Originally Posted by P.C.

While some mechanical components were shared between this generation Imperial and other Chryslers of this era such as your New Yorker, one major difference was that while Chrysler went to unit-body construction in the latter fifties, the Imperial stayed body-on-frame through 1966. Physically tough car. One night in 1971, my father parked his '64 Crown Coupe at the curb and went into a tavern with a few friends. He sat down for a drink and not long afterward heard a tremendous crash outside. A husband and wife in a 1963 Chevy Impala were having a little domestic dispute while driving down the road, and the husband, apparently distracted, plowed into the left rear corner of the Imperial. Hubby was apparently a little moody about the whole thing, and backed the Impala up, slammed it back into drive, and rammed the Imperial again. He repeated this event one more time for luck, with the Little Missus screaming out the window that he was trying to kill her, after which the Impala decided to go into permanent retirement and ultimately left the scene on the back of a tow truck. The Imperial? Well, my father drove it home without incident, and I remember surveying the damage the next morning. The driver's rear quarter was a little wrinkly, but not crushed, and the rear bumper needed to be replaced. Oh yeah, a taillight was cracked. With a little banging out and a bumper pirated from a 1965 Imperial, the car served our family for another year before it was sold. I still remember seeing it around in the late-Seventies.

I also remember that my father loved tormenting gas station attendants with this car, as the gas cap was well hidden by a chrome eagle-adorned door in the exact center of the rear bumper.