In an odd sort of CC Effect, I found this silver/gray ’59 Dodge for sale online–it’s the one-year-earlier counterpart to my recently acquired ’60 Dodge Dart. I thought my Dart was kind of unique because it is solid Pewter Iridescent, but apparently someone else buying a new Dodge in ’59 decided that he or she was going to eschew the vivid pastel two-tones that were offered and go for this single-tone metallic shade. It’s the polar opposite of the car featured here.
The “grayscale” look brings out a whole different aspect to the design. Whether you like it, or don’t like it, it is striking in a sort of creepy/fascinating way. I wonder how it would look cleaned and polished up.
There’s this look of calculated aggression–you have to wonder what the designers were thinking: “This is modern–this will beat competition!” “This is exciting and new!” It’s one thing for say, Ferrari to produce an aggressive-looking, wild sports car, charge an extremely high price for it, and sell maybe 1,000 copies to hardcore enthusiasts. It’s quite another for a mainline American manufacturer of popular-priced, mass market family-type cars to come out with a design like this. The idea of commuters, mothers out shopping, and little old ladies going to church in these exaggerated, science fiction dream-car monsters is kind of bizarre.
The rear view is just as dramatic and otherworldly. Dodge referred to these as Jet-Trail Tail Lights “which add a dashing flair to the ’59 Dodge. Unquestionably the most distinctive styling note of the year!”
Actually, there was a special Dodge model that was available exclusively in silver–the Dodge Silver Challenger.
It was introduced in the spring to try to spark more sales. It was basically a Coronet 2-door sedan with a specific option package, priced low. However, our featured Coronet is not one of these.
I’ve always liked the horn ring design. Reminds me of . . .
. . . the controls of the Twin Beech that Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney were “piloting” in the hilarious movie, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World!
This is the front view of the intricate cockpit that those two knuckleheads were facing, in case you’ve never seen one.
The instrument panel, like the rest of the car, definitely reflects that aeronautic spirit which was so in vogue at the time. The speedometer consists of little rectangular spaces which fill up with color (green, then yellow, then red) as speed increases. A little golden knight head fills in the space where the clock would be.
The revolving door above the radio is the ashtray.
Dodge had this yin-yang slogan, “The Newest of Everything Great! The Greatest of Everything New!” In those days, the car that was “all-new” usually outsold competing cars that were merely “face-lifted”. Give the people what they want! (The ’59 is actually a face-lifted 1957-58 design, but we won’t tell ’em that!)
A lot of the ballyhooed “newness” of this Dodge consisted of “futuristic” option gimmicks of questionable value: swivel seats, “Magic-Eye” automatic headlight control, “Mirro-Matic” self-dimming rear view mirror, “Co-Pilot” speed warning light. Most of these add-ons found few takers. Adding a PARK position to the transmission, which would have added immeasurably to ease and convenience–that they couldn’t do!
But underneath all the glitz, these were in fact great automobiles for their time. They were probably the best riding/handling cars in their class, with good power. Dodge claimed in a TV ad that they “sprinkled them with stardust” at the factory. I believe it!
When I see unique and under-appreciated cars like this for sale, weathered and dirty and probably needing a lot of work, I always wonder what happens to them. It’s truly a miracle that something like this has been preserved intact while 99% of its fellows were compressed into bales and melted down 50 years ago. Trouble is, sympathetic restorers willing to invest time and treasure to save a car like this are rarer than the cars themselves.
Oh wow – I love this. I was never a fan of the 59 Dodge, it was my least favorite of the entire 57-59 run of Forward Look cars. But something about this one is just perfect. Finding one with what looks like original seat upholstery is pretty much unheard of. I see that the guy does not have a price listed on his ad.
My 59 Plymouth Fury sedan was solid white outside, and I came to appreciate what a solid single color can do for the lines on these cars.
US manufacturers really had a minor boom in silver and gray colors from around 1957-62. They were not big sellers, but they were offered on almost everything during at least part of that timespan. I would love to have a run at that paint finish after watching the guy on the link in Vince’s comment to your 60 Dart. This car would be glorious if some of this car’s shine could be gently coaxed back. That paint and the black/red interior would be a delight.
Well JP, I would say THIS is your moment to capture that gloriously wonderful hideous car!
Except the website the ad is on, I think it’s one of those clickbait sites that regurgitates old ads.
Wow, that picture of the rear end of the car on the trailer IS dramatic. Pictures often don’t really drive home how wild the styling on Forward Look cars is, but that one does.
I’d never noticed those ‘trays’ under the taillights before. Presumably they were tacked on late in the design process after somebody realized that the taillights were the actual bumpers.
I like the ad with the man in the black dodge four-door hardtop. He has the swing-out seat positioned for the passenger, a nice gal, to enter. Perhaps he was uttering, “Hi, honey. Wanna go for a ride?”
I remember looking at a basic, black ’59 with the ancient flat head six, at a car show back in ’77. Even then I thought the engine was a little archaic for that ’59.
What a great car. But… topclassiccarsforsale.com is a crap, useless site. It shows cars that have been sold a long time ago. I recognize some I was interested in … in 2018!
So maybe you are lucky and the car really is for sale but it probably was an ad from years ago.
I’m guessing this is where Bruce McCall got the slogan for the ’58 Bulgemobiles… “Too great not to be changed, too changed not to be great!”
