By 1957, the merits of GM’s body-sharing strategy had long been plain for all to see. For example, at the upper end of the market, Buick and Cadillac shared the corporate C-body, enabling both brands to price their cars competitively and generate healthy profits.
1957 Buick Roadmaster
1957 Cadillac Sedan De Ville
By contrast, Lincoln had long used unique body shells, the only exception being the 1949-51 entry sedan and coupe shared with Mercury. This go-it-alone strategy, and the fact that Lincoln’s sales generally trailed Buick and Cadillac, put the division in a difficult financial position, with a business model more like that of the Independents. Except for one important factor: it had a rich daddy.
1957 Lincoln Premiere
Over at Chrysler, body sharing had long been the order of the day, out of necessity if nothing else. DeSoto and Chrysler, including Imperial, relied heavily on it through 1952, and to a significant extent through 1956. For 1957, excluding Imperial, the corporate line-up went even further, sharing mostly common greenhouses, and with DeSoto and Chrysler sharing the same body, and Dodge and Plymouth appearing to share the same hood and perhaps portions of the front fenders.
1957 Chrysler Corporation Line-Up
This is why I always thought it curious that Imperial used its own body for 1957. Its rearview mirror mounted low on the dashboard seemed to signify it best: the new design was a loner.
1957 Imperial 4-Door Sedan
Virgil Exner’s otherworldly creation definitely made an artsy splash that year, enabling the new (since 1955) Imperial division to finally run with Cadillac. But car companies are in the business of making money, and it’s hard to imagine the ’57 Imperial program fully pulling its heavy amortization weight given its modest sales.
1957 Imperial Sedan — high style from every angle!
This is not to suggest that Imperial should have passed on that wonderfully modern design that featured the industry’s first use of curved side glass. On the contrary, I have long felt that Imperial’s wings should have spread even wider, to include Chrysler.
1957 Imperial Le Baron 4-Door Hardtop — Brochure Image
Why? Because both the Chrysler division and the corporation’s name would have benefited from the added prestige, and Imperial needed Chrysler’s volume to help pay for the new body’s tooling and development costs. Consider the company’s 1957 model year sales:
Plymouth: 762,231
Dodge: 281,359
DeSoto: 117,514
Chrysler: 122,273
Imperial: 35,734
The P/D/D/C program generated 1,283,377 sales overall, of which the Chrysler division contributed a little under 10%. But were that division to have been a part of the Imperial program it would have increased sales of that body by over 400%, assuming that Chrysler and Imperial’s sales would have matched their original sales.
Of course, some cannibalization would have brought Imperial sales down a bit, but overall it seems reasonable to assume that the corporation’s aggregate profit would have at least remained level, and perhaps even risen a bit with the incoming tide of ultra high style across not one but two divisions.
This is why I was so excited to stumble upon a few photos of a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker early design proposal on Facebook.
The images also appear in the book: “Designing America’s Cars – The 50s” by Jeffrey Godshall, with the design proposals dated November 11, 1954. Some of its pages can be found here.
1957 Chrysler New Yorker Design Proposal from November 11, 1954
In addition to unique front fenders and bumper/fascia/grill, the front three-quarter view clearly shows curved side glass. Also, Chrysler block letters can be seen on the hood, the hood’s center dome appears to be wider than the production Imperial, and there is a surface rise on the hood in front of the driver that extends a foot or so forward from the base of the windshield. Whether this last element is an air intake, extension of an instrument housing, or other asymmetrical Exner design flourish is anyone’s guess.
The only other image, the side view, shows the New Yorker badge ahead of the front wheels, and a body design that is largely that of the production Imperial. There are significant differences in addition to the front fenders and bumper, such as the omission of front door vent windows and Imperial tail lights, a backlight that extends further up into the roof, and more restrictive front and rear wheel openings.
1957 Chrysler New Yorker Design Proposal from November 11, 1954 – Side View
While there is no rear view of the mock-up, one can envision the rear bumper being largely that of the Imperial, with tail and brake lights integrated into bumper detents that remained unused on the production Imperial.
1957 Imperial Southampton – Rear View
Overall, I think the Imperial-based Chrysler design proposal works wonderfully, the only issue perhaps being the significant width between the headlights.
