Here I am again, resident defender of some underdog car (whether it be in looks, sales, relevancy, etc.) This time I’m going to go as far as saying the 1962 Plymouth was the best concept of what a full sized American car should be, fifteen years too early and in a questionable wrapper.
We’ve already covered how bad it got, at least in looks. The 1961 Plymouth full size models were pretty much the most cartoonish production cars of the 1960s, and managed to make the canted-eyed Chryslers and reverse fin Dodges from the same year look relatively sane.
We also know that what ended up at Plymouth dealerships in 1962 wasn’t quite what was intended. The well-told story of how Bill Newberg “overheard” that Chevrolet would further downsize its 1962 standard line (actually the Chevy II) led to a directive to downsize the planned Plymouth’s and Dodge Dart from their customary 119 inch span to a 116 inch wheelbase loosely based on the Valiant/Lancer bodyshell.
What Exner intended for his follow-up to the Forward Look ended up sacrificed, notably the curved side glass to eliminate the catwalk section in the body. Also notable is how much of a narrow track the prototypes had, which seems decidedly out of touch with where automotive styling was going.
So take my opinion with a grain of salt: What Virgil Exner really intended for these cars in looks was a lot worse than what actually appeared in the fall of 1961, at least for the Plymouth. And they did point to one future trend, the re-emergence of long hood, short deck proportions in American car styling that had been thrown out, in irony, by Exner with the wildly befinned second wave of the Forward Look.
The total effect seems half Valiant/Half Corvair. Notably there’s a start of the Corvair’s universal character line that almost encircles the large Plymouths, but goes missing on the rear quarter panel/door. On the Valiant it branched out from canted tail lamps and gives hips to the rear where it follows the radius around the rear wheels.
Ideally the presentation would have been leaner and crisper like the 1961 Asymmetrica concept. Thankfully one idea from the asymmetric series of cars was the lining up of bulges and trim to the drivers side. The 1962 Plymouths almost shared that ridiculous fate.
No, that’s not a styling clay left out in the sun too long. That’s what Virgil Exner intended to do. Anyways, at least the Plymouth (and Dodge Dart/Polara) accidentally showed a return to sanity in size, perhaps too early, and for too much money. At just over 202 inches long, they were once again around the size of standard Low Price 3 full-sizers only 7 years before, in the days when Chevrolets (in particular) didn’t start their quest to be cut rate Cadillacs.
And with the reduced size (and weight, now in the 3,300 to 3,500 pound range) all engines had a lighter load to carry. That meant the basic 225 Slant Six was possibly the liveliest of base big car sixes in 1962, and each incremental step in V8 power brought more fun, all the way into some quite furious parings of the 413 Wedge body and this body. A 361/305 equipped Fury was good for mid 8 second 0-60 runs, perfectly brisk for the times.
Combined with the lighter body and the last few years that Mopar didn’t decide to soften their Torsion-Aire suspension and you had some of the best balanced, best driving cars on the road. They were everything the 1977 B-bodies were to be, except in the looks department.
It’s quite obvious whoever thought the face of the 1962 standard Dodges was a good idea (or even good looking) was born and raised near the first nuclear waste site.
The Fury face is interesting, in the way some people are intriguing looking, but not hands down attractive. It’s not as angry and alien compared to Plymouths of the recent past, but it’s nowhere near normal. Although there’s a lot of delightful detail, like the inboard headlamps being the same size as the outboard “tunneled” headlamps that make it an interesting case study, instead of a Maalox moment.
And from the rear, the mounted pods in a concave shelf turned into what really looks like an ornate interpretation of the first generation Corvairs. It is less apparent on upper level Sport Fury models that had an Impala-like three tail lamps per side, but that break line between the upper and lower body is too obvious to ignore.
And it all but disappeared in the crisply tailored and squared off 1963 Plymouths. Gone were the awkward aquatic bulges and the semi wrap around rear window. All that remained was the athletic proportioning and similar size. And the more rational looks lead to more sales, but in the early 1960s, the traditional family car buyer still looked to outward size as a symbol of value, and Chevrolet sold about four Impalas to every Fury, even in the improved sales years of 1963-64.
So finally it was recast as what it was, one of those “just right” sized intermediates, in 1965. It retained the Belvedere name, but adding the intergalactic Satellite as top line models. Too bad they really didn’t take off. That’s the problem with trying to be different, and when that doesn’t work, trying to conform: You end up alienating both crowds, and then you have no audience. Plymouth would remain an also ran in both the Mid sized and Full Sized markets, from this point on, never to really recover any seriously competitive traction in either market.
