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Junkyard Gem: 1990 Chrysler New Yorker Landau Mark Cross Edition

The hallowed American tradition of the cushy, softly-sprung sedan with padded vinyl landau roof and puffy upholstery had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, but you could buy such cars well into the 1990s. Even after Lee Iacocca's modern front-wheel-drive K-Cars appeared in the early 1980s, "traditional" Detroit luxury cars based on the K platform continued to be built by Chrysler for quite a while. A great example of this is the 1983 to 1993 Chrysler New Yorker, which managed to mix up the philosophical concepts behind the plush-yet-affordable 1970 Chrysler Newport with the space-efficient, lightweight Iacocca Era in one machine. I found one of these, a 1990 New Yorker Mark Cross Edition in a Northern California yard, and I wish to share its resplendence with you as today's Junkyard Gem. Lee Iacocca wanted Chrysler-badged cars to seem like Mercedes-Benzes (a little earlier, Ford had the same idea with the Granada), but at one-third the cost, and so we saw these "crystal-pentastar" hood ornaments for quite a few years in the middle 1980s through early 1990s. While Ford had deals with Cartier, Pucci, Bill Blass and Givenchy to sell "designer edition" cars, Chrysler went with leather-goods king Mark Cross. The base MSRP for the 1990 New Yorker Landau was $19,509, and the Mark Cross Edition package tacked on an additional $2,069 to that cost (that's like getting a $4,565 option package on a $43,050 car, when figured in 2022 dollars). For that price, you got power everything: a digital instrument cluster, a bunch of extra body moldings and interior goodies, and throne-like seats swathed in vinyl and Mark Cross leather (which, I'm just guessing, could not be distinguished from the famous (infamous?) Corinthian Leather of this car's Cordoba predecessors). Padded landau roofs were big in the 1970s and fairly deep into the 1980s, but had long fallen out of favor with the under-80 set by 1990. Still, Chrysler was proud of its landaus, and this car has big badges inside and out to prove it. By 1990, most luxury cars came standard with at least an AM/FM stereo radio, and that's what this car has. If you wanted to play cassettes, you'd have to pay at least an additional $254 (about $560 today). The 1990 New Yorker belonged to the extended K-Car family, living on the same platform as the very similar-looking Dodge Dynasty. The only engine available for this car in 1990 was the 3.3-liter Chrysler V6, rated at 147 horsepower.

Marchionne's FCA-GM merger might come after Ferrari spinoff

Sergio Marchionne is continuing to rumble about working out a merger with General Motors, but don't expect anything big to happen before at least early next year. That's because Marchionne would likely wait for the Ferrari spin-off to be complete before beginning his next big deal, according to Automotive News. While the Ferrari IPO on the New York Stock Exchange is expected in the coming weeks, that only concerns 10 percent of the shares. The remaining 80 percent of stock is being distributed among shareholders in 2016. Piero Ferrari holds the final 10 percent with no intention to sell. This strategy allows FCA to claim 80 percent of the Prancing Horse's profits in the automaker's 2015 financial results. According to Automotive News, the tactic has other advantages, as well. FCA would be flush with cash by waiting for the spin-off to be complete, and it would keep Ferrari separate if a GM merger actually happens. Marchionne thinks Ferrari could be valued at over $11 billion in the IPO, and it could make FCA $3.3 billion richer when complete. Marchionne believes a combined FCA/GM could sell 17 million vehicles a year globally and rake in $30 billion in earnings. In the CEO's opinion, the two automakers are wasting money by developing components to do the same things on their vehicles. Although, so far the General's top execs are rebuffing all of his advances.

Zombie cars: Discontinued vehicles that aren't dead yet

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.