I find it interesting that Chrysler spent the fifties pumping out entire families of V8 engines with often world-leading power outputs, but they used the same six cylinder flathead engine from 1924 or 1933 through 1959(sources differ on whether the 1959 engine was directly related to the first Chrysler 6 or if there was a significant change for 1933). Imagine driving your new space-age 1959 Coronet to an antique car show, and then seeing your engine under the side-hinged hood panel of a thirty year old car riding on wooden wheels.
As a little kid in the early ’60s these forward look Chyslers, Dodges and Plymouths were everywhere. I couldn’t help but notice how much more dramatically styled they were compared to most other Detroit cars of the era, and they absolutely terrified me. I remember having nightmares about being chased down the street by one these cars. There’s reason the movie Christine featured a demonically possessed (and aptly named) ’58 Plymouth Fury.
GM also contributed to childhood nightmares during that era.
I was having a car oriented gab fest with my Son who is in his early 30’s. He showed me some cars for sale on Facebook, one was a ’61 Pontiac sedan. He was fascinated by the styling; the curved fins, sloping grille, and flat top roof. In his eyes this was just a cool looking vintage car, and the asking price was not unreasonable. It was a car that you could afford and have some fun with. I shared some of my CL finds, a delta wing decked ’60 Olds foor door hardtop, a ’62 Le Sabre sedan, and a ’61 Olds 88 four door hardtop! The ovoid skeg fin wonder.
Like the subject Dodge, these are the only way a guy with average means can afford to buy one of these early 60’s wonders. For me and my generation these are just “more door losers”, the conciliation prize. However, the new realities of high price and fresh eyes of the younger enthusiasts are not as clouded by my prejudices. They just a cool vintage car. Hopefully that Dodge and those cars that I found on CL will be bought fixed up and enjoyed by a younger generation.
Another shot of that amazing Olds.
There is a pink and white 59 Dodge coupe for sale near my house.
Coral.
Looks more pure pink in person. No idea if it’s original. Lots of 50’s and 60’s cars there. Maybe I should take some other pics and post them. Someone might buy something.
I think some guys at Dodge might regretted to drop the Coronet nameplate for 1960 and they bring it back for the 1965 model year when the “full-size” plucked chicken 1962-64 Polara morphed into an intermediate for ’65.
Btw, I don’t remember if I already mentionned it but one guy menaged to turn a 1964 Dodge 880 convertible into a 1959 model despite then the ’64 model was unibody.
https://mystarcollectorcar.com/march-2021-the-original-transformer-a-1964-dodge-880-transformed-into-a-59-dodge-custom-royal/
Have a look at Coldwar Motors in YouTube. Scott took the rusty top half of a 1960 Fury and mated it to the non-rusty bottom half of a 1960 Dodge four door. The fabrication he did is simply the best I have ever seen. I saw the car in person last year and it was mighty impressive. Scott restored every single piece of chrome and even sewed the interior.
https://www.youtube.com/user/coldwarmotors
Everything about this car is so over the top, I just love it. I had never noticed the tail treatment of this car. It’s even more way-out than the 1959 Cadillac. The front end looks like a very angry kitty-cat, but that is my impression.
Re the swivel seats: Could these have made getting in and out the “longer, lower, wider” Mopars?
…easier than otherwise?
I vaguely remember seeing these gray colors in the late fifties and early sixties, but always thought they were just oxidized black paint. I tend to think of these shades as popularized by the Japanese and Germans at least a decade or more later. By the way, I had missed your ‘60 Dart acquisition report a few weeks ago, Poindexter, and the Family Drive In tickled some memories; when I spent the summer of 1975 living and working outside Front Royal, VA, I went to that drive in and saw Young Frankenstein. My first and only time at a drive in. Not sure what vehicle I was in, perhaps one of my co-workers’ 68 Nova or another coworker’s ‘72 Mustang.
Many late 1950s cars have the same aggressive, angry look with a zillion weird, overdone fold lines as the current models of the last few years. The more things change, etc.
Which is why I tend to prefer the more dignified designs that came immediately before (early to mid-1950s) and the simpler, more modern lines that came immediately afterwards (early to mid-1960s). It really is bizarre how everyday cars became alien spaceships for a few years. Detroit really jumped the shark in the late 1950s and furiously back-pedaled, sometimes with unintended consequences (the downsized ’62 Chryslers, etc.) There’s a reason why these cars became old hat so quickly: “suddenly it’s 1960” of 1957 was “suddenly it’s 1957” by 1960. Of course, such kitsch is always fun in retrospect.
It looks very angry. Stephen King should have used it instead of the fury for Christine.
Every time I see one of these ’59 Chrysler products I think they must have been getting feedback from the field that the ’57s were ‘”too sparse.” And I wonder how much of a hand BIll Schmidt, who took over for Exner in mid-’57 after his heart attack.had a hand in these, which would have been finalized around then.
The patina certainly gives it some serious edge. Christine? An alien starship?
But maybe we can never escape our first impressions. I remember as a kid thinking those headlight ‘eyebrows’ looked weirdly like the cat-eye glasses elementary school teachers of a certain age sometimes wore. That pretty much did it for me.
Another example of why I follow this site – what a car. Stands up not so well to critical scrutiny as you show, but who cares when it looks like this?