It’s hard to cast the 1962 Plymouth as anything but the awkward good idea dressed in suspenders and a bowtie in an era of seersucker suits. It would take another 15 years and a few fuel crises, and the magic of Bill Mitchell to get the “Smart Sized” motoring concept right and ready for the motoring public.
OK, I’m odd. I’ve always considered the Plymouth as the best looking 1962 low-priced car, even back then when I was 12 and dad owned the Chevrolet dealership (I kept my opinions to myself, of course). I still consider the Plymouth the best looking of the three, and the one who’s design has aged the best. Of course, H. L. Mencken was right, as Chevrolet’s sales showed.
Partially agree, because I think each year after the ’61, the big Chevy increasingly got dumbed down to the point it was in 1964 (Generic Big Car) and the big Fords peaked in ’63 before they got slathered with too much trim for 1964.
I think the Plymouth works in the looks department for me so much because it’s soo different, the point that it’s refreshing against a lot of look-a-like cars from 1962.
Looking at these now, Chrysler was merely ‘way ahead of their time. Too bad it didn’t translate into sales, but I’m sure the quality may not have measured up to the competition, either.
It always baffles me that with Chrysler’s engineering prowness back then, they couldn’t build a car that would simply blow away any and all competitors in durability and style, but GM, and to a lesser extent Ford, was too well financed and had the market momentum to override anything No.3 could do.
I don’t think these cars were all that bad, proportion-wise in size, but the styling clearly turned most of the market off. Compare this to the 1962 Chevy – a very clean-lined, linear-styled vehicle keeping in touch with styling trends at the time. The Chryslers? Odd and ill-proportioned in the styling cues that simply just didn’t quite work. Nothing really pulled together, but it was as if each part of the car had a different styling department without knowing what the other stylists were doing, and just stuck everything together and hoped for the best!
Great article to start my week.
I don’t think quality did measure up. I was in grade school and a classmate’s father purchased a new 1962 Fury 2 door hardtop for her mother to drive back and forth to work, trading in their 1959 Fury 4 door hardtop. The 62 gave them problems from day one and ended their relationship with Chrysler products; they traded it the very next year for a new Galaxie 500XL (a car neither of them liked – it was traded for a Buick Wildcat in 1964 and Buick became the family make from then on).
I love mid-century modern and I thought the 1962 Plymouth was pretty cool back in the day. I only liked it in the 2 door version; the shorter body seemed to work better on that model than it did on the 4 door.
It almost seems miraculous that the Chrysler Corporation survived the early 1960s, between the William Newberg scandal, the styling missteps in Exner’s last days, and the downsizing of the ’62s. And then something else: Like a mistress who stayed just behind in the shadows, causing distraction and requiring copious amounts of cash and attention, the turbine engine project went on far too long.
While we say that the B-platform was 15 years too early, in a twist of irony a modified version of it was used for the 1979 R-platform. Unfortunately – and possibly another misstep – these were only offered as a four-door sedan, while Chevrolet and Ford also offered two-doors and wagons.
Of course, it’s difficult to say definitively that Chrysler would have been more successful without these missteps, but it certainly seems that there was a pattern of having the wrong product at the wrong time.
Chrysler got lots of high-tech marketing cred out of the Turbine. It was a big deal when one appeared on display at the mall. I knew I was looking at what I’d be driving in 1976. It appeared in movies (clip from The Lively Set) and TV, looking and sounding fabulous. Clearly the future. Turned out the future isn’t what it used to be.
Turbine experience did help them develop the M1 Abrams tank in the ’70s, says Wikipedia.
I confess, the 62 Plymouth is one of my all time favorites. I think they look great.
When I was working in bootheel of Missouri there was one that ran at the Sikeston 1/8 mile drag strip.
There was also a wagon sitting behind a garage in town (one of many old cars sitting in that town) which I was sorely temped to bring home but as we were expecting kid #1 I had a different sort of project to undertake…
There was also an alternate design then Don Kopka designed for the planned and aborted ’62 DeSoto http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1960s-chrysler-concept-cars1.htm with a more conservative design. When we check the front end, it looked a bit like the 1961-64 full-size Mercury front (ironically Kopka worked later at Ford) and the roofline seem to predict the 4-door/6-windows sedan design who was available for the 1965-66 Chrysler Newport and 1965 Dodge 880. We could wonder what if Chrysler had chosen to got a more mainstream design for the 1962 Dodge and Plymouth a bit similar to the mid-size Fairlane or the 1963 Rambler Classic/Ambassador?
