At the recent 1969 Chrysler 300 review, there were several comments reflecting on the poor sales of Chrysler’s fuselage cars, which arrived that year. And in 2020, Jim Cavanaugh did a CC that called the fuselage years a Chrysler’s Deadly Sin. That got me wondering; was that really the case? Time for a chart to confirm or contest the assumptions.
The charts are from the stats in my database, which I just expanded to create a new category: share of the big RWD car market, meaning how the various brands and manufacturers fared within that particular slice of the market.
Note: the big RWD car market as a percentage of the total passenger car market went through a deep decline in these years, from a 54.9% share in 1965 to a 24.4% share in 1974. So these charts only show the relative success (or failure) of these brands within this shrinking market. This was covered in my in-depth post “Who Killed The Big American Car”. Comparing actual production/sales numbers is largely irrelevant in such a strongly shrinking market.
My first chart (top) shows the respective shares of that market by the Big Three during this period and up to the first year of the energy crisis (1965 – 1974). From this chart it’s pretty obvious that Chrysler did suffer a drop after the fuselage cars were introduced, from 1968 to 1970, but it was pretty modest, from 17.6% share to 14.8%, or a 16% drop. Not exactly a massive failure, and they were still ahead of where they were in 1965 (13.6%), never mind in the early ’60s when they were in the single digits.
And it shows that Ford was the only one of the Big 3 to gain market share in this specific category during these years, going from 23.8% in 1965 to 26,1% in 1974. GM lost 1.2 percent of its share; Chrysler lost 0.8 percent. So yes, on a percentage basis, Chrysler lost the most (down 9.4%). That’s pretty modest over a ten year period, but nevertheless.
I also charted the individual brands, which is a bit more interesting (and surprising).
This is “The Low-Priced 5” and includes Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth, Dodge and Pontiac. The big surprise? Chevrolet had a huge drop in the share of big cars in 1970, a 25% reduction in share from 1969, and a whopping 31% from 1968. What happened? It wasn’t the UAW strike, which started in the fall of 1970, affecting 1971 MY output.
It’s pretty clear that buyers liked the all-new 1969 Ford styling much better than Chevy’s warmed-over styling, and relatively better than the new fuselage styling by Chrysler. Ford’s 1971 peak was almost certainly due to the GM strike, as they fell back to earth in 1972, and Chevy then started to pickup market share quite strongly. The new ’69 Ford conveyed an upscale image that went very well with the growing success of its LTD nameplate.
As to Plymouth, the ’69s were down a bit, and market share in this segment did droop from 1971 on. Dodge, which never came back from its crash in 1962, muddled along, with a gentle drooping also after 1972.
But the real story is that all of these low-priced brands’ market share of big cars was down in 1974 from 1965, most of all Chevrolet. We need to look at the next chart to make sense of that.
Here’s the “Medium Priced 4” (Mercury, Olds, Buick and Chrysler) although of course there was some overlap with the low priced 5 as well as with Cadillac and Lincoln. Mercury got a similar boost like the Ford brand. Olds had a surprisingly big jump in 1969, with Buick getting a similar but smaller bump starting that year. It seems like Chevy as well as Ford, Plymouth and Dodge all lost a lot of their buyers to Olds and Buick starting in 1969, a trend that would only continue in the next two decades. This presaged the eventual dominance of the Oldsmobile brand in the ’70s as well as Buick’s growing success. Americans were moving up the Sloan (Image) Ladder, even if the actual differences in prices were quite modest.
The Chrysler brand had a bump in 1968; it’s hard to say why exactly, but both Mercury and Olds were down that year. In 1969 – 1970, they drooped, a reflection that the fuselage styling wasn’t taking off, keeping their share earth-bound. And by 1970, the rep of poor quality was becoming more widespread. On the other hand, that was still considerably better than the Chrysler brand had been doing in the early ’60s, when its share of the big car market was in the 2-3% range.
