Corinthian leather

Corinthian leather is a marketing term coined by copywriter Jim Nichols with the Omaha-based Bozell advertising agency in 1974 to describe a leather upholstery used in certain luxury vehicles of the Chrysler automobile company.

The advertisements developed the term Corinthian leather to imply a premium product of foreign origin denoting something rich, rare, and luxurious, though the product was in fact made by the Radel Leather Manufacturing Company in Newark, New Jersey.

Though Chrysler first used the term Corinthian leather in advertisements for the 1974 Imperial LeBaron, the term itself would ultimately become heavily associated with the 1975 Cordoba, an intermediate personal luxury car. The success of the advertising campaign closely associated actor Ricardo Montalbán, the spokesman, with the Cordoba's so-called Corinthian leather. In promoting the Cordoba model, Montalbán described a car interior with thickly-cushioned, luxury seats upholstered in what were variously described as either fine, soft, or rich Corinthian leather.

When asked on Late Night with David Letterman what the term denoted, Montalbán said that Corinthian leather was a marketing term. Montalbán credited commercial writer Jim Nichols for the term. In promoting the Chrysler New Yorker in 1988, Montalbán described the Corinthian leather as a "rich" leather. The term came to include the vinyl upholstering for interior surfaces, such as the backs of the front seats and the head rests, and the lower parts of door facings.