Articulate argument on “Imported from Detroit” slogan.

Chrysler has apparently brought the hammer down on a group of Ohio Jeep dealers who made up their own adaptation of the company’s “Imported from Detroit” catchphrase for the brand’s 70th anniversary. In accordance with the Toledo Blade, Jeep dealers in the Buckeye State are being told the riff will grow weaker the impact of Chrysler’s most well-liked ad jingle in decades.

Chrysler has also made very clear that it is not okay with statement of a Wrangler with the slogan emblazoned on its doors driving on to the ice at Toledo Walleyes minor league hockey games.

The slogan supposedly created from Monroe Dodge Superstore in Monroe, Michigan (a short drive from Toledo), when owner Ralph Mahalak Jr., had 600 of the shirts printed up as part of a celebration to launch Chrysler’s 16 new or redesigned 2011 models.

The shirts were being sold off for $19.41 a piece as a mark of respect to Jeep’s birth year, and were celebrated with the “imported from Toledo” slogan and “Jeep 70th Anniversary.” To stave off a trade name battle, it seems that Mahalak has settled to give the shirts away to anyone and everyone who test drives a Jeep, and then kill the catchphrase.