My grandfather had a 76, Brown with Tan interior and vinyl top. Was no match for my aunt's Cuda in a straight line but it was way more comfy.. He was a Mopar Man, retired from Ma Mopar after 30 years. The Cordoba was his retirement car.
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Story by Eric Rood
The 24 Hours of Lemons allows real people to live out their (slightly tempered) racing dreams. But if you want to race a classic American muscle car–think early V8 power and rear-wheel drive–how do you start such a build for hundreds and not thousands?
Jim Sayre of Valve Tap Racing followed the Mopar muscle car pedigree to its logical (and chronological) end: a 1978 Chrysler Cordoba. While you’re all replaying Ricardo Montalbán’s famous “rich Corinthian leather” pitch in your heads, consider the following the final Chrysler B-body checks for muscle car cred:
Setting all that aside, if you lower your standards a bit, the general layout of a Cordoba is very similar to a 1968 Charger R/T’s, which means classic muscle car handling (poor) and braking (also poor).
All the same, the Torqueflite transmission is robust, and the big, strangled 400 seems not to make enough power to hurt itself. The Cordoba is easy to drive and predictable–if unspectacular–which is great for Jim, who just wanted a car his family and he could race with some of his old Mopar friends. And crucially, it looks spectacular on a race track.
While you might not find a Mercury Cyclone or Pontiac GTO, complete the Lemons analogy instead with a Mercury Montego MX or a Pontiac LeMans Coupe GT.
My grandfather had a 76, Brown with Tan interior and vinyl top. Was no match for my aunt's Cuda in a straight line but it was way more comfy.. He was a Mopar Man, retired from Ma Mopar after 30 years. The Cordoba was his retirement car.
RICH CORINTHIAN LEATHER!!!!1111
I noted in the video that he refers to it as a "Small Chrysler ". That made me chuckle!!!
In reply to dean1484 :
Our peculiar habit of stuffing our corpulent bodies into tiny shoeboxes on wheels had yet to manifest itself. Many cars we think of as large today were, in their time, sold as "personal size" cars.
https://bestride.com/news/top-10-personal-luxury-coupes-of-the-1960s-and-1970s
They were small "ish" compared to their earlier bredren.. This is what my Grandpa's Cordoba replaced, 1972 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham. That thing had it's own zip code.
Having spent many hours riding around with a friend in his 400 ci Cordoba, I can tell you they were absolutely faster than you'd expect. Not fast like a built Camaro, but fast compared to most of the emissions-laden junk we stop light raced in the 1980s. Remove the Lean Burn system and add some exhaust and a cam, and Bob's your uncle.
Richard Petty's last Mopar race car was a Dodge Magnum, which was a sister car to the Cordoba, so there's sort of a race heritage...
I had a Magnum with a 400 big block. Ended up donating it to charity. Wish I hadn't, now, but gas was comparatively cheap then...
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