Chrysler resurrected the Imperial name one final time with a four-door luxury sedan in 1990-93, smallish but packed with features.

From 1984 through 1989 there was no Imperial at the Chrysler Corporation. Launched by Walter P. Chrysler himself in 1926, Imperial was Chrysler’s traditional flagship designation, the best and biggest the company offered, and from 1955 to 1983 it was presented as a separate division by the automaker, set apart from the Chrysler brand.

But somehow it was decided that the Imperial name still had some power, and in 1990 it  made one more appearance. This time it was on a stretched, super-deluxe version of the Chrysler New Yorker. The Imperial, New Yorker, and New Yorker Fifth Avenue were based on the corporation’s front-drive Y platform, yet another variant on the remarkably elastic K-car introduced in 1981. This final Imperial, marketed as a Chrysler model, would remain in the lineup with few changes through 1993.

A five-inch stretch in the floorpan’s rear door area extended the wheelbase from 104.3 to 109.3 inches on the Imperial and Fifth Avenue, while the Imperial’s overall length was increased to 203 inches with extra sheet metal in the nose and deck. A more sharply chiseled front end, a full-width tail lamp assembly at the rear, and a different arrangement of the padded landau top and quarter glass endeavored to set the Imperial apart from the New Yoker and Fifth Avenue. With less than complete success, some might say.

Inside the Imperial was every feature and gadget the Chrysler product planners could summon: yards of rich-looking Mark Cross leather or Kimberly cloth,  touch-button climate control, an LCD instrument display, and multiple audio systems including an Infinity RS setup with 10 speakers. There was even an optional dealer-installed cell phone.

Mechanically, the selling features included four-wheel disc antilock braking and a self-leveling air-spring rear suspension. In 1991 the Imperial’s original 3.3-liter transverse V6 was upgraded to a 3.8-liter V6 with all of 150 hp. Obviously, this was a different breed  of Imperial. While this was Chrysler’s largest passenger car at the time, it was downright unimposing by Imperial standards.

But then those were the times. Its contemporaries, the front-drive Cadillac de Ville and Lincoln Continental, were not that much larger—though they were wider. Constrained by its K-car origins, the Imperial could not really accommodate three-wide seating. But at $29,481, around $4,000 less than the de Ville, it was attractively priced.

Sales of the Y-based Imperial were never brisk, dwindling to barely 7,000 cars in ’93, and when Chrysler adopted the more advanced LH platform in 1994, the Imperial did not come along. While the LH made a more suitable package for an Imperial, arguably, there was no longer a royal prerogative. For 1994, the biggest and most luxurious Chrysler was the LHS.