How the demise of Lincoln's Town Car has kick-started a limo revolution

The deaths of the Ford Crown Victoria and the Lincoln Town Car have meant overhauls of three high-profile American fleets: police, taxi and livery car. Just as police fleets are more open to considering other options and a Nissan van is the new face of the NYC taxi, livery car companies are looking at replacements for the Town Car beyond The Blue Oval. Ford, via Lincoln, has made an MKT Town Car (pictured), but an article in the Detroit News claims "it has failed to win over most of the big limousine companies." The upstarts trying to move in include livery and limo editions of the Cadillac XTS, and livery specifications of the Toyota Avalon and Chrysler 300.
Each of those challengers, however, faces challenges. The Town Car was a workhorse, American, rear-wheel-drive sedan with plenty of rear legroom. Cadillac has been in the livery space before but with decontented models that were about selling the brand, not its luxury. It is taking the opposite approach with the XTS, pointing out that its livery edition is "contented in the upper half of the XTS range." Still, the CEO of Michigan's largest livery company says "it's quite a bit smaller than what we're used to," and he also prefers rear-wheel drive.
The Chrysler 300 is rear-wheel drive, and American, which matters to some companies, but Chrysler hasn't yet revealed the livery package for it. The livery Avalon marks Toyota's first time getting into that business in the US, a natural step after having done so well with taxi clients and with the Town Car out of the way. Still, the livery client is a different to taxi buyers, so the Avalon could face other soft-touch hurdles.