The Chrysler Corp. had some very good growth in overall market share starting in 1963, despite the 1962 downsizing at Plymouth and Dodge, but they never really got a lot of traction in the full-size market again after their 21.5% share in 1957. That peaked for them in 1968, with a 17.6% share of that market segment, which was of course a rather modest one. And of course after the energy crisis, it all went downhill for them, until they bailed from that market segment after 1981.
The market liked Ford’s 1969 styling better, and its not surprising, as the fuselage cars’ styling was something that was more appropriate for the smaller car, and it did work much better on the 1971 B-Bodies, whose “fuselage” had more taper front to rear, and looked less like it had been squeezed out of an extruding machine. Chrysler took a bold gamble with that styling approach but the market acceptance was modest, at best.
Related CC reading:
Automotive History: Who Killed the Big American Car?
Curbside Classic: 1971 Chrysler Newport Royal – Chrysler’s Deadly Sin #6, The Fuselage Years
I find this kind of data analysis as applied to car sales fascinating, and the speculation as to why the #s were what they were to be most interesting. Chrysler certainly did go out on a limb, and it’s gratifying to see that that daring did not lead to an abysmal failure in the market for large cars as some have maintained. I submit that it did lead to the most sophisticated, if not popular, large car design in the decade of 1965 to 1975, and not exceeded since, in.my opinion.
I’d add that the sales decline of the Mopar fuselage cars may well have been more due to quality issues becoming endemic at Chrysler beginning in the late ’60s as a result of their financial issues, which were becoming better known to the buying public at this time, more than the actual design and styling themselves.
Ford didn’t just pull off a lucky win – it also set the styling bar for the next decade with the Lincoln Mark III in 1969. While I, in hindsight, wouldn’t want a full sized Ford between 1968-1972, it seems that many did. While I think GM was better styled, the Ford/Mercury seemed to find a nice spot as well.
Chrysler zigged in 1969 with the Fuselage, while the Market it was shooting for, zagged – and missed the stand up formal look that won that era’s market demands. We can look back at them and admire them today, but in 1969, the Fuselage was not the look the market swung towards. Chrysler couldn’t fix this either – until 1973, when the Fuselage Chrysler was given a formal front end. If they were quicker, that 1973 grille should have showed up in 1970 and at least help the Corporation tread water. As to quality – that was a real issue for the Fuselage Chrysler products my father bought during these years. Considering their prices, these cars weren’t decent values until the Newport Custom showed up.
Chrysler’s early 1970 designs weren’t able to be turned into formal brougham cars, with the possible exception of the Valiant/Dart, which by chance, wasn’t updated and save Chrysler’s bacon during the First Oil Crisis. The designers at Chrysler bet on the muscle car look and lost. While we see Boomers drop major retirement funds for these gems today, the Personal Luxury Car was the future, not muscle cars. By the mid-1970s, Chrysler was down to the Cordoba, and Plymouth/Dodge, down to the Valiant/Duster/Dart originally designed almost a decade earlier, plus a formalized New Fury which needed to have been presented years ealier than it was – due to the cost of the Full Sized Fiasco 1974 Chryslers.
So I see the Fuselage as a disaster for Chrysler and consider it one of their many Deadly Sins.
I think the full-size Chevrolet got also competition from its smaller sibling the Chevelle and the arrival of the Monte Carlo and Oldsmobile hit also a jackpot with the mid-size Cutlass who gained in popularity who could have attracted some Impala/Caprice buyers.
As for Dodge, in 1970 Dodge was seen as an alternative to Plymouth instead of a step-up from Plymouth since the intro of the full-size Dart in 1960 giving a silver lining to Pontiac and Oldsmobile for the following years. The late auto historian Jeffrey Godshall written once an article on Collectible Automobile about the full-size fuselage Polara/Monaco, where they still tried to chase Pontiac since most of the Dodge sales was mainly from the Dart and Coronet/Charger.
It seems like the idea of the “low-priced 3” (or 4, or 5) came from an era where most cars were full-sized and if you wanted an inexpensive car you went to the low-priced brands.
But with the introduction of compacts in the early 60s and intermediates in the mid 60s, buyers who wanted inexpensive cars just went to smaller models. And with the first oil spikes of 1973, the majority of folks who could afford to own and operate full-sized cars wanted the fancier brands. Inexpensive models of full-size cars were relegated to fleet use, and perhaps older buyers who still “bought by the pound”.
