Chrysler LeBaron
Chrysler LeBaron
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Chrysler LeBaron

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Chrysler LeBaron

The Chrysler LeBaron is a line of automobiles built by Chrysler from 1931 to 1941 and from 1977 to 1995. Chrysler also used the LeBaron name for the Imperial LeBaron from 1957 to 1975.

The model was introduced in 1931, with a body manufactured by LeBaron, and competed with other luxury cars of the era, such as Lincoln and Packard. After purchasing LeBaron with its parent Briggs Manufacturing Company, Chrysler introduced the luxury make Imperial in 1955, and sold automobiles under the name Imperial LeBaron from 1957 until 1975. Chrysler discontinued the Imperial brand for 1976 and reintroduced the Chrysler LeBaron in 1977 to what was then Chrysler's lowest-priced model.

Chrysler has used the LeBaron name across five cars:

The last Chrysler LeBaron was manufactured in 1995, to be replaced with the Cirrus and Sebring. The LeBaron was one of Chrysler's longest-running brands.

LeBaron was one of the many prominent coachbuilders in the 1920s and 1930s to provide bodies for luxury cars. It was founded in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1920 by Thomas L. Hibbard and Raymond H. Dietrich. It was later purchased by Briggs Manufacturing Company of Detroit in 1926, the major manufacturer of bodies for Ford, Chrysler, Hudson, Packard and others, and operated as a Briggs specialist subsidiary.

LeBaron supplied exquisite custom bodies for various car companies such as Chrysler's luxury Imperial line, Duesenberg, and Cadillac. LeBaron's last projects for Chrysler were the Chrysler Newport Phaeton, a super-streamlined dual cowl phaeton with an aluminum body, and the 1941 Chrysler Thunderbolt, a sleek roadster with concealed headlights (like the 1936 Cord 810/812) and a retractable metal hardtop styled by Alex Tremulis, who would later style the 1948 Tucker.

Chrysler purchased the Briggs Manufacturing Company in 1953. Two years after the Chrysler introduced the Imperial as a separate luxury division, the LeBaron name designated the top-of-the-line Imperial models from 1957 through 1975.

The LeBarons started in the 1930s during the automobile's classic era and competed directly with the luxury brands of its day, such as Lincoln, Cadillac, and Packard. In the mid-1930s, Chrysler added a radical new "Art Deco" design shape, known as the Airflow Imperials, to the Chrysler line. LeBaron supplied the high-end CW series. The design features were considered advanced and perhaps ahead of their time. However, the shape was too radical for buyer's tastes, and non-Airflow models outsold Airflows by about 3 to 1. Raymond Dietrich, co-founder and former stylist at LeBaron, was hired in 1932 to be Chrysler's in-house stylist. Dietrich restyled the Airflow line and moved Chryslers to more mainstream styles. As a result of poor Airflow sales, Chrysler's designs became quite conservative for the next two decades. Auto manufacturers continued to build up their in-house styling departments and bodyworks. LeBaron thus became less important to most of its customers for design ideas and bodies. Toward the late 1930s, LeBaron/Briggs built more bodies for Chrysler and fewer for Ford. Chrysler became their biggest customer, with additional bodies built for Packard, Hudson, and Graham-Paige. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, the LeBaron name and division became less critical for Briggs, although it remained a division of Briggs until the Chrysler buyout in 1953.

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