So stated the auto editors at Consumer Reports, the Great Arbiter of automotive quality since the 1930s. In their view, Chrysler’s higher-priced models (DeSoto, Chrysler, Imperial) offered very little more in terms of luxury, performance and room, but cost more. And as compared with Plymouth, this top-of-the-line Dodge Custom Royal offered more standard high performance, refinement, and lavish interior trim than Chrysler’s low-priced, volume selling line. So CR considered it to be the best value among all Chrysler products. I would also say that Dodge also gives you more dramatic styling and prestige, two qualities CR “does not presume to assess” (their words). Because that’s not scientific, you know.
But style and charisma is what this car is all about. It just looks so amazing, especially when you see it for the first time, in three dimensions. It’s an otherworldly, “I can’t believe this is real” kind of experience. The internet slang word “blursed” (blessed yet cursed, beautiful yet ugly) describes the ’59 Dodge very well. Add to this the fact that this was one of the best handling, best riding, most powerful cars of its time adds to its seductive appeal. This should have been apparent to new-car prospects who took a test-drive (or a “Test-Flight” as Dodge called it) in the new Dodge.
The featured car is for sale on Facebook Marketplace, and is located in Hamburg, NY. Here’s the seller’s description:
The asking price is $55,000 in case you’re interested. I’ve decided to stop being shocked at classic car prices these days.
More pics:
I really like the colorful, “futuristic” look. With a car like this, driving becomes more of a dream-like fantasy rather than a mundane task–like you’re driving the Batmobile or something.
I had to include a close-up of the instrument panel because it’s just so beautiful and awe-inspiring! A one-year-only design.
Dodge brochure: “The interiors are really royal!”
There were a lot of engineering advances in the ’59 Dodge. Consumer Reports preferred the new “B” series engines over the previous Dodge V-8s. Their testers also reported a significant improvement in the car’s structure, with better resistance to rough-road shakes, squeaks, and rattles. This was a problem with the earlier 1957-58 Forward Look models. In summary, the editors wrote: “With its quiet engine, good ride, excellent handling, good steering, capable braking, and, above all, its better-than-average structure and freedom from squeaks and rattles is a car that comes very close to overtaking the Oldsmobile 88 as the leader of this Group.” (The Oldsmobile was still rated #1 because of Olds’ established quality reputation.)
Okay, so let’s say that $55,000 is a little more than you feel comfortable spending right now. Here’s a bargain-basement alternative: a 1959 Dodge Coronet hardtop, with an asking price of $8,900. (Maybe if you put $46,100 into this one, it’ll be as nice as the $55,000 job? A nice theory.)
Here it is Coming…
…and Going.
Coronet has the smaller 326 cubic inch V-8.
Ugh! You can see this car needs a lot of work.
The cockpit.
The stylists’ creativity and imagination: “We’ll put chrome shrouds on the taillights, but we’ll cut the ends off diagonally to make it look even more dramatic!”
Yes, the ’59 Dodge. It will always have a special place in my heart. What other car can be photographed from this angle to produce such a dramatic effect? Now if you say, “That design is so cringe!” let me tell you something. If you think about it, so much of what mankind produces is cringe in some way–reaching, grasping; trying to capture some elusive ideal. The fact that we try to capture it is one of the noblest things about human beings. If everything were plain and strictly functional, how dull life would be. So you might as well just sit back and revel in all of mankind’s wonderful follies and attempts at beauty and grandeur, because nothing is “pure”. Take them all in–and appreciate them as part of living life on Earth at this particular time. This design is saying something, and you can feel it.
The ’59 Dodge was a great buy that year and, I believe, a great buy now!
One spectacular design after another! Our featured ’59 above; my ’60 Dart Phoenix below. The car manufacturers sure knew how to keep things exciting in those days. Interestingly, the 1960 Phoenix (top of the new low-priced Dart series) cost about the same as last year’s bottom-of-the-line Coronet.
I have to tell you that my ’60 Dodge Dart has been overall the nicest-driving car I have owned from that era, and it has been very reliable, except for a few brake repairs. Stunning looks and lots of luxury too! So I agree with Consumer Reports–the top-of-the-line Dodge gives you a great value for the money!
Further CC Reading
Vintage Ad: 1959 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer–“The Swing-Out Seat Says Please Come In” by Paul Niedermeyer
CC For Sale: 1959 Dodge Coronet–Lugubrious Knight In Tarnished Armor by Stephen Pellegrino
Cohort Outtake: 1959 Dodge Royal Shot in 1986–Reminds Me of Someone’s ’59 Fury by Paul Niedermeyer
1959 Dodge Coronet Sedan: Chrome, Fins, And More Chrome by Tom Klockau
Mr. P . . . Your Dart Phoenix really took me back in time. We never see these gorgeous vehicles. My grandparents had one, low-optioned, and the color was “Hearing-aide Beige,” but it caught my eye. Still does. Now I know what to look for, next.
My Mom had a ‘58 Coronet with a ‘59 front clip. Dad bought the car wrecked and the front clip fit. Nice car, black and white, sedan. But I still line my grandparents’ Dart Phoenix more.
Great article. Thank you.
The beige color you’re probably referring to was called “Fawn” and it can look rather nice when two-toned with white:
Absolutely Beautiful! Just love it. So over the top (from today’s perspective). Would definitely be a head turner everywhere you went.
There’s something about the front end of the 59 Dodge that’s mesmerizing. Maybe it’s the eyebrows on the headlights. The rear taillights are as classic as the cat eye taillights on the 59 Chevy. The 1960 Dart grill is just ugly. If I recall, the 59 Dodge had a push button transmission and a speedometer stripe that changed color as speed increased.