By this era, if you were low on funds, I think most buyers would rater have a loaded intermediate than a stripped full-sizer.
Which is precisely why the full size market shrunk so badly. And finally died. It became increasingly irrelevant given the many other more appealing-sized options.
And the intermediates were really the size of the big cars of a decade before.
Line graphs like these are not the best way to show your point. You should be using bar graphs for each model year. A line graph like you’re using implies an analog progression through the year, for example half-way between one year and the next would represent “June” sales. A bar graph more accurately represents whole-model-year figures.
I like the line graphs here because it shows the general movement & trends throughout the years. I think here the trends are more important than the precise numbers. Both types of charts are useful, but in my opinion the line graphs are more easily understandable for the purpose of conveying trends.
And on the topic of presenting data in different ways, here’s another way to look at the first chart – ranking the three manufacturers’ share of the big RWD market as percentages stacked on top of each other (to visually equal 100%). Here we can see that Chrysler’s post-Fuselage change in market share was rather minimal due to their existing small share of the segment.
You’ve made the same complaint before, at least once. I prefer line graphs for the reasons Eric outlined. And I will keep using them. The lines from one year to the next clearly show the direction things changed from year to year.
But you’re free to ignore them.
Very interesting analysis. While it shows that the fuselage generation wasn’t a total flop, it does seem as though the Chrysler was becoming steadily weaker in the segment that had been one of the most profitable for the industry.
The real problems started with the restyled 1974 models, which debuted on the eve of the Arab Oil Embargo. Sales of full-size cars in general were hammered in 1974 and 1975, but sales of the full-size Plymouth and Dodge never really recovered. By the time they were discontinued, their respective sales were at the level of old AMC Ambassador in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It would also be interesting to see how many full-size Plymouths and Dodges of this era were sold to fleet customers (primarily taxi companies and police forces). It’s my understanding that those sales, while still profitable, weren’t as lucrative as sales to retail customers (particularly since retail customers were much more likely to load up their cars with profitable options).
Not too many full-size Oldsmobiles and Buicks were sold to fleet customers in the late 1960s and 1970s. And most of those rolled off the showroom floor well-equipped.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1971-chrysler-newport-royal-chryslers-deadly-sin-6-the-fuselage-years/
Floppity Flop-Flop
It didn’t help then the 1974 full-size Dodge and Plymouth styling looked like a 1971 full-size Buick. However, sales of the full-size Chrysler menaged to recover for 1976 and 1977 thanks partially to the Imperial who was rechristened as a Chrysler New Yorker.
In the 68-72 years, Chrysler focused on handling while Ford focused on quiet well assembled cars. GM rode better than a Chrysler but louder than a Ford. GM handled better than a Ford but not quite as well as a Chrysler, though the feel at the wheel was best on a GM. Fit and finish was significantly better on Fords and Mercury. My sudokus that the feel of the wheel was a significant sales factor for GM.
Some added data points: 1969-70 were mildly down years for the economy. Typically, that would affect lower priced goods more than higher priced goods, because those who buy cars like Chevrolets were likely less financially secure than those who bought Buicks. Ford could have been an exception because of the extremely strong performance of the LTD. Chrysler may have underperformed because there was data at the time suggesting that Chrysler buyers had (on average) lower educations and incomes than buyers of competitive brands.
Also, 1972-73 were extremely good sales years. I find it interesting that only Chevrolet really had a strong uptick in 1973, which set sales records across the industry.
I stand by calling the Fusey a fail in the marketplace. The 1965-68 series generally consolidated moderate but significant gains for Plymouth and Chrysler (if not Dodge). There were no such gains after 1968. It is true that the segment was declining, but Chrysler’s vehicles declined more than the others, on a relative basis. It was more than styling, of course.
During the 1969 model year, Chrysler’s notorious “Sales Bank” was overflowing with unsold cars, according to contemporary reports in the business press. While exact breakdowns by model aren’t available, it would not be surprising if a large percentage of those cars were the all-new C-bodies.
