IML: the 67 /68 debate continues

["Hugh & Therese" <hugtrees@xxxxxxxx>]

As someone who is quite capable of running hot over a storm in a tea cup, I 
have been following this thread with some interest.  I can understand why 
some 67 & 68 owners are seeing red over the green appellation given to this 
era of Imperial.  It was and is still intended to be tongue in cheek but 
evidently not everyone find the joke so funny anymore, even though the vast 
majority of survey participants are quite happy to smile and go along with 
it.

I don't know if explaining the joke to folks who are already upset is going 
to mollify them, either.  As removed as I am from the crucible of this 
little inferno, the name suggests the hedonistic hippiedom that was so 
prevalent in the culture at that time.  Jimi Hendrix had his purple haze 
while Chrysler's was green.  I cannot think of anything less a part of the 
counter culture than an Imperial but someone had to work to give all those 
wild teenagers the money to be free enough to mock the very people who were 
making it possible.

I am always concerned that the tyranny of the majority is not always wise or 
kind to those who are excluded.  As the "leader" of another all volunteer 
group, I share the often expressed concerns of the folks who try so hard to 
maintain the IML as one of the very best such lists on the internet, which 
is to somehow come up with a solution that keeps everybody happy.  It isn't 
always possible but it is very important to try to keep people, who take 
their semantics very seriously, and we do, in some kind of harmony.  There 
is a value in avoiding the loss of a single member if it can be avoided.

To acquaint myself with the era in question, I went to the Year by Year 
section of the web site and checked into what Chrysler Corporation itself 
came up with.  And there's the rub.  They didn't, it seems, come up with 
anything.  The field was open, the "Haze Green" name arose and kind of stuck 
as being somehow, inexplicably, sort of just right and it stuck.  That's as 
good a test as you can find, by the way.

In 1967 the key word seems to be prestige.  But, in 1968, the word was 
luxury.  "Prestige" was no longer to be found.  Nonetheless, I voted for 
'Contemporary Prestige' on the survey.  I'm not sure it really means a whole 
lot as the sine qua non of any Imperial is luxurious prestige.  It seems to 
me, however, that the phrase is not out of place and provides someone 
looking at the web sight for the first time in search of some guidance on 
that era with a good idea of how Chrysler itself perceived the cars.

I just hope no one decides to fly the coop over this.  If my car was red, 
white or blue, I might be aggrieved about the name myself.

Hugh








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