by Lee Iacocca friendship with Alejandro de Tomaso is back, and it leads to De Tomaso Pantera supplied by Ford born in 1971 (when Iacocca was running Ford). After Iacocca moved to the top Chrysler in 1978, he began working with de Tomaso (who owned maserati at the time) to develop a sports coupe based on Chrysler’s Lifesaver K-Car Platform. It took quite a while, but that car finally became a reality: Maserati’s Chrysler TC (officially known as chrysler’s TC of Maserati). About 7,300 have been built since 1991 and I found one of them in an auto graveyard in the Denver area.
I managed documents four of these cars at their last stop before that, at the ruins of Colorado, California and Wisconsin. Chrysler’s TC by Maserati do have a devoted followerBut they can’t save them all.
TC really to be assembled by Maserati in Italybut the frame below is taken from Dodge Daytona.
The body bears a strong resemblance to Chrysler LeBaron GTCunfortunately considering the price difference between the two cars: the MSRP on the 1989 TC was $33,000, while the LeBaron GTC was priced at $17,435 (equivalent to about $80,880 and $42,730 in annual dollars. 2022).
The TC had three different engines that drove the front wheels during its short existence: two types turbocharged Chrysler 2.2 four-cylinder (one with 160 hp and one with a 200 hp Cosworth cylinder head) and that good old horse of a Mitsubishi V6: 6G72, with 141 horses. This car engine 2.2 160hp.
The Cosworth-led cars (500 were built) had a five-speed manual transmission, but the other 6,800 TC had a three- or four-speed Chrysler transmission (this one was a three-speed).
There has been a lot of snobbish outcry against TC by the auto press, but only look at that interior!
Even the best LeBaron never got it this level of bragging inside.
Every time I write about one of these cars, I hear that the factory hardtop is worth the money… but four of the five examples I found at the scrap yard have hardtops, and I think every one goes to the crusher with it being a car.
How many miles? Not much! Maybe the speedometer cable broke in 1995.
The radio and HVAC controls are from LeBaron, but the wood and leather are real.
Chrysler had hoped to compete with Cadillac Allante (also assembled in Italy at great expense) and Buick Reattabut in the early 1990s it became clear that car buyers in the US didn’t care much for expensive two-seaters based on existing front-wheel drive sedans and (mostly) equipped with a transmission. automatic.
A blend of Italian craftsmanship and American engineering, that’s right.