This suggests that the corporation had overproduced for the 1969 model year, and needed hefty discounts to move the metal. That, in turn, could have depressed sales in 1970 and 1971.
In looking at these charts again, it’s quite obvious that the swoopy GM styling that started in ’65 was not a success, and undoubtedly played a significant role in the success of the anti-swoopy ’65-’68 Chrysler C-Bodies. Ford’s boxier cars did better too, in ’65-’67, although the face-lifted ’68 clearly missed the mark (for obvious reasons).
So one could say that Chrysler’s modest success with the C-Bodies in ’65-’68 was in significant part luck, the beneficiary of those that found the GM cars too swoopy. Ironically, Engrel sat out to outdo GM in ’69, not appreciating the fact that he was taking away precisely what made the boxy cars attractive.
If the ’69s looked more like the ’74s, they might have worked better. It was too much of a jump for conservative Chrysler buyers.
I still see the relative success of the ’65-’68 C-Bodies as something of an anomaly. Since the ’55 or so, big Chrysler cars simply didn’t do well, with the ’57 an exception. Given these long-standing headwinds, it’s not surprising in the least that eventually their big cars would fade.
This is fascinating…the swoopy and ever more paunchier 60’s GM cars were not a huge hit, yet many of us see that era (at least the 65-66 part) as close to peak GM. The more formal Ford styling was really starting to work well before the 69’s came out…news to me. Also interesting that the 1970 Pontiac styling, which looks like a mess to most eyes, actually grew sales versus the much more coherent 69 model. The secret may have been that atrocious but more formal front end?
Also, until seeing these charts I had no appreciation how successful GM’s 71-76 generation really was. Who knew they were crushing the competition and selling more units in 73-4 than in 68-9? Not I.
Great piece.
Who knew they were crushing the competition and selling more units in 73-4 than in 68-9? Not I.
They weren’t. These charts are of market share of this segment of the market, but in absolute terms, that market segment was on its terminal decline, especially in ’74, with the energy crisis. Absolute numbers had been mostly shrinking during this period.
Noted…should have caught that. Still surprised at the competitiveness, but not nearly as impressive.
Kind of angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin deal, but big Fords were extensively restyled in 1967. The 1968 model was a light facelift (as things were done back then) of the 1967. The boxy one was the 1965-66 version.
How did they miss the mark? The family 1967 Galaxie was everyone’s favorite – and not only because it wasn’t the Cheapskate 50’s Dad’s typical choice. It looked exactly like this one. It must have been some sort of deal though.
In the case of Ford, I think they should have kept the stacked headlights one more year for the full-size Custom/Galaxie/LTD for 1968 just like Plymouth and Cadillac.
Yes, the 1967, continuing many cues from the 1965-66 only rounded and swoopier, was much better. Hard to describe exactly why except that particularly when sealed beam headlights were used the front of a car is analogous to a face.
Paul, I have wondered why I have not been able to find any of the concept drawings, scaled clay models, or full size clay models or prototypes for the rather ground breaking (for Chrysler) full size 1965 Chrysler (C Body).
I have been subscribing to Special Interest Autos (now Classic Car) and Collectible Automobile since around 1973, as well as searching the internet – and have found concepts for most of the cars of the 1950 to 1970s, but never anything on the beautiful and handsome 1965 Chrysler. Have you ever ran across anything or know why nothing is available in the way of documentation on the design history of these cars?
And yes, I have one.
What a grand looking automobile, and such a pleasure to know that it was a magnificent machine all the way from its Torqueflite transmission to its left hand studs. American auto manufacturing at its peak.
Chrysler’s very conventional appearing 1974 C bodies were the actual death of the company in the retail full size market, so it’s hard to argue that the fusies were the problem. The public simply didn’t want to buy big, expensive cars from Chrysler.
The 1979 R bodies were utterly conventional in appearance but didn’t sell at retail at all, for reasons that had nothing to do with styling: Chrysler was in very bad financial shape (which had gone from being a cyclical issue to a permanent condition}, which is a bad image for cars aimed at a wealthier customer; the cars quickly earned a reputation for awful quality; and then the bottom dropped out of the market for everything but cheap economy cars.
