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Lap of America for Chrysler quality: engineers testing cars across the country
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Feb 4, 2025
From Detroit to International Falls and onward into the desert, the final test of a car after production starts! Personal stories and pics from the man who was there. #motales #mopar #quality #classiccars #cardesign
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0:02
quality on road lap of
0:04
America hello and welcome to motels I'm
0:08
Dave's minion and Cuda Pete and this is
0:10
episode five in our series of working at
0:13
the Chrysler Corporation in the mid
0:16
1980s today in this episode we're going
0:19
to be looking at quality on the road lap
0:21
of
0:23
America in the 1980s Chrysler had a
0:26
quality testing program for vehicles
0:28
once they were built it was called lap
0:30
of America and that's exactly what it
0:32
was Cars would come off the line
0:35
Engineers would get in them and we would
0:37
drive them across the country about 2
0:39
weeks of testing and evaluating the
0:43
cars so in 1987 Chrysler purchased
0:47
American Motors and as part of that the
0:50
eagle Premiere came along and the eagle
0:53
Premiere was a car that Chrysler was
0:55
very interested in it was one of the
0:57
main reasons why Chrysler did purchase a
0:59
work Motors because they did need a new
1:02
car platform at the time and the eagle
1:05
Premiere eventually did develop into the
1:07
LH LX cars so as part of the quality
1:12
program they would take these cars and
1:15
they would drive them across country so
1:17
as I said we we tested the eagle
1:19
Premiere so as part of Chrysler's
1:21
quality program in the 1980s there was
1:24
what was called the lap of America they
1:26
would take cars off the assembly line
1:28
and Engineers would drive them around
1:30
the country to evaluate and test them to
1:32
make sure they had a quality product to
1:34
deliver to the public this car that we
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tested this time was the eagle premere
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now this was something that Chrysler was
1:40
very interested in because they did need
1:42
a new large car platform at the time so
1:45
rather than develop in in house they
1:47
bought this platform which later became
1:49
the LH LX so at the time though the
1:52
eagle Premiere was a little different it
1:54
was powered by either the PVR V6 engine
1:58
or the 2.5 l AMC engine in this case we
2:02
took four cars across country for Eagle
2:05
premieres two of them were the V6
2:07
version and two of them were the 2.5 L
2:09
version and along with that we had a
2:11
crew of eight engineers and mechanics
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along with myself from the supplier
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quality assurance Department we also had
2:18
people from the engine Department
2:19
transmission Department we had another
2:21
gentleman from Kenosha engine we had a
2:25
mechanic from a local dealership and we
2:27
had a few other Engineers that dealt
2:29
with plastic SS Interiors audio systems
2:32
and the such so that they could evaluate
2:34
the cars too so the trip started out in
2:37
Detroit and we drove up on the Northern
2:39
leg of this trip which took us first
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through the northern part of Michigan
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through the Upper Peninsula then over
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through theth Minnesota and over to
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International Falls Minnesota now mind
2:50
you this trip took place in January so
2:53
in an ideal time to do coldstar testing
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in International Falls Minnesota so
2:57
being the youngest guy on the crew
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the job of starting the cars early in
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the morning fell to me so 5:00 in the
3:05
morning I would have to wander out to
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the parking lot and see how long it took
3:08
to start the cars and how long it took
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them to come up to temperature so that
3:13
that was fine it was a good educational
3:14
experience for me other things we looked
3:16
at during the trip of course were like
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fuel economy performance Comfort how
3:22
different things function so it was an
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overall evaluation the card not looking
3:26
at anything um specific so from
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International fall we then went on to
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Dickenson North Dakota then down to
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Buffalo Wyoming Denver Colorado Santa Fe
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New Mexico and then the trip for us
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wound up in Phoenix Arizona where there
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was a changing crew and then eight other
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people took the cars back to Detroit on
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the southern leg of the trip and this
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was not just unique for Eagle Premiere
3:50
friends of mine did it for the Jeep
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Wranglers and they also did it for the
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Dodge Spirit and Plymouth Acclaim when
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they came out so it was an ongoing
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process at Christ and it was a good way
4:00
to get a feel for these cars and know
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how they would react on long trips so it
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was a very good learning experience for
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all if you like this video please like
4:09
and subcribe leave any comments below
4:12
thank you very much for watching
#Chrysler
#Transportation