I have to go against the crowd here (and with the crowd in the world at large) and state that I have always considered the 62 Plymouth to be simply butt-ugly. It’s not the size, and not the proportions. The odd headlight treatment, the bulbous shape reminiscent of an inflatable toy, except for the big blades pasted onto the sides – its all just too much of a hash. True, it looks better than the 62 Dart, but then, what doesn’t?
The interior of the Plymouth was just as bad. The dashboard is really strange, in an asymmetrical way rather than in the earlier Chrysler jukebox motif. I could deal with the strange layout if the panel had not been silver-finished plastic that looked bad at first, and tapered off from there with age.
I love Mopars of this era for their mechanical attributes and chassis dynamics. But make mine a Chrysler or a Dodge 880, please. The only thing this car has going for it in my view is the camp factor.
Oops – I forgot to paste in the dash photo.
Love this dash (it’s a “Googie” dash!). I sort of like the rest of the car, just for the weird factor.
Space age! Love the ’62 (and ’63) Plymouth dashes. The whole cars, too! Make mine a ’62 Savoy with the 413 Max Wedge. Fastest thing on wheels!
Exactly, it’s a futuristic Googie car, the best looking car of the sixties Space Age. (Fins don’t do you much good in space.)
My favorite at the time, my favorite ever since. I especially like the front end. Circles – the headlight nozzles nicely set off by the concave curved fine mesh grill. The Valiant look works great for me, especially the way the C pillar flows smoothly into body. Compound curved shapes, wraparound rear window, nice. It has always looked well proportioned and nicely integrated to me. Love that Googie dash too, stylish and very functional.
Its Dodge sibling looks horrible to me, a mutant face. Ugliest car of all time. Remarkable how that works.
I was very sad when the Space Age of cars suddenly ended in ’63. That squared-off Plymouth looks like a ranch house.
I’m an child of Sputnik. I outgrew the steel, glass and plastic modern look in architecture, and treasure our 1910 bungalow. But in machines, especially cars, that ’62 Fury tickles my inner Jetson.
Darned site ate my picture of Googie architecture.
Again.
Call me crazy but I like these cars, even the Dodge…then again, my dream girl is Kelly Clarkson and I love mid-century modern so I guess my taste is a bit esoteric. As noted, these cars could have been a whole lot worse had Exner had his way. Honestly,I think the guy lost it starting with the 1960 models, which set a standard for aesthetic weirdness that would be raised by the 1961s. Polarizing styling aside, I understand that the 1962s enjoyed great success on the track. Is that true?
And BuzzDog, your Turbine/mistress analogy is brilliant. I never understood why Chrysler kept throwing money into that technology long after the point of diminishing returns — just as Mazda continues to do with the Wankel.
Never noticed the similarity to the Corvair in the rear, but now I see it plainly. Looks like a Kustomizer “frenched” the plate and added rocket tail light lenses. All in all this car looks like it was designed in at least 3 or 4 different studios with none of them knowing what the other was doing until it was all tacked together and too late to change it into a cohesive design.
I honestly think I’ve developed a kind of traumatic aversion to the various Exnerian dead-ends of 1962. I could sketch most ’55 and up Mopars on a napkin, well enough for Pictionary at least, but the ’62s make me look away too soon to form an impression.
I guess I could do a Chrysler…’61 front end, pluck the wings…but the Plymouth? Oof.
I applaud your fortitude, Laurence, great pics and story.
Add me to the list of ’62 Plymouth fans! Guess there weren’t enough of them back then. My first new car was a ’62 Valiant…excellent vehicle, especially when compared to the competition.
Time has softened my feelings toward the ’62 Plymouths (I’ve always had a soft spot for most things Mopar), but I can’t ever forgive the Dodge’s hideous face.
I don’t think anyone can ever forgive the Dodge, I’ve yet to see one in person. They might as well be unicorns.
Back in the early 90s, I almost bought a 63 Dodge 330 sedan. It was a slant 6/3 speed car (beige, of course) that was a fairly low mileage original, except for upholstery. I found it at a multi-car dealer tent sale at a mall. I test drove it and offered some money, but they had it priced way too high. “This is a classic!” I walked away. I would bet that those guys were later sorry that they didn’t take my money. A few minutes later, I found the 86 fox body Marquis wagon that I went out there for in the first place, and bought it the next day.