At the time I thought the Chrysler interiors were cheap. Much of the design was ok but cheaply executed.
I think about the IP and steering wheel of my folks 69 country squire vs Chryslers of the time and the ford to my young eyes looked better and used better materials.
I think it fair to call the Chrysler “fuselage” era a deadly sin for Ma Mopar.
1969: Expected sales bump from an all new Chrysler C body goes missing.
1970: Camaro sets the world on fire, new Chrysler E body is comparatively ignored.
1971: Chrysler B body goes fuselage and takes a nasty sales slump. Mid size cars are the fastest growing segment and Chrysler misses the lighter car flight.
The Chrysler A body largely missed the fuselage flight. You could argue that the Duster hints at it, and was, of course, a huge success. But, it hurts when all your higher margin products aren’t competing well.
The Chrysler brand was the only Mopar to use the word fuselage in marketing, and made the most obvious styling use of the concept. Plymouth marketing hinted at a wider and (slightly) rounder body that would provide more interior room. The 1969 Plymouth was rather square, and borrowed liberally from the 1968 Plymouth. Personally, it seems like it rather missed the fuselage flight as well.
Ironically, GM rather did legitimize fuselage styling with its 1971 B bodies, obviously the devil is in the details.
GM takes the fuselage flight, Plymouth stays the course.
The Camaro like the other pony cars was rapidly failing. GM nearly dropped it instead of tooling for the bumper standards. It came back after the oil embargo because the Camaro and Firebird were the best traditional V8 muscle cars available. The E bodies took the expected market share, but the market unexpectedly shrank. The pony cars were replaced in the market by compact coupes, which Plymouth nailed with the Duster.
1973 was Plymouth’s all time high sales year, although it was fifth in the market that year. The Fury and Valiant sold well enough. The problem in 1973 was that the midsize coupes weren’t competitive. Except for a brief boost in the muscle car era, Plymouth never was competitive in mid size. Either they were stodgy when the market was sporty or they were sporty when the market was stodgy.
And the midsize Plymouth sedans seemed like bigger Valiants, not like little limousines.
Engel wins.
Thinking about the Engel shape… It’s counterintuitive. Long rounded rectangles with a sandwich of other stuff between them. It doesn’t resemble any previous cars or carriages.
It does resemble some furniture, such as a library bookshelf or a 1960s office desk.
The design concept of the sides of the car being two flat squarish walls with the streamlined body in between like ultimately Engel’s 1961 Lincoln was actually developing in the 1950’s. Same idea in the 1956 Ramblers plus integrating the greenhouse into it instead of being a very separate shape like with the Lincoln.
An idea obviously associated with Engel, not Exner. But you can see some of it in Exner’s 1955 Chrysler Falcon both front and rear.
What should Chrysler have done for its 1965-1974 big RWD cars in place of the fuselage styling as well as any other factors like their quality and financial issues?
Indeed, Chrysler was just sticking to the conservative, last model cycle GM styling they had went with ever since the disastrous 1962 downsizing debacle.
And, for all intents and purposes, it worked. There was plenty of car sales to go around for everyone in the go-go sixties. The 1969 fuselage cars were simply Engel’s take on the 1967 Pontiacs and loop-bumpers. It didn’t help that 1969 was a recession year, and Chrysler’s quality was, once again, taking a nosedive.
Likewise, the 1974 restyle was Chrysler’s take on the previous big GM products, mostly the Buicks. And, truth be told, they might have sold if it weren’t for Chrysler’s typical bad timing when the gas crisis hit.
It’s worth noting that Chrysler’s big car sales enjoyed something of a resurgence in the mid-seventies once gas prices stabilized.
Read claims there was quite a bit of complexity surrounding what is known as the 1962 downsizing debacle, where it was basically a cover story for plans by management to kill the S-Series to mitigate blowback from the styling staff. The downsizing meanwhile was supposedly ordered around the summer or early fall of 1959, before GM were even considering developing the Chevy II after seeing the Corvair’s lacklustre sales.
