Some of you may know Matthew Barney as the guy who has a kid with Bjork, and some probably have never heard of either of them. Barney is a well known artist who made a series of five videos (I hesitate to say films, because they were all actually shot on video then transferred to film for projection showings in theaters) between the mid 1990’s and 2002 known as the Cremaster Cycle. The cremaster, for those unaware, is the name of the muscle that suspends, raises, and lowers the scrotum. Mostly, it’s useful for regulating the temperature of a man’s testicles. In his series, Barney uses the cremaster’s cycle of dropping of one’s balls as a metaphor for exploring themes of masculinity and male sexuality. There’s some basis on the life/artistic personification of murderer Gary Gilmore in there too. To be honest, I very much like the Cremaster Cycle work Barney has done, but its intended meaning and content is something that I find myself setting aside quite often while watching in favor of just letting myself be mesmerized and overcome by the striking imagery it contains.
Which brings us to Cremaster 3, the last film of the 5 (confusing, I know, because they’re not in chronological order.. All the others were made prior to the 3rd). Cremaster 3 is the longest of all and has the most shocking and fascinating imagery of all the work in the series (in my opinion). In spite of the fact that it’s been about a decade since I saw the series last, just off the top of my head, I can recall the image of seemingly dead yet still animated race horses, all fleshy and sinewy as they race around a track, well as a cheetah lady played by model and double amputee, Aimee Mullins who wears cheetah leg prostheses, and in another scene, wears and walks in crystal clear glass legs. But today we’re going to focus on the role of the Chrysler Imperial in the Cremaster 3.
In the film, you see 5 1967 Chrysler Crown Imperials (crown was a trim level) in the lobby of the Chrysler building all smashing and crashing into an older Imperial New Yorker that earlier was shown having the body of Gary Gilmore (played by Barney) placed in the back seat. Eventually, the New Yorker Imperial is reduced to a mere chunk of crushed metal by the 5 Crown Imperials in this rather gorgeous demolition derby hosted in the beautiful Chrysler building lobby and featuring stunningly glossy Imperials. The five Imperials reference the five films in that each bears the symbol that Barney created for each film, and they are all 1967 models, which is representative of the year of Barney’s birth. This is in keeping with this film’s theme of narcissism, which is also a theme that manages to work its way into a lot of artwork, too. Big shock that it all ends up revolving around the artist, his own work, and his fixation on what‘s in his pants, eh? Well, work with what you know, I guess. And really, why not? It’s intriguing, not in a smutty way, but more of a curious and bizarrely perplexing way, if that makes any sense.
So, today’s Imperial isn’t a ’67, obviously, because I’ve already said it’s a ’72. I bet if Barney had been born 5 years later than he was, we would have been looking at 1972 Imperials, though. Here’s the thing about these cars: they were monsters in the demolition derby world -not just in “derbies” featured in art films set in the Chrysler building, either. Europeans may know demolition derbies better as “banger racing”, but the point is the same, and that is to wreck all the other cars before your own vehicle can no longer function. Obviously, this isn’t the safest motor sport to take part in, but steps are taken that include removing glass from the cars first, and signing a waiver, so, you know, it‘s safe… kind of. When you’re driving in a demolition derby, you want to strike mostly with the back end of the car so that you don’t muck up your engine compartment, or you won’t be able to ram anything, and you‘d better like the feel of whip lash, because it‘s gonna happen.
The kind of cars one wanted to use for demolition derbies tended to be big, old, American land yachts.. AKA 60-70’s model full sized cars, which worked out kind of well because demolition derbies were in their hay day just about at that time. The Chrysler Imperial was king among the vehicles competing, and proved itself to have such an endless supply of crash space that some derbies banned them all together in an attempt to be fair to all the other American gun-boat sedans and wagons.
When we’re talking about a car that, based on sheer size, doubles as a weapon of mass destruction, a 1967 Imperial was a great choice. The ‘67 Imperial featured a 350 HP 440 cubic inch V8 under the hood to propel the massive 4,860 pound, nearly 18 and ¾ foot long, over 6 ½ foot wide metal missile around the derby. Brand new, a ’67 had a sticker price of right around $6,000. Go up 5 years to today’s featured car, and you can add another grand onto that MSRP along with an extra 5 inches in length, and one hundred pounds in weight. You’d have to subtract 105 HP from the output specs of that 440 due to detuning (thanks a lot, EPA), but that still leaves you 245 HP to bash around with.
If the prospect of a owning car that practically calls for satellite imaging to fit the entire thing in the frame of a photograph, has oodles of crash space, and will net you a whopping 8-10 MPG is appealing to you, your best bet is to go with the ‘72. It’s cheaper by half than its older peer, the ’67... Probably in part because Matthew Barney went and bashed up a bunch of them for his Cremaster movie, making a surviving example of the ’67 just that much more rare than it was before. This particular 1972 is in not-so-hot shape, and is available for just under $3,000. A ’72 Imperial in great shape would cost just shy of $10,000, whereas a 1967 Imperial in great condition would fetch over twice that amount. I think it’s unlikely that anybody would use an Imperial for a demolition derby these days, as your average car in a derby is worth about half or less of what this beat up Imperial’s price is. That said, I certainly can see the appeal of getting behind the wheel and dominating a muddy field of clunkers using this massive metal beast as the driving force.
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