The design raises an important question: what would the ’57 Imperial have looked like had this theme been approved? Given the company’s high level of sharing within the 1957 P/D/D/C program, it is hard to imagine the production Imperial’s front design being chosen alongside this Chrysler design, there being too much differentiation.
In surmising what the Imperial might have looked like, perhaps a good starting point is this early rendering, which aligns fairly well with the Chrysler study.
1957 Imperial – Early Artist Rendering
While some have since described the front design as having a similarity with the 1972-73 Imperial, appearances can be deceiving, and designers do program teams no favors by grossly misrepresenting proportions. For example, look closely and you will see a twin headlight stack in the front nacelles. In reality, these would have been much wider like the ’57 Nash Ambassador, and with that extra width would have come a loss of slenderness that made the rendering’s nacelles so alluring.
1957 Nash Ambassador 4-Door Sedan
Curious to see how significant a loss was, I did my best to incorporate the rendering’s front design elements into the Chrysler mock-up, in addition to other Imperial design cues. Overall, I think the front appearance would have been far less compelling than the rendering.
Modification to 1957 Chrysler Early Proposal image to reflect Imperial Early Artist Rendering
To reduce tooling costs, perhaps the Imperial would have shared the Chrysler proposal’s front fenders and bumper corners, and worked in the Imperial rendering’s grill theme. Because two 5.75-inch diameter headlamps appear to fit the Chrysler’s headlamp cavity, quad headlamps would likely have been possible. Chrysler presumably would have offered them too, though perhaps these could have waited until 1958, to give Imperial exclusive use of the quads for 1957 while Chrysler used the dual 7-inch diameter lamp design.
Also, note how the side trim on these modified images and the original Chrysler proposal would have allowed two-tone paint on the body sides, as the artist’s rendering does. This unfortunately was not possible on the production Imperial.
Modification to 1957 Chrysler Early Proposal image to reflect potential Imperial Theme
DeSoto Involved Too?
One additional historical element to consider is that alongside the New Yorker mock-up there is a DeSoto sedan that features what appears to be curved side glass. In the New Yorker side and F3Q views the DeSoto proposal is parked behind and on the driver’s side, which suggests that they were both under consideration at the same time.
1957 DeSoto Early Proposal was likely taken at the same time as the 1957 Chrysler Early Proposal photos.
What really got my curiosity going was the DeSoto’s roof interface to the windshield. Was the windshield’s surface that of the Imperial’s except for the top portion and along the sides, which would have been omitted in the production process? Did the DeSoto use the Imperial’s roof stamping, moved forward several inches to fit what presumably would have been a shorter wheelbase car, and now with a center depression and more radiused rear door glass along the C-pillar? And did the DeSoto use Imperial Southampton’s backlight and the Chrysler proposal’s doors and rear fender uppers?
Interestingly, the DeSoto’s front and rear wheel cutouts appear to be similar to those on the production Imperial. Why? Was the proposed DeSoto body narrower, and therefore needed the more open cutouts to avoid tire scrub? Or were they just Ex celebrating the wheel, as he liked to do?
Alas, why didn’t the company approve what appears to have been a DeSoto/Chrysler/Imperial sharing strategy for 1957? Did a Chrysler division chief object to the increased material cost? And why did the Imperial come out looking the way it ultimately did? Was it simply Ex’s preference?
1957 Chrysler Corporation Line-Up – Side Views
A DeSoto/Chrysler/Imperial curved side glass, body sharing strategy would have been a bold move on the company’s part, and perhaps Chrysler Corporation’s golden opportunity to finally compete head-to-head with GM’s C-Body cars, from the Buick Super up to the Cadillac 60 Special. Certainly Lincoln, and more specifically Lincoln’s bodies, had never been much of a challenger to GM.
In the 1950s upper medium and luxury segments, it was a two-horse race between GM and Chrysler. And were the ’57 Plymouth/Dodge program to have launched in 1958 as originally intended, the company could have concentrated all of its energies on the top half of its 1957 showroom, and perhaps avoided some of that year’s quality snafus.
We may never fully know what the company’s original intent was for the 1957 curved side glass program, but what I do know is that looking through the rearview mirror all these years later, I love that early Chrysler design proposal. And if you look once more at its front three quarter view you will see that its rearview mirror is positioned up high, where it – and the Chrysler division – arguably belonged that year.
