Soft Corinthian Velour! 1979 Chrysler Cordoba
The company that once boasted that there would never be a small Chrysler reluctantly backtracked and gave us the “smaller” 18-foot-long Cordoba. Not to mention having one of the most memorable advertising campaigns of all time. This 1979 Chrysler Cordoba can be found posted here on eBay in Divide, Colorado and oddly enough, the current bid price is $1,975, the first model year.
The Cordoba as a separate personal luxury coupe was made from 1974 for the 1975 model year until 1983. This car is the last year of the first-generation Cordobas before Chrysler designers broke out the straight edge and squared them off. The first-gen cars were brought to market to compete with cars including the Mercury Cougar, Oldsmobile Cutlass, and Buick Regal. Ricardo Montalban actually used more than one version of the iconic advertising slogan, so don’t be mad if you hear someone say either soft, fine, or rich Corinthian Leather, it could be any of those. And, it came from a New Jersey factory, not from an exotic location.
The muscle car era was but a distant memory and people seemed to be more into trendy fashions, padded landau vinyl tops, opera lights, and other brougham-era goodies. I admit to living through that era and I may or may not have had a pair of white shoes as a nerdy teenager. To be fair to car companies, government emissions regulations were wreaking havoc on power not to mention gas prices going up and up. I remember a few years before this Cordoba was made, my dad almost doing a Fred Sanford clutching his heart motion when we drove by our neighborhood gas station and premium gas had risen to $0.60 a gallon!
This car appears to be in nice condition. You may have noticed a missing molding for the passenger door and some of the paint and pinstriping could use work. There are some blemishes in the paint which I’m assuming may be lurking corrosion and the vinyl top appears to be cracking, or cracked, in a few spots. The seats look fantastic both front and rear, and you can’t beat this soft Corinthian velour! Wait a minute…
This Cordoba is equipped with Chrysler’s 360 cubic-inch V8 which would have had 150 hp and 265 lb-ft of torque. The seller lists the mileage as being 39,417 but we don’t know if it’s been around the horn or not. They say that it runs well enough that it could be a daily driver. Would any of you buy a Cordoba without the famous soft/fine/rich Corinthian Leather seats?
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Comments
Well, I’m all for riding around in even a well-worn piece of recent automotive history, but I’m afraid the missing Corinthian leather is a deal-breaker for me. If I had no other reason to explain my driving it at such heart-stopping gas prices as we see today, that ol’ “rich Corinthian leather” in the Montalban accent would be univerally accepted as good cause. (By the way, if you want to really know Ricardo Montalban, catch him as a Japanese Kabuki dancer in James Mitchener’s “Sayonara”.)
The addition of rectangular lights ruined the front end on this year Cordoba.
Agree the original versions of these with the round headlites looked much better. As did the Dodge Charger twins, which my sister use to drive to hit deers with on almost a nitely basis. That front end took quite the battering.
Why would anyone buy this over a Dodge Magnum of the same year? Or better yet, wait a year and buy a 360 Mirada, now there was a beautiful car.
Why would anyone by this instead of a Chevy Monte Carlo, which this car tried to emulate
NAILED IT! The Monte Carlo was the target that everybody else was aiming at. The other G.M. cars did pretty well, with the very similar Olds Cutlass Supreme being America’s best-selling car in both 1976 and ’77. Thunderbird and Cougar didn’t have a chance. Matador? Please, really? Charger? Tried real hard to be something it was never meant to be. Not a Hemi, or even a 440-Six Pack in sight. You can’t just jack up a popular nameplate, roll an entirely different car under it, and expect the customer to look at it the same way. Customers stayed away in droves. The last time that ploy worked was the ’58 Thunderbird. But the Cordoba was on point. The Personal Luxury class was Chrysler’s home ballpark. For an obvious Monte Carlo knockoff, it did very darn well. But, as popular as it was, I would venture a guess that the Chevy still outsold the Chrysler by at least 3 to 1, the Chrysler’s upscale image and comparable price notwithstanding. I can’t tell you when the last time I saw a Cordoba was. (Maybe it was the smaller, squared-off later model version that a Mopar-loving co-worker had picked up at an estate sale and brought to work one day about 8 years ago. The ar was really in great condition, and I remember thinking at the time that I might have considered it myself at the price he paid for it) On the other hand, I’ve seen four 1973-77 Monte Carlos in the past month alone: 2 in car shows, one in the parking lot of one of those shows, and one very nice one cruising along the Pennsylvania Turnpike a few days ago while I was on my way home from work. In my book,Chrysler gets a solid “B” for the early Cordoba. But with the upmarket Chrysler name, I would have expected more than a Chevrolet competitor.
Had a black ‘78. With the famous Corinthian “ Lather”. Ran well, except blew out several ignition modules.
Looks to be in very good condition, could be the best one Ieft. I’d buy it in an instant but are stuck here on the opposite side of the planet. I’d hot that 360 up radically to 3 times the hp and add a real loud twin exhaust with extractors and have a blast.
Had me a 1975 Cordoba.
White body, white vinyl roof, the famous soft/fine/rich/white Corinthian Leather seats, doors & ceiling.
Sunroof and power windows.
Killer 6 way stereo/8trak.
You could hide a body between the grill and radiator, and put 6 more in the trunk…LOL For sneaking into the drive-in you understand.
Drive-in’s baby. One of my first jobs in HS was one summer at a Drive-in.
Our job was to make sure nobody snuck in.
We also ran the Drive-In’s amusement park rides pre-movies starting.
Rarely did we ever toss anyone for sneaking in, via the trunk….as long
as we got some beer or wacky tobaccy out of the deal !
Yes you got……shook down….even at the Drive-In ! lol
’78-79 Cordoba has to be the worst nose job ever.
Have you seen the 77-78 LTD II ?
Nicole Kidman’s was worse.
I had one of these. I loved it what a wonderful cruiser on the I40 east…
You boys do realize there is no such thing as “Corinthian” Leather.
How about ‘Fantasy Island ? ah shucks !
Auction update: this one ended as it was “no longer available”.
You’re right, Ken, “Corinthian Leather” was a marketing term. I have a link to the origin in the second paragraph.
Nice Monte Carlo…er, I mean Cordoba.