| Imperial Services | |
There are several vendors that have stepped in to help keep the early 60's Mopars on the road. But parts alone don't tell the whole story. This page is an opportunity to learn more about the company behind the parts.
Imperial Services is a Sole Proprietorship owned and operated by Steven Charette.
Imperial Services, founded in 1987, started as a small machine and repair shop. Parts were built evenings and weekends, while Steve worked full time in manufacturing and engineering positions. The company's first products were repair parts for the auto wash industry. Over the next few years they developed a number of improvements to their parts line, which improved reliability and durability, but ultimately led to selling less parts! By 1996, with volumes at all-time lows, Steve started looking for new products to build. Late in 1997, Steve decided to temporarily close the business down to attend to pressing family matters.
Steve began a more serious quest for products for the shop in the Spring of 1998. Personal experience stepped in as Steve remembered a futile search for replacement transmission mounts for his 1963 Plymouth. Research showed the mounts were then still unavailable. The few New Old Stock parts that did exist where outrageously expensive and people then were resorting to all sorts of make-shift arrangements to secure their transmissions. And the thought of paying $150 or more for a 35 year old, NOS rubber mount was not at all appealing to Steve.
Steve was able to procure a few mounts for analysis, built tooling, and released the first production parts in late 1998, with the help of some of online friends. Additional part numbers and applications followed. Newer tooling and manufacturing techniques are now yielding more professional looking parts, with better durability, while maintaining the introductory pricing of the parts late in 1998.
Steve is a perfectionist for parts quality and continuously seeks better methods and materials. The record speaks for itself, as from a population of over 1500 transmission mounts very few failures were reported. In fact, most failures occurred in early production of the 1966-1970 style mount, in high horsepower manual transmission applications. Learning from experience, Steve made subsequent design modifications that eliminated similar failures.
Imperial Services parts are scrutinized throughout the manufacturing process. To ensure this quality control all Imperial Services parts are manufactured in the United States, using materials of American origin.
Imperial services now focuses on continuous improvement of the line of 1957-1975 Chrysler Product transmission mount offerings, as well as gradually adding new products for other Mopar applications. Recent parts introductions include a line of transmission cables for the cable shifted Torqueflight transmissions! These cables commonly get damaged from contact with exhaust systems. Going along with the philosophy of "continuous improvement" a line of premium cables also was designed and introduced (built better than Chrysler's design), as well as a conversion cable to allow using a '66 and up Torquflight on a floor shifted cable transmission Mopar.
Imperial Services generally targets parts not currently available from other sources. If you see a market need for a Mopar part that you can't find contact Steve and let him know.
"Better than Chrysler made them!" is a slogan that fits Steve's manufacturing goal.