Word: chrysler
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Meanwhile, down at the auto center, 50 Klansmen are suiting up, clumsily pulling robes and floppy hoods on over their street clothes. Imperial Wizard Bill Wilkinson, a stocky little man from Denham Springs, La., has arrived in his long gray Chrysler. He likes to tell people it once belonged to President Nixon, and he usually adds regretfully that it is not bulletproof. A shotgun leans against the front seat. Boasts Klansman Gene West of San Antonio: "We've got a whole arsenal of guns here today, all of them concealed...
...Chrysler Corp. Chairman John Riccardo boasts that 25 years from now, when automen look back on 1978, they will remember it as the year in which his company introduced the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon. The cars (or car -they are identical except for trim) are the first subcompacts to be made in the U.S. with front-wheel drive, and are supposedly the forerunners of a new generation of gas-stingy little autos that are surprisingly roomy inside and handle well. Early results seemed to justify Chrysler's optimism. Motor Trend, a magazine for auto buffs, named the Omni...
...first C.U. test, the driver suddenly tugs at the steering wheel, then lets it go while keeping the gas pedal down. The wheel, says C.U., is supposed to spin back quickly to its original position-but in the Omni-Horizon, wheel and car swung violently from side to side. Chrysler's manager of automotive safety relations, Christopher Kennedy, says that Chrysler itself performed this test on Omni-Horizon with inconclusive results: "Some do, some don't" perform the same way as the cars that Consumers Union examined. But, says Chrysler's chief engineer, Sidney Jeffe, the test...
...around an obstacle, then pull back into lane-supposedly simulating the maneuvers a motorist would have to make to avoid a child suddenly darting into the road, say, or an object falling off a truck. When C.U. drivers tried it, the car fishtailed alarmingly and failed to recover. When Chrysler re-created the test for an audience of reporters at its proving grounds in Chelsea, Mich., the company's driver threaded the car flawlessly through a slalom course around pylons...
...Chrysler ordered a canvass of its zone managers, service managers and dealers around the country. The results, says Jeffe: "Absolutely zilch. Not a single complaint from a customer about the handling of the car." Motor Trend Executive Editor Chuck Nerpel said that in tests run by his magazine, Omni-Horizon stood out as "an agile car." Consumers' Research, a rival of Consumers Union, tested the Omni-Horizon under normal road conditions, rather than on a special track; it passed...