Virgil Exner was a man of many dreams indeed, some better than others. His last one at Chrysler reminds me of some of the dreams I have at night, and I mean that sincerely. If only I could find a way to record them! Anyway, his Turboflyte of 1961 is what it is. The rear wing is a predictor of things to come from Chrysler with their Superbird and Charger Daytona, although I doubt it had any aerodynamic function here. The white stripe in the tires is an odd touch. I guess if you’re going to show that much rubber, might as well make it more distinctive.
The Imperial D’Elegance is also unfortunate. Yet it was clearly a very influential design, given the many shapes and details that show up production Chrysler products. The 1960 Chryslers showed numerous influences,
and I see way too much 1060 Valiant in the shape of the rear. No toilet seat, though. It’s the batting average that counts, and Exner certainly left us with plenty of dreams I’d be glad to have had.
That Turboflyte looks like it jumped out of a Chuck Jones cartoon.
I’m seeing a lot of 59/60 Caddy in that Imperial, really a lot of GM all around..
The Turboflyte is very cartoonish, but could almost pass for a ”57-’58 Cadillac prototype. Remarkable that so many eyesores came from the same hand that penned the Ghia Diablo! Like PN says, it’s the batting average that counts.
Some of the early Looney Toons / Merrie Melodies shorts had some great art showing early ’40s and late ’30s cars. There’s one in particular that has some great shots – Bugs and Thugs, if I recall correctly, has Bugs riding in (and then fixing) an awesome car. That one is worth watching anyway; the tiny mobster ordering Bugs to “Shaddap, rabbit. is classic.
The Turboflyte looks like a badly kitbashed model car to me. It supposedly was powered by one of Chrysler’s prototype turbine engines.
The Imperial D’Elegance front looks a bit like the 1956 Imperial Norseman concept, but the Norseman looks much better overall IMO. Too bad it went to the bottom of the ocean en route from Turin to New York.
Don’t recall seeing that Norseman before, what a gorgeous car!
There are not many pictures of the Norseman available, except what were taken by Ghia before the car was shipped. It was in the cargo hold of the Italian cruise liner Andrea Doria, headed for New York, when the ship collided with another and sank.
The Norseman had a fully cantilevered roof, with no A or B pillars. The rear window also retracted into the fastback-style roof.
Exner was a great proponent of full cutouts over the wheels, supposedly saying that the wheel was one of mankind’s most noble inventions–why hide it? From that viewpoint these two cars are at the extremes–the way overexposed front wheel of the Turboflyte versus the fully shrouded rear wheel of the D’Elegance. Some of the thinking of the Turboflyte’s front corner found its way into Exner’s last Imperials with their floating headlights.
I’ve never seen the D’Elegance before that I can recall. From the rear-quarter shot, one would think that it might be banned from suburban streets with low load ratings.:)
Wow interesting stuff. I think of few of these touches ended up in the Homermobile.
http://www.michaelmusgrove.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/HomerMobile.png
Wasn’t a jpeg so the site gave me issues.