La Cordoba apparaissait sur le marché américain dans un contexte difficile pour Chrysler. Nous étions en pleine crise pétrolière, les stocks d'invendus s'accumulaient, les vagues de licenciements s'annonçaient chez le troisième constructeur américain.
   Chrysler se devait de réagir en corrigeant sa politique commerciale. L'ère des paquebots semblait révolue. Il était devenu impératif de proposer des voitures plus petites, chose impensable jusqu'alors.
   La Cordoba de 1975 s'inscrivait dans cette nouvelle orientation. Il s'agissait d'un " personal luxury car " , dans l'esprit des Cadillac Eldorado, Buick Riviera, Oldsmobile Toronado, Mercury Cougar et autre Pontiac Grand Prix, mais en nettement plus compacte.
   Le niveau d'équipement répondait à ce qu'était en droit d'attendre l'acheteur d'une Chrysler, avec ses glaces électriques, la condamnation centralisée des portes, des tissus de sièges de qualité, etc ...
   Une nouvelle Cordoba totalement redessinée fut proposée en 1980, et demeura au catalogue jusqu'en 1983.
   
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   Chrysler Cordoba was the name of an intermediate personal luxury coupe sold by Chrysler Corporation in the North America from 1975 to 1983. It was the company's first model produced expressly for the personal luxury market and the first Chrysler-branded vehicle that was less than full-size. In the early 1960s, when other upmarket brands were expanding into smaller cars with such models as the Mercury Comet and Buick Skylark, the company had very publicly declared that there would "never" be a smaller Chrysler. Historians of the marque noted later that "never" on the Chrysler timeline had equaled not quite fifteen years.
   Although the Cordoba name was generally thought to be taken from the Spanish city, the car's emblem was actually a stylized version of the Argentine cordoba coin. Either way, the implication was Hispanic, and this theme was carried out with somewhat baroque trim inside and by having Mexican movie star Ricardo Montalban as the car's advertising spokesman. However, comedians noted that his eloquent praise of its "fine Corinthian leather" interior seemed to indicate either Greece or Mississippi as a design influence. ("Corinthian leather" was a meaningless term invented for the purpose, but the term has come to mean leather with a vinyl surface treatment that requires little care.)
   Fortunately, geographic coherence was not required for success in the intermediate personal luxury market. What was needed was a combination of eye-catching styling, lots of options, affordable price, and at least the appearance of prestige. The Cordoba delivered all of these and became one of Chrysler's few genuine hits of the 1970s. Demand actually exceeded supply for its first couple of years, when production was over 150,000 annually. Half of Chrysler division production during this period was composed of Cordobas, and it has been theorized that without this one model the corporation would have skidded into crisis several years sooner than it did.
   The car had several things going for it. The personal luxury market overall was large and growing. Cordoba's debut styling was genuinely well proportioned and graceful, and is still considered one of Chrysler's better efforts. Perhaps most importantly, it carried the Chrysler name, then associated exclusively with large luxury models like the Imperial, but it was priced to compete with relatively plebeian rivals such as the Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Ford Elite. The Cordoba was originally intended to be a Plymouth (and likely would have been called something else) but the losses from the newly introduced full-size C-body in 1974 (at the onset of the energy crisis) needed to be balanced out by higher profits from a "smaller" downsized Chrysler. The success of this strategy is well illustrated by the fact that its similar and somewhat cheaper corporate cousin, the Dodge Charger SE, only sold about a quarter as well.
   
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