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Junkyard Gem: 1976 Chrysler Cordoba

With engine power way down and a sense of malaise settling over American roads, Detroit (and Kenosha) turned to opulent-looking personal luxury coupes on midsize platforms to lure car shoppers into showrooms. While John DeLorean's Pontiac Grand Prix started it all more than a decade before, one of the best-known of all the rococo personal luxury coupes was the Chrysler Cordoba. Today's Junkyard Gem is an early example of the Cordoba, found in a Northern California car graveyard last fall. The first generation of the Cordoba (1975 through 1979 model years) was built on Chrysler's B Platform, making it a sibling to quite a few of the most legendary Dodge and Plymouth muscle cars of the 1960s. This includes the Charger, Super Bee, Road Runner, Daytona and Superbird. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. While French and Italian cities were very popular for use as American-market car names during the second half of the 20th century, Spain wasn't completely ignored by Detroit. Ford offered the Granada, Cadillac had the Seville, and Chrysler decided to go with the ancient city of Cordoba as the namesake for its new personal luxury coupe. As native espanol mexicano speaker and longtime Chrysler pitchman Ricardo Montalban explains in the 1987 David Letterman interview above (skip ahead to 8:10), the correct Spanish pronunciation is really "CORE-doe-bah" with the emphasis on the first syllable, but Chrysler went with a spelling and pronunciation that was easier for English speakers to deal with. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. We can't talk about Ricardo Montalban and the Cordoba without watching at least one of the TV commercials that helped make the early Cordoba such a sales hit and put the term "Corinthian Leather" into everyday American discourse. Sometimes Ricardo described the leather as soft, while the terms rich and fine were applied on other occasions. This car does not have Corinthian Leather, which cost an extra $187 in 1976 (about $1,020 in 2023 dollars). Instead, it has the "Calacia velour" cloth-&-vinyl seat upgrade, which cost just $17 ($93 after inflation). The base seats were done up in "cashmere-like" cloth-and-vinyl.

Ram 1500 mule caught sporting Mega Cab configuration

Our intrepid spy photographers have once again captured an unusual test mule out in the wild. This time we have a Ram 1500 that looks a little lengthy in the middle. We're pretty certain this is a 1500 and not a heavy duty model judging from the grille and hood. That said, FCA clearly went to great lengths to hide the cab. It's still clear that the rear section is longer than your typical quad cab, leading us to believe that the Mega Cab option will return to the 1500 line. Other interesting details are the covered tailgate and the Chrysler steering wheel in the interior. We're not entirely sure why it's covered up, as it doesn't appear to have a different function, but there could be some styling tweaks for a new trim level. The one part we can see is the tailgate handle, which may reveal some updated camera abilities as the normal location shows a differently shaped camera lens. There are also two small spots that could be cameras, but it's tough to say for sure. Will we see 360-degree imaging on the next Ram? The steering wheel is an unusual inclusion as well. Our photographer suggests that it could be necessary for using the latest UConnect infotainment system. Other than the wheel though, the interior looks identical to the current model. This updated cab option also leaves us wondering about the future of the Ram line. We have documentation that shows FCA plans to launch some type of refreshed Ram for the 2018 model year. So it's possible we're looking at an early test mule for that updated model, and the new cab option could be launched at the same time. In many ways, this Ram brings up more questions than answers. Related Video:

Investors want answers about Marchionne’s final days

The mystery of Sergio Marchionne's surprise death last week continues, with investors now questioning the timeliness of disclosures by the company and family. Bloomberg reports that Italy's market regulator is making a routine check into how Fiat Chrysler handled communications regarding his illness. Fiat Chrysler's stock is down 12 percent in both Italy and on the New York Stock Exchange since the announcement of Marchionne's death. University Hospital Zurich last week issued a statement saying that Marchionne, who died July 25 while recovering from an unspecified should surgery, had been treated for more than a year for a serious illness that it didn't define. Marchionne's family told Reuters the companies hadn't been aware of his health conditions. The Italian business website Lettera 43 reported July 5, and FCA later confirmed, that Marchionne had undergone shoulder surgery in a Swiss hospital. But the company later denied a July 20 report by the website that Fiat Chairman John Elkann planned to meet with company leaders to divide Marchionne's responsibilities. Yet the FCA board indeed met on July 21 and chose Mike Manley, who had formerly overseen the Jeep and Ram brands, to succeed Marchionne as CEO. The company on July 25 published a brief statement acknowledging the former CEO's death. "Unfortunately, what we feared has come to pass. Sergio Marchionne, man and friend, is gone," Elkann said in the statement. Marchionne told no one outside his inner circle — reportedly not even Elkann — that he was seriously ill. His partner, Manuela Battezzato, who works in Fiat's press department, told Bloomberg that Marchionne's family didn't tell the company about his health condition. The famously hard-working CEO, who had quit smoking about a year ago, had also reportedly stopped responding to messages and calls from some advisors since the end of June. People close to him told Bloomberg that Marchionne died from complications following the shoulder surgery, including two cardiac arrests. Image Credit: Ferrari flags hang at half-staff at the Hungarian Grand Prix / Getty Chrysler Fiat Sergio Marchionne