Few men have had the kind of changing-the-history-of-automobile-career like Lee Iacocca, who was with Ford for the longest of tenures and partnered up with Carroll Shelby to aid in the making of the GT40, the one car that pitted Ford against the Ferrari, and made it win!
Once Iacocca left Ford, it was for Chrysler, and much like his friendly partnership with Shelby, this time he ganged up with Alejandro de Tomaso. Of course, this partnership wasn’t new either, because the duo had come together for the De Tomaso Pantera, which was sold under Mercury/Lincoln dealerships at the time.
But now, Tomaso owned Maserati, and what could be better than two luxury brands coming together, than Maserati and Chrysler? Or so they thought. But sometimes what seems to be a really good thing, of two positives coming together, turns out to be a strange, strange occurrence indeed.
And such was the case of the Chrysler TC by Maserati and its significance in the history of what not to do when it comes to making new cars under joint partnerships…
The Grand Coming Together
It wasn’t just Iacocca and Tomaso’s friendship that brought the two brands together. Both Chrysler and Maserati truly expected to benefit from a joint venture of a car.
When it came to Chrysler, associating with Maserati could usher in a new level of luxury, prestige, and performance, and could take Chrysler even more upmarket than before. In turn, it would offer Maserati sales in bigger numbers, thus taking this niche and little-bought brand to mass sales and bigger profits.
And so Tomaso and Iacocca brought Chrysler and Maserati together and the concept car was shown at the 1986 LA Auto Show, but in the haste, predicted to be a 1987 model. And therein lay the very first error…
Presenting The Late Chrysler TC By Maserati
No one, even in the ‘80s, had the patience to wait for a car. So when the 1987 model of the new Chrysler-Maserati car did not arrive on time, eyebrows went up and interest went down. By 1988, memories went vague and when the car, Chrysler TC by Maserati finally arrived on the scene in 1989, memories need to be jogged.
For a car that was already late, appearances had to blow people away. Sadly, the TC, as in the Turbo Convertible, looked too much like the existing Chrysler LeBaron, to make it a success. In an ideal world, the TC should have been used by Chrysler to sell the much cheaper Le Baron, but in reality, they were left red-faced trying to explain why it looked like the LeBaron but cost more than twice the amount.
While it may have looked like the LeBaron, the actual body of the Chrysler TC by Maserati came built by Innocenti with wheels from Fondmetal. Sachs dampers, Teves ABS, an Infinity audio system, and many more things set this car apart if you looked closely at it. And if you looked at the TC’s interior, things were very, very different. A lot of it, seats, armrests, and more were dressed in hand-stitched leather. There was a color-matched boot, and a tool kit with a flashlight, along with ample use of wood and steel when needed.
Three different engines powered the car. One was a 2.2-liter turbocharged Chrysler four-cylinder that made 174 horses. Another was a Mitsubishi-sourced 3.0-liter V6 that came paired with automatic transmission. And for the five-speed manual, there was a new engine made jointly by Chrysler, Maserati, and Cosworth, and its too was a 2.2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder one but jetted 200 horses. Only 500 of these engined cars came to be.
The Many Problems With The TC
If the two-year-delay dampened consumer interest in the Chrysler TC by Maserati, its similar looks to the Le Baron killed buyer interest completely. Despite the better power and luxurious interiors, no one wanted to pay double for a car that looked half its price. Had the $33,000 TC come before the $15,000 or so LeBaron, things might have been different.
In fact, there was a running joke back then that TC actually stood for Too Costly. Chrysler and Maserati had predicted or rather hoped for sales that ranged from 5,000-10,000 annually. In reality, only 7,300 cars were made, only to fulfill the stipulated contract, and these also did not sell too well.
This little experiment also cost Chrysler plenty when it came to money because they made each car at a cost of about $80,000, and barely sold it for $33,000 – costing the company a whopping $600 million loss.
Strangely enough, Iacocca blamed shoddy marketing for the TC’s failure and claimed that Chrysler could never formulate the right promotional approach to position the TC right. By 1992, the dream that had become a nightmare wrapped up and slunk off. Fiat then acquired Maserati, and later even Chrysler fell the same way. Iacocca moved on to greener pastures as well, and today, you’d be hard-pressed to recognize the Chrysler TC by Maserati as anything but a forgotten bad idea.
If you still want it, here are many listed below $10,000...
Sources: Hemmings, AutomobileMag, ClassicCars