Related CC reading:
Curbside Classic: 1957 Chrysler New Yorker – Clara And The New Yorker That Never Was
Vintage Sports Car Illustrated Review: 1957 Chrysler 300C – The Duesenberg SJ Of The 1950s
Automotive Milestone: 1957 Imperial – The Most Exciting New Car On The Planet – But Which Planet?
1957 Imperial Crown Southhampton – Maybe The Best Summertime Illustration Ever
A hint of the Fuselage aesthetic:
https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/10-1957-Imperial-Early-Rendering.jpg?resize=600%2C352&ssl=1
That would play out a decade later!
My thoughts exactly.
Imperial’s biggest problem over the years was that people always referred to them as “Chrysler Imperials”, so they were rarely viewed as serious competition to Cadillac or Lincoln. 1955-56 was their first attempt to really start differentiating them. While the passenger cabins were the same as the Chryslers and DeSotos, they stretched out the rear, by a few inches in ’55 and a few more in ’56, and slapped on the 300 grille, to differentiate it a bit.
Further, in 1956, DeSoto came as close as it ever did to surpassing Chrysler division (minus Imperial) in sales. By some metrics, it actually beat Chrysler. Not in model year, but perhaps calendar year? I remember it being mentioned in one of those Consumer Guide car history books. So, Chrysler was trying hard to make Imperial fly on its own. Part of that involved not only making Imperial more unique, but also moving Chrysler division downscale.
That downward process might have started in 1957, with the introduction of the DeSoto Firesweep, which moved DeSoto down more into Dodge territory. However, I think the Firesweep also sort of replaced the ’55-56 Firedome Special and Seville models, which were “stripper” DeSotos. The only difference being, the Firesweep was more full-range, offering a pillared sedan, whereas the Special/Seville were hardtop-only.
Anyway, as DeSoto moved downscale, so did Chrysler division, with the Windsor moving to the shorter Dodge/Firesweep wheelbase for ’58. Chrysler went even further downscale for ’61, when they came out with the Newport and dropped the Saratoga. I don’t know how much of that had been in their long-term planning though, or if it was more of a knee-jerk reaction to the middle-priced market drying up.
Anyway, the ’57 Imperial might have been a bit on the expensive side, being stand-alone. But, Chrysler saved money in other respects, by having Plymouth/Dodge and DeSoto/Chrysler sharing more of their architecture. So, it probably all worked out in the end. And, it gave Imperial its best sales year in history, and it almost beat out Lincoln that year.
Chrysler also didn’t have the styling budget that GM did, so all of their cars tended to have more of a “corporate” look about them, even when they tried to differentiate them. For instance, few people are going to mistake a ’57 Olds 88 for a Buick Special/Century, and the same goes for a Cadillac, versus a Buick Super or Roadmaster. But, with Chrysler/DeSoto, it was only the easy-swap stuff that was changed…bumpers, grilles, taillights, interiors, trim, etc. They did a better job with Plymouth vs Dodge, though.
Anyway, if they tried to share that Imperial body with Chrysler, I think it would have only served to dilute Imperial. And back then, Chrysler was trying hard to go in the opposite direction of that. It ultimately didn’t succeed, as the ’58-66 Imperial never sold nearly as well as the ’57, but I think in combining the two, it would have made the Imperial sell even worse.
Andre, thanks for the informative write-up. I didn’t know that Windsor moved to the 122-inch chassis for ’58. Clearly, the company had carefully designed the ’57 bodies to be fully interchangeable, excluding Imperial of course.
I do have to wonder if at some point, that easy interchangeability only served to undermine the company’s high-level goals of giving each brand an appearance, content and price identity. It almost appears as if the dealers drove the downward movement of DeSoto and Chrysler so that they could sell more cars, in effect competing as much with each other as with GM and Ford.
This race to a lower priced car makes the Imperial-based Chrysler that much more necessary imo, because it would have at least prevented this from happening to Chrysler.
The late 50s truly was Chrysler’s big opportunity to shake up the luxury space. They had the design in the Imperial and, I feel, in that early New Yorker proposal. But because they restricted the design to Imperial only, they didn’t have the pricing bandwidth that could only come from multi-brand coverage, to take the design downward to generate a lot more volume. And of course, they didn’t have the quality.
