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Chrysler has long been a roller-coaster company with multiple good and bad times. In the late 1970s, it was rumored the company’s chairman of the board and president didn’t even talk to each other and that the company was in financial difficulty.
Across town in Detroit, there was another conflict between Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca, Ford Motor’s president. Apparently, egos clashed and Iacocca was fired in 1978. A few months later the fired Ford executive became the CEO of the nearly bankrupt Chrysler, agreed to a salary of $1 a year, and good things started happening at Chrysler. The “K Car” and the minivan were introduced, and by the mid-1980s, the company was selling lots of cars and minivans and making money.
Across the big pond, there was a different kind of automobile company — Maserati, a luxury vehicle manufacturer started by five brothers dating back to 1914. Like many car producers in that era, Maserati built excellent race cars and continued to do so until 1957. The company chose the trident logo to symbolize strength and vigor. In 1939 and 1940, Maserati won the Indianapolis 500, the only Italian car company to do so.
Maserati too has had its ups and downs. In 1937 the surviving brothers sold their shares to the Adolfo Orsi family, and soon World War II disrupted operations. One of their war projects was to build a V-16 Limo for Benito Mussolini, but the design was never accepted. Citroën became Maserati’s owner in 1968 and built some interesting cars, but the 1973 oil crisis took its toll.
Ultimately Citroën went bankrupt and Maserati was put into liquidation. The Italian government stepped in to save jobs and the company. They sold 11.25 percent of it to Alejandro de Tomaso, an Argentinian industrialist and former race car driver.
Iacocca and de Tomaso became acquainted when Iacocca was at Ford. Although the alliance between Chrysler and Maserati in 1984 seemed like a strange combination to some, it possessed some great possibilities for both companies. Chrysler wanted an upscale-image car, and Maserati could use the investment by Chrysler. The original plan was to combine a Chrysler engine with a Maserati body for the 1986 model year.
The big picture was to produce a sexy sports car with a fabulous hand-stitched Italian leather interior and a detachable hardtop that included side opera windows like the 1956 Ford Thunderbird. It also had a manual folding convertible top that was concealed under a metal boot. It would be equipped with 10 speakers by Infinity for the AM/FM cassette stereo, six-way power seats, a tilt steering wheel and cruise control. It had meticulous attention to detail. The emblem selected was the Maserati trident inside the Chrysler pentastar. There were three engine options and three transmission options including a five-speed Getrag 284 manual.
The Chrysler TC by Maserati was to be the show car selling 5,000 to 10,000 vehicles annually for about $33,000 (about $75,000 in today’s dollars) and be the forerunner of the newly restyled Chrysler LeBaron convertible for model year 1987. But it didn’t happen. So what went wrong? Delay after delay after delay.
The similarly styled Le Baron convertible was produced two years before the Chrysler TC and sold for about half the price. So in total, there were only 7,300 Chrysler TCs manufactured in the three model years of 1988 through 1990. But as a collector car it may be a bargain, at least Fremont resident Brian Bartelli believes.
“I bought it at the end of December of 2013. It was in mint condition, and I paid $12,375 for it, and it had 15,647 miles on it.”
This issue’s Chrysler TC by Maserati was owned by two other collectors before Bartelli acquired it. Having one of only 7,300 built certainly qualifies as a collector car, but Bartelli’s car is one of only 500 Chrysler TCs that had the 16-valve, Maserati head, 2.2-liter Turbo II engine with the five-speed Getrag 284 manual transmission. Only the Getrag 284 transmission was strong enough to handle the torque of that engine.
What was Bartelli’s motivation to buy a Chrysler TC by Maserati? He considered other cars of the era like the Cadillac Allante, the Buick Reatta and the C4 Corvette convertible, but the uniqueness of the Chrysler TC put it at the top of his shopping list.
“I did love this car when it came out,” he confessed. “Based on my budget, and I’m not skilled at mechanical work, I wanted to get something complete in mint condition. I wanted what I call an ‘old modern car.’ ” Bartelli expects his car will appreciate in value but stated that “I didn’t buy the car as an investment; I bought it just to enjoy it.”
Have an interesting vehicle? Contact David Krumboltz at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To view more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles, search for “David Krumboltz” at www.mercurynews.com.