Also one cannot help but ponder whether Chrysler should have made the B-Platform a modular design to where the C-Platform is basically a stretched B-Platform.
Styling wise it is tough as cannot say am a fan of Exner’s excesses, in reality he should have anticipated the industry shift toward angular and coke-bottle shapes before he was replaced by Engel. Otherwise was there a styling company Chrysler had ties to that could leaned upon and eventually made their own, like Ford did at one time with Vignale and Ghia?
Not residing in North America, have been fascinated as to how Chrysler could have got their own internal affairs in order without the bad decisions nor quality or financial issues and thereby place themselves in a much stronger position to help their struggling overseas divisions in Europe and Australia with the right points of divergence to successfully integrate them (though ideally they should have acquired Jowett earlier on and Borgward in place of Rootes IMHO).
Read claims there was quite a bit of complexity surrounding what is known as the 1962 downsizing debacle,
Presumably from my article on the subject?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/automotive-design-history-1962-plymouth-dodge-brilliant-blunder-or-suddenly-its-1977/
It was vastly more than a “restyle”. The original 1962 S-Series cars were very large, and would have continued the existing unibody-cum-front subframe construction as the existing large cars. But the actual ’62 B-Body cars went to a full unibody, so it was a massive engineering-driven decision, to create lighter, roomier and more efficient cars, as that was considered the trend after the 1958 recession that battered full size cars.
Yeah, it seems likely that the downsizing fiasco cover story was just conveniently concocted to throw the embattled Charles Newberg under the bus when, in reality, it had been planned all along after the dismal S-series mockups were shown. They weren’t very good-looking cars and likely would have sold no better than the downsized Mopars. Seems like sales of the 1961 cars confirmed this so, as awkward as the 1962 models were, probably made no difference in the long run. IOW, the inner turmoil at Chrysler meant 1962 was going to be a bad year for them, anyway you looked at it, and all Townsend and Engel could do was plan future cars that were largely just rehashes of previous GM models.
As to Exner switching gears, it’s worth noting that, despite his goofy asymmetrical styling exercises, the 1963 Valiant was almost entirely his, but he gets no credit for it.
Engel’s instincts were good, too, when he cleaned up the Valiant by adding the little quarter panel finlets (that encorporated the taililghts for 1964) and the full width, horizontal bar grille. Both changes were terrific details that make the ’64 Valiant one of the best, overall styled compacts of the sixties.
It would be interesting to see a chart of absolute sales, too, since that drove profits (or losses). A rising share of a declining segment isn’t worthwhile if you can’t make money at it.
One problem with the fuselage cars was they looked too much alike. That couldn’t help the higher-priced Chrysler & Imperial.
What a grand looking automobile, and such a pleasure to know that it was a magnificent car all the way to its left hand studs.
Yes, my family kind of followed this trend (though my Dad didn’t often otherwise follow many trends)…starting in ’69 he moved up to full sized wagons with a Country Squire, and in ’73 replaced it with an even larger Country Sedan. Dad didn’t like the clamshell tailgates GM started putting on full sized wagons in ’71 so he was a Ford buyer for those years. He did copy my Uncle in ’69 who bought a new LTD 4 door hardtop replacing his hand me down (from my Grandfather) ’51 Chrysler Windsor he drove in college. His had the 302 and drum brakes, my Dad’s the 351 and front disc.
My Mom is a small person (4′ 8″) and she was the primary driver of the family car, she called them “boats” as we previously had a midsized Olds F85 and before that 2 compact Rambler Classic wagons (a ’61 and a ’63). Besides the gas shortages, maybe the move to 2 car families was part of this…we became one in ’66 but our family was still growing so we moved up to full sized for the wagon. But Dad’s car was typically a small import (’59 Beetle in ’66) with manual transmission. Mom stopped driving 2 years ago, after inheriting Dad’s ’06 Impala (he changed over to large sedans in the 80’s probably starting with an ’86 Dodge 600 followed by a triplet of Mercury Sables, ’89, 92, and ’96).