I suspect the Imperial program lost the company a lot of money, and from an enterprise view what good was that? With curved side glass, the Chrysler division could have competed directly with Lincoln and Cadillac’s 62, in addition to the top portion of Buick. Instead, it joined a sharing program that extended all the way down to Plymouth, and involved itself in a corporate pile-up in the medium-priced field where it had no place being. And it squeezed DeSoto instead of letting that division backfill space that a curved side glass Chrysler program would have no longer competed in.
One correction re: your comment about the ’55/56 Imperials. The ’55 used 4-inch longer front doors to extend its wheelbase from 126 to 130 inches, and the doors appear to have come from the 8-pass car, where a longer front door was needed to package cars equipped with a division window. This means that the ’55 Imperial had 4 more inches of rear legroom than DeSoto/Chrysler. Its roof was probably created by welding in an insert to the standard DeSoto/Chrysler roof, as the 8-pass car probably did, in addition to creating a smaller backlight.
For 1956, Imperial used the standard DeSoto/Chrysler greenhouse on its new 133-inch wheelbase, and it is easy to see the cab-forward proportions.
While some have since described the front design as having a similarity with the 1972-73 Imperial…
The wide hood bulge on the fuselage Imperial definitely looks like Engel could have been lifted it from the 1957 design proposal.
The top photo reminds me of a space rocket!!
Or, the limo Batman would ride in with Alfred, the butler, at the wheel.
With decades of hindsight, the Imperial has a more refined appearance than the rest of the Mopars, which makes sense for its positioning. In fact it looks more sophisticated than the Cadillac and Lincoln, to me. But the “Forward Look” was so distinctive with those peaked headlights and sharp fins on the Plymouth/Dodge/Chrysler, that I think the Imperial ended up just looking too modest.
Exner was somewhat obsessed with the fuselage look at the time, and curved side glass was a key element. That explains the various 1954 era clays with curved side glass. But there’s no doubt that it would have been too expensive for the mass-market brands, including the Chrysler brand. If Chrysler had shared the Imperial body, it would have caused serious cost issues and dinged the profitability of the brand, as well as diluting the Imperial brand.
Imperial got a very good boost from that very advanced and unique body in ’57, beating Lincoln for the #2 luxury spot. And its front end, especially the hooded headlight pods were blatantly cribbed by Cadillac in ’57.
I have always wondered if it was worth having the two Imperial sedan body styles; why not just the hardtop, or the hardtop style with a pillar? It looked decidedly more exclusive than the 6-window sedan style, which rather looked like a Chrysler from a distance.
As to the front end design from ’54, it’s a very good thing Chrysler chose not to use that, as it was something of a fad at the time but quickly passed. The actual ’57 Imperial front end is much better and aged better too.
Given the terrible collapse of big car sales in 1958 and Chrysler’s losses and resulting desperate cost reductions, it’s a very good thing that the Chrysler brand wasn’t stuck with the more expensive Imperial body, which by the way was built in a different small factory.
Another issue is that Chrysler would have had to ditch that BOF Imperial body in 1960 when all the big cars switched to unibody except for the Imperial. It would have looked bad for Chrysler to have to drop the curved side windows in ’60 after having them.
Exner obviously would have loved to have curved side glass on all these cars, and the ’60 Valiant and ’62 Dodge/Plymouth too, as they would have very much enhanced the fuselage look he so craved. But the cost was too high, so they threw him a bone with the Imperial.
In Chrysler’s 1957 showroom the price gap between the New Yorker sedan and base Imperial sedan was $1100, which was quite large especially given that Cadillac’s base 62 was right between them. Buick’s highest price 4-door, the 75, was only $300 below the base Cadillac. So, there was an opportunity for Chrysler to make a move upward in price by joining the Imperial program, and the new body’s appeal would have supported the price increase.
How much cost did the curved glass add back in 1957? My guess is $100 – 200 MSRP, and balancing it out would have been stronger pricing because of the more upscale appearance. As I mentioned in the article, this was Chrysler’s chance as a brand and company to make a move against the competition. The recession didn’t hit the high rollers as much as it did the medium players.
Imperial’s three greenhouses were one more than GM’s C-body volume program, which would have impacted the financials. But maybe it could have worked out given Chrysler’s penny-pinching approach to brand differentiation, which avoided brand-unique front and rear fenders compared to GM. I like the look of the 6-window sedan so am biased.
