Imperial (automobile)
luxury automobile brand from Chrysler
Imperial was the Chrysler Corporation's luxury automobile brand from 1955 until 1975 and again from 1981 through 1983.
The Imperial name was first used in 1926 for Chrysler's luxury model, the Chrysler Imperial. In 1955, the automaker repositioned and re-launched the Imperial as a separate make and division to better compete with its North American rivals, Lincoln and Cadillac.
After 1955, the Imperial would feature new or modified body styles introduced every two to three years, all with V8 engines and automatic transmissions, as well as technologies later introduced in Chrysler Corporation's other models.
Background
The Chrysler Imperial was introduced in 1926 at the New York City National Automobile Show as Chrysler's flagship luxury vehicle. The new models were based on extended-length platforms of the company's full-size cars and competed with the likes of rival Cadillac, Continental, Lincoln, Duesenberg, Pierce Arrow, Cord, and Packard.
Production began because Walter P. Chrysler wanted a share of the luxury car market in the luxury car market in the United States and to expand the company's lineup, since its most expensive car at the time had only a six-cylinder engine. The new model shared the same body as the lower-priced Chrysler Six, but included a larger 288.6 cu in (4.7 L) engine. Subsequent generations were based on the Chrysler Royal, Airflow, Saratoga, and New Yorker.
Starting with the 1955 model year, the automaker dropped the Chrysler brand identification from the car and named it simply the Imperial.
The public source identifies “Imperial (automobile)” as luxury automobile brand from Chrysler. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Imperial, automobile and luxury.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q668822. The Library of Congress control number is sh85064622. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1975, 1981 and 1983.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Imperial (automobile)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.