Anyway, the 63 wasn’t THAT much better looking than the 62. If it had been a V8/pushbutton, I may have been more tempted.
I have. It made me think of the underground comix character Wonder Warthog…
From an article titled ‘The Dodge That (Almost) Ate Detroit’ on the ‘Ate Up with Motor’ website:
“The hasty, last-minute downsizing of the 1962 Dodge Dart from its original, full-size dimensions was responsible for its awkward proportions, but not the hideous, warthog-like convex grille, which was created at the insistence of Dodge general manager M.C. Patterson.”
So, although most of what became the 1962 Dodges and Plymouths was Newburg’s fault, at least the grille of the Dodge can’t be blamed on him.
I agree on the Dodge, I’ve seen a few and you really wonder what they were thinking – did they clinic cars in those days?
I’d liken it to the US version of Australia’s 1998 AU Falcon, which was too out-there aero-blob for popular taste, so both weird styling but fundamentally a well-engineered, durable car. No annual styling changes these days however so they changed the grille first and later put the upper trim level front clip across the board within 18 months.
I don’t mind the Plymouth though – but are those headlights 5.5″ or 7″? One of each would probably have made the look they were trying for work.
The headlights were both 5.5″ but the headlight surrounds on the outboard headlights of the Plymouth made them look like 7″. I never quite understood what Chrysler was going for with the ‘headlights in the grill’ look they kept using for a while there. I guess they were just trying to be different.
Whatever the reason, Chrysler’s ‘grill headlights’ were a styling gimmick that just didn’t work, and it was never more evident than with the 1962 cars that were badly styled everywhere else, as well.
Before reading the article, just wanted to comment on the first pic, the way the shadow on the brick building follows the lines of the top and deck lid.
…and now, after reading it, I’ll just mention the 1962 Plymouth that a fellow Mopar freak bought for a parts car. It was brown inside and out, a top-line four-door sedan with slant 6, Torqueflite, manual steering, power brakes, air, and dog-dish hubcaps. That one had it all…weird styling, odd combination of options.
I suppose the rear of the 1962 Plymouths was styled to provide a family resemblance to the rear of the 1961′s a la Frank and Fanny Farkle’s red-headed, freckled kids on Laugh-In.
I never noticed that detail about the photo before. Thanks!
A ’62 Plymouth has been at the top of my wish list for years. Unfortunately, the only ones that survive do so because of an enormous V8 under the hood.
Cars (or anything else) designed to cater to the largest possible share of the market are committee-driven compromises. Why not strike out with something different?
On another point, if there is one unwavering rule in the car market, the bigger offering in any size category will always outsell (way outsell) the smaller choice. For most people, at the moment of decision, it seems you are “getting more for your money” with the bigger one. Innumerable case histories prove the point. Even in trucks, the longer wheelbase outsells the shorter one, the larger capacity van outsells the smaller.
This is why every car company, including those that made their reputation by catering to those fed up with bloated barges, ends up producing bloated barges as they seek greater market share.
I’ve always liked these cars, but I, too, only now notice the similarities to the Corvair. And, I used to own a Corvair. Maybe that’s a reason I like the looks.
But my loyalty to Chrysler of that vintage ends abruptly with the first Valiant. I don’t know what they were on when they designed that first issue of what later became a much better-looking smaller car.
I love these because they were so weird and unique. If you want your ride to look like nothing else on the road, go for Chrysler! The ’61 Plymouth especially. Looks so alien! The only car fit for a Mothra.
In ’62 a local used to drive around Laramie, Wyoming in a Savoy with the 413 engine. Compared with the cars real men drove, it looked hideously plain. To prove the point a 327 SS decided to show the Savoy who really owned the road when it started to pass him. It was all over as soon as the second four barrel kicked in.
Truth be told the Roger Christian/Brian Wilson penned “Shut Down”, the “hot with ram induction” 413 would’ve eaten ANY fuel-injected Stingray for breakfast. Wishful thinking for KFWB radio’s Christian who was a rod & Chevy loyalist.
