When TorsionQuiet Ride happened, road noise was much better than the prior cars. Real isolated "front frame sections", plus the iso-clamps on the rear axle spring mounts helped, too, but the handling precision seemed to go down a bit, with more "flex" places to kill noise transmission.
On my DH43N0D, the rear door glass adjustment made the vertical chrome trim rub against the roof rail weatherstrip. It had worn the rubber such that it was metal to metal. The rh side was not quite that way. The way things were put together, if I adjusted the glass to not touch so much, or the door itself, for better sealing such that a new weatherstrip could be ordered and not "tear up", then the whole rear door would have been out of adjustment. I considered this to be a "normal problem" of the breed. I began looking at other 43 models. On a '71 Plymouth GranSedan, in that wear area, there was a thin, molded piece of flexible plastic, which the metal glass trip touched and rubbed against as the door closed. We could find NO mentioned of it in the parts book. The lh rr door glass on that was adjusted perfectly. So I just put up with that little wind leak on my car.
Back then, Ford was the King of NVH control. They'd engineered much of the sound transmission places out of their cars, it seemed. GM was next, so long as you were on a hard-surface road, then when you "hit the gravel", the gravel hitting the bare metal floorpan sounded like it was little ball bearings hitting the floorpan.
Many people criticized Chryslers for "rough ride", but if you put earplugs in and compared the ride motions to other cars on the Interstate, they Chryslers were just as smooth riding, just the road noise and impact harshness of the UniBody made it "feel rough" when it really wasn't. BUT, this also meant that the Chryslers would handle better as the suspension was attached to a stiff body structure, rather than a "flex frame" and "somewhat stiff body" as the Fords and GMs were back then.
One of the main areas in which modern cars are better is that they are sealed much better than anything prior to them. That helps eliminate wind noise, now termed "wind rush" around the doors and windows. No exterior moldings around the windshields/back glass might have a marginal affect, too, but was driven by competitive factors, which most possibly relate to assembly cost.
But when I got my '80 Newport, I was impressed with the smoothness and QUIET it had. Then I discovered it had an isolated k-frame in the front frame section, which was also isolated from the body with thick rubber isolators. Then I discovered the 3" thick jute and heat insulation under the thick "high-pile" carpet. Otherwise, it was similar to prior Chryslers. The door glass regulators on those cars had issues, though, as the lh front glass seals poorly (very possibly caused by the "hardtop sedan" styling. The glass hits the bare rubber as a hardtop does, but there's a B-pillar between the doors. Part of Iacocca's prior Ford legacy?
What's odd is that it appears that the upper door frame from a similar '80s Caprice could be tacked onto the Chrysler door frame, which would then make it a full 4-dr sedan that should be quiet in all respects.
One thing that you have to understand is that all cars are not designed in a "generic" manner. They aren't all the same, especially in prior times. Chryslers had their own engineering and unique traits/quirks about them. How they felt to drive, how they sounded, body stiffness, etc. Similarly, Fords and GMs had their own corporate family traits. It was not hard to tell them apart, IF you knew what they were and to listen for. And, among the GM brands, EACH one was their own sub-set of the GM family. Lots of differences!
Ford probably had the best assembly quality, followed by GM and then Chrysler. I will say that the Windor-built Cordobas had higher levels of fit/finish quality than the USA plant Chryslers tended to, from what I remember seeing at the dealership in the middle '70s. Same with Buicks built in Flint, MI. Some plants were just better than others, for whatever reasons. None were really BAD, just variations of Good.
Enjoy!
CBODY67
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