Before Chrysler made a Cordoba to suit Ricardo Montalban, the Cordoba de Oro concept in 1970 was a radical statement of the “fuselage” look then popular with cars wearing the Pentastar (and its name corrected the Dodge Deora’s bad Spanish). More than a decade after Virgil Exner’s Norseman concept went down with the Andrea Doria, Chrysler stylists working under Exner’s successor Elwood Engel reprised Exner’s cantilevered roof with minimal A pillars.
All the publicity photos of the the Cordoba de Oro seem to have been in black and white, but this snapshot taken at the 1970 Chicago auto show explains the car’s surname. The interior featured novel adjustable pedestal bucket seats developed by Allied Chemical that had an integrated lap and shoulder belt system. The seats were trimmed in gold leather to match the car’s exterior. It’s not clear if it was of the soft Corinthian type. Another safety system tested on the Cordoba de Oro was an early airbag prototype. They even worked on a demonstration-purposes-only airbag that deployed much slower than normally, but for some reason that was never shown to the public. The Cordoba de Oro did have a common concept car gizmo that’s become a common feature on today’s cars, a camera and tv monitor that replaced the Cordoba’s conventional rear view mirror.
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