The plant strategy would have been optimized based on the volume call, with all cars rolling down the same line. And it would stay that way in 1960 when they got a redesign. As for Plymouth and Dodge, I think it would have been best had they moved to a mid-to-large unibody in 1958, or early Sixties as they did. Those bodies that they offered in ’62 could have added more width for style.
” It would have looked bad for Chrysler to have to drop the curved side windows in ’60 after having them.”
Keep in mind, Lincoln dropped curved side glass in 1964 and 1965, after using it from 1961-3.
Another factor to keep in mind, Packard’s days as a competitor in that Cadillac/Lincoln/Imperial market were officially over when the 1957 models were introduced. I’ve often maintained a good number of new Imperial customers were former Packard owners,
Yes, but they also changed the whole roof structure and lengthened the car. Due to the rectilinear styling, the straight windows don’t take away from it; in fact some (like me) think it looks somewhat better with straight windows.
Surprisingly, though I knew the 57 Imp offered a single headlight option, I’d never seen it until this article. It completely changes the proportions of the 57, which I’ve never liked out of the original three years of forward look styling (58 has long been my fave). I REALLY like the front end with single eyes, though, and maybe my opinion shall shift now. I need more bugeye imp pics pls!
I’m pretty sure that quad headlights were not legal in all states until 1958, so offering the single lamp on each side was necessary.
Mya byrne, I like the single headlights better too. Here’s another pic from the Imperial Club, which btw maintains an excellent website.
https://www.web.imperialclub.info/Yr/1957/FactoryPhotos/57-19-reg.jpg
To my eye, the ’57 Imperial’s front design, including those winged front fenders, was rather tortured. The ’58 had a better grill that seemed to work better with the quad lights, but the ’59 design led by William Schmidt while Ex was recovering from a heart attack, hit rock bottom.
Fred Hudson rendered a wonderful front for the updated ’60 Imperial, with similarities to the excellent design that Chrysler carried that year only now with hidden headlights. It could have been used through ’62, with the Chrysler version having exposed lights and a different grill mesh. Both brands would have done well to maintain their frontal theme for a full cycle, and broadly maintain the look in subsequent major redesigns the way Mercedes did. They would have finally gotten to the big leagues, and needed to settle down and settle in.
Realizing CC did a piece on the single eye option for 57 a while ago, and I agree with Paul that the detailing on the bezel is charming (also shades of the turbine car headlamps)https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/curbside-face-off-all-the-1957-cars-with-alternate-front-ends/
Sorry, but I just can’t believe that Detroit thought that there would be enough market share for all these near-luxury brands. Even without the 1957 Recession gutting the auto market by 40% – they believed that there was enough market for Chrysler, Mercury, Edsel, Oldsmobile, Hudson, Packard, Nash, Buick and DeSoto?
It was absolutely crazy.
Realize the mindset of the Big Three at this moment of time. The economy had been growing at a steady 3% to 4% per year since WWII. Also, there was no foreign competition except for a handful of MB handled by Studebaker. Also, If Ford didn’t grab this upscale market, GM or Chrysler would grab it instead.
I asked my father about the ’58 recession. It didn’t impact the Deep South as much as there was little manufacturing at the time. However, it was an unexpected swift kick in the teeth for the industrial north.
Among the casualties was Imperial as a separate division as well as the Continental. Edsel folded as did DeSoto. The independents went looking for dance partners like Nash & Hudson via AMC. Studebaker and Packard failed to thrive long term.
The ’58 recession is overlooked, but it had a significant impact on the auto industry long term.
The thing was those brands grew exceptionally well from 1950 through 1957, except for the independents and Edsel, of course. Incomes were rising and a new managerial and professional middle class was coming into being.
But while sales grew at all model levels, the biggest gains were with their largest volume cars, the base models – Chrysler Windsors, Buick Specials, etc. Because you also had a lot of working and middle class people ready to take a step up to a premium brand – and those were the people who went back to low-priced cars in 1958 and really killed that market.
And of course Edsel sailed into that disaster – but as Thomas Bonsel pointed out, Edsel’s forecasting said a successful launch would be a certain % Pontiac’s 1955 sales. But 1958 wasn’t 1955’s car market, and if you actually compare Edsel’s 1958 sales with Pontiac’s 1958 sales, they achieved a higher %. But, you are correct, there were ultimately too many brands to profitably share a smaller market than the low-priced three, plus Rambler and Studebaker – for a while.