Factoid: At the time, Brian Wilson drove a ’63 Grand Prix. Dennis his drummer brother, had a ’63 327 four-lot Stingray (seen on the cover of the March, 1964 album, “Shut Down, Vol II”. That cover shows Brian’s trade, a ’64 T-Bird and brother Carl’s ’64 Grand Prix).
Back in ’62 a local used to drive around Laramie, Wyoming in a Savoy with the 413 engine. Compared with the cars real men drove, it looked hideously plain. To prove the point a 327 SS decided to show the Savoy who really owned the road when it started to pass him. It was all over as soon as the second four barrel kicked in.
I hated the ’62 Plymouth and Dodge when they came out, but at least for the Plymouth, it looks better after the passage of nearly 50 years. I still don’t understand Exner’s predilection for the headlamp weirdness, not putting the quad lamps in the same bezel.
My aunt and uncle had a wagon version of the Plymouth, bought used, and one day while they were visiting us, it dumped all of its engine oil on our fairly new concrete driveway entrance. What a mess!
I know where a reasonably nice ’62 Dodge Polara resides. It’s in a nearby town in a restored but unused Shell gas station, sharing space under covered aprons with a ’67 GTO and ’67 Coronet R/T. I don’t think any of the cars are operable.
The ’62 Plymouth and Dodge was one of the great mind-expanding experiences of my childhood, ever since a neighbor two doors down traded his ’56 Chrysler New Yorker (!) on a ’62 Dodge. Evolution or devolution? This was progress? How could one car company be so different from the others? That dash???
I’d love to have one, and have wanted one off and on since 1962. Great write-up, Laurence. I’ve been assuming I would find one eventually, but no such luck yet. Maybe I’ll find the Dodge! Hope springs eternal. I’m almost scared, though….
…in the early 1960s, the traditional family car buyer still looked to outward size as a symbol of value…”
Chrysler was not only 15 years early, but their specific timing couldn’t have been worse. The downsized Plymouths and Dodges were introduced just as the 1958-61 recession eased up and the economy came roaring back, driving consumers who had gone small during the downturn back towards larger cars. While no year in that era would have been a good time for the downsizing, I wonder if they may have done less bad had they come out a year or two earlier, right in the middle of the recession/boom market for smaller cars.
“So finally it was recast as what it was, one of those “just right” sized intermediates, in 1965. It retained the Belvedere name, but adding the intergalactic Satellite as top line models. Too bad they really didn’t take off. That’s the problem with trying to be different, and when that doesn’t work, trying to conform: You end up alienating both crowds, and then you have no audience. Plymouth would remain an also ran in both the Mid sized and Full Sized markets, from this point on, never to really recover any seriously competitive traction in either market.”
The downsized ’62s just killed Plymouth and Dodge in the full-size market. Full-size cars continued to be the bread-and-butter models of the U.S. market until at least the ’73 energy crisis (arguably even beyond), but Plymouth and Dodge were just never competitive after 1962. The big Plymouths would have some decent sales years in the late ’60s, sometimes even ranking as Plymouth’s best-selling product line, but their sales were always a much smaller proportion of Plymouth’s overall total than at Chevy or Ford. Dodge was a rare example in this era of a U.S. Big Three brand whose full-size cars were not even close to being its best-selling product line.
Sales seemed to drop off even further after the fuselage styling was introduced for the 1969 model year. I don’t know if the styling just didn’t click with the public, or if it was due to Chrysler’s growing reputation for poor quality (though the Chrysler brand itself didn’t seem to suffer as much as Plymouth or Dodge). Then came the ’73 energy crisis. Every manufacturer’s full-size sales were dealt a serious blow, but Plymouth/Dodge’s full-size market presence was so weak to begin with that they were pretty much knocked into irrelevance.
As for Chrysler’s mid-sizes, I think they actually were reasonably competitive in the 1965-70 era. They never sold in the same numbers as their GM and Ford counterparts, but given Chrysler’s overall market share compared to GM and Ford, I don’t think they did too badly. They were certainly more competitive than the full-size Plymouths and Dodges were. The new design introduced in ’71 did for the midsizes what the ’69 restyle had done for the full-sizes. Whether it was people just not liking the styling, or a reputation for quality issues, intermediate customers seemed to abandon Chrysler in droves. The energy crisis would leave the Plymouth/Dodge mid-sizes in only slightly better shape than the full-sizes.
Would have to agree with MCT. Mopar sales stats in the mid-70′s showed high sales for the compacts, low numbers for full sizers, especially vis-a-vis w/the competition.