I thought the 1959 Coronet had the most malevolent front end of any Mopar, maybe of any car and would have been a better choice for the Christine movie car. The only problem was it didn’t have a scary enough name.
I don’t know if it would have worked out for Chrysler but, yeah, I’d have liked to seen the 1959 Fury with the Coronet front end. FWIW, in the book, the car actually ‘is’ a 1959 Fury sedan. King made myriad errors and maybe it’s just another where he confused the Coronet’s appearance with the Plymouth.
I love the 57-59 Coronet’s. I especially love them when they have a first gen hemi. There was a real beauty for sale out in Manitoba for a while but not at a price I could afford.
The green one is interesting. Of all of Mopar engines, the 326 Poly has to be the most obscure, a one year only oddity. I’ve been gawking at Mopars for a long time and I don’t think I’ve seen one in the flesh.
This is so over the top and wonderful at the same time .
Flamboyant to an extreme .
-Nate
I would thin that the tail lights would be tempting to vandals.
What are the things that look like steps on the rear bumpers? I don’t see them on other similar Dodges on Google images.
Those are dual exhaust outlets.
Chrysler Australia offered Australian luxury car buyers, a right hand drive version of the Dodge Phoenix from 1960 through to 1972. Four door pillarless hardtops were not available until 1967.
Chrysler Australia did assemble a very small number (around 300) right hand drive 1959 Dodges in 4 door (fixed B pillar) sedans, but 1959 four door pillarless Dodges were seriously rare in Australia and seriously expensive. I have only ever sighed one example.
Long live the ‘four door pillarless hardtop’. I expect it’s a body style thats not seen often, even in the United States.
IL doubt you do for 46k
If I was selecting a 1959 model from the Chrysler Corporation, I think I’d shell out a few bucks more than this Dodge and head for the local DeSoto dealer. I find the styling to be rather less convoluted than the Dodge.
The tail fins on the ’59 Dodge look like they were stuck on as an afterthought, with the chrome strip there to hide the seams. And the front end looks like it’s about to lunge forward and bite me.
I have long ranked the DeSoto as the best looking of the 59 Mopars and the Dodge at the bottom. But I am starting to warm to this car’s styling. I think the 59 Plymouth was cleaner and maybe right behind the DeSoto in exterior beauty, but the Dodge dash and interior has almost won me over, as being far more jukebox than the fairly plain Plymouth dash.
As the former owner of a relatively lightly used 59 Fury sedan, I will attest that these cars were a delight on the road.
It’s interesting that Consumer Reports called the ’59 Plymouth “Simple, sane, and staunch” (as opposed to the ’59 Chevrolet, which I suppose was “insane”, though they didn’t call it that). Also I would not call Plymouth’s styling “simple”, but by 1959 standards maybe it was.
CR further stated that Plymouth has “a fairly good balance between functional features and styling” (The giant tailfins notwithstanding, LOL!) Also, “The Plymouth V-8 is at the top of the Group as an over-the-road car.”
My cousins ran a body shop when I was growing up. They took in a smashed 1957 Dodge Custom Royal all black four-door sedan with the D-500 engine. It was a funeral director’s car loaded with full power accessories. The Dodge was totaled by insurance so they fixed and drove it for a couple of years. A sharp-looking car that would push you back in your seat. Good times.
I suppose the angled shrouds around the rear lights had a practical benefit, that enabled the lights to visible to the side of the car.
Daniel Stern (I miss his detailed articles) approved.
I like the single tone paint on this one. The indicator lights on the instrument panel are a work of art on their own.
Hmm, pretty cool car at this point in time. The $55K price is about right for a grade 2+ 2 door htp car. Grade 1 around $10k higher, Only problem is that makes this car eye candy. You buy it, you store it, you admire your possession, but you rarely drive it.
Well said. Grade 1 transcends being transportation and takes it the level of art, like a painting or sculpture. And the upkeep to properly maintain a Grade 1 car is way more intensive than a typical work of art, to say the least.
Decades ago, I once saw a cherry, original 1957 Chevy hardtop at a summer car show in a local restaurant parking lot. Some scruffy young guy with an equally scruffy old E-body Barracuda pulled up next to him with steam coming from the grille. I watched as the kid opened the hood with a rag in hand and had to turn away as I knew exactly what he was going to do next. Sure enough, just as I averted my eyes, I heard a scream and turned around to see a guyser of boiling fluid spurting from the now open radiator port.
The wind immediately picked up the fluid and splattered it all over the front of the pristine Chevy next to it. Eventually, the owner came out of the nearby restaurant. The kid apologized profusely for his stupidity, but the angry owner just drove away. And I think those car shows stopped at that location, as well.
The point is, things like that happen when you take your cherished, well-preserved ride out in public. While not a monumental tragedy, it’s still disheartening.
I am a fan of the 1959 Dodge Custom Royal. As a designer myself I look at the effort made in the smallest details. The car just looks balanced front to rear. $55.000 seems to me a fare asking price. The expense for an interior done to this level, plus the seller states the chrome has been redone. The chrome plating on this car could easily exceed $25,000, and doubt if every chrome part was redone. A few years ago the front narrow bumper on my 1966 T-Bird got dinged. The cost to replate that narrow bumper was close to $1,900. About ten years ago I knew of a 1959 Cadillac that had every chrome part replated at a cost of over $60,000.
Wow, $1900! Maybe five years back I sent out a bumper for my 65 F100 to be chromed by Tri -City. Supposedly one of the best given how often they are recommended. Cost, including shipping both ways was $1000, and it isn’t a small bumper. Hope that Cadillac was a 62 2dr convertible or Biarritz 2dr convertible as they are the only ones over $100K/$200K minimum today.