We haven’t done much with concept cars and styling proposals. So a visit to glen.h’s Photostream collection of Concept Cars, Prototypes and Show Cars provides plenty of fodder. Like this styling buck for the ’57 Forward Look Chrysler. Holy Batman! The real thing got toned down some, but those fins did seem to influence the 1960 Plymouth more than a wee bit.
Holy wow, that thing is hideous. This is what villains drive in cartoons, just add teeth to the grill!
I agree Jim.The Mopar toilet seat is one of my pet hates,this is an ugly brute thankfully the production 57s were great lookers.
+2 can you say ‘Blind spot’… Bless the gods it was only a show car… I concur it is hiddeous
I see more 59 Plymouth in those fins than 60 Plymouth. The front part of the car is pretty sorted out. That back, though, is awful. Agreed: it looks like it belongs in a Batman movie. You could sell ad space on those rear quarters.
There are several pictures of this styling buck in my copy of “Chrysler Concept Cars 1940-1970.” The front 2/3rds is basically a 1957 300C, it is the roof and crazy fins that are different. Thank goodness they rejected this thing!
I have to wonder if Virgil Exner had a finned toilet bowl in his home…it would explain a lot.
Supposedly, the Flight Sweep trunk lid grew from the original K310 concept where there was an actual mechanism to remove the spare tire from the trunk without having to dig it out. The mechanism was never used but the trunk lid design remained as a faux look. Like with Lincoln, the concept was originally practical, but the “look” proved to be more enduring than the use.
K310 Concept Car
There were horrible styling proposals being worked on at most manufacturers then. GM and Ford weren’t any better with some of the way-out stuff they were working on. Somehow, a lot of it got toned down before reaching production.
Also, given the enormous (if inexplicable) popularity of accessory Continental kits in this era, it’s not hard to see why Detroit was moving to cash in on the fad.
I ought to do a CC on the Chrysler Norseman, I wrote an article for a SAH newsletter a couple of years ago about the car. It was designed by Virgil Exner’s team in Detroit but actually fabricated by Ghia in Italy. The main prototype was shipped to New York via the Andrea Doria, which we all know sank in July 1956.
I hope fire comes out of that continental kit!
Holy acid trip Batman! I wonder if anyone actually considered trying to build and sell this thing, or was it just a little on-the-job send up of current styling trends.
I wonder how much of it was exaggerated so that their actual intended design would get approved for being quite reasonable by comparison, and how much of it was for real? There is a story of the former happening for the 59 Cadillac fins.
Keep in mind that there were no CAD systems back then. Designers would sketch a car proposal on paper, then do more detailed sections of the car, then put the individual ideas in clay to see what they actually looked like. Often times, what looked good in 2D on paper really came out bad looking on the 3D clay.
Also, you’d start with an exaggerated design on the clay, and would have more control on how it looked by cutting it back step by step, rather than starting small and building larger. I’ve always had a feeling that the clays that were photographed were never intended on being the actual final design that showed up on the showroom floor. Rather, they were steps in the process.
Visualize doing the same thing on a CAD system – only you’re doing the changes in minutes instead of days, and 3/4ths of the wild, ugly designs never go past the CRT and possibly a quick laser print. And those are thrown out immediately, since its so easy to change the entire concept.
The only other rational explanation is that no designer had any sense of taste during the latter half of the 50’s. Somehow, the ‘before computers’ explanation seems to make more sense.
I understand what you are saying but…. sorry, lack of CAD doesn’t explain fins as high as the roof, or the backwards-fins on whichever year Mopar had those. I think option B might have more to do with it, after several years the sense of ‘normal’ adapts and when you add in a sense of competition things start to get out of hand. It’s not just the late fifties, there are plenty of examples of designs pushing the envelope whether it be a Cadillac CTS coupe or an Isuzu VehiCross.
Having said that, I would be prepared to believe that this clay was exploring an alternative option that somebody was pushing for, but that was never a realistic option for production, as you said in the second-last paragraph.
Did you not see the more recent post, where it shows a fully-running prototype of this very design? It almost did go into production as shown
I think this was a result of Exner being pissed that Management didn’t allow the 300C grille treatment to be on all 57 Chryslers.
If this car is any indication, I think Virgil must’ve had a thing for BBWs; because man, this car has some big a** hips. Is that wrong to say here? Hehehe.
Wait when was LSD invented again? 😛
That actually looks like a Cadillac on acid.
1940. In Switzerland.
“Paging Mr. Bruce McCall, your vehicle is ready. Mr. Bruce McCall…”
An emphasized reason I’ve never had any desire to own a Chrysler. GM has the styling, folks!
This reminds me of a large-finned car that was used in an episode of the early 60s TV show, The Outer Limits. It was used in an episode set in the “future,” and IIRC, a very loud pseudo-turbine sound effect was used. That was a future that didn’t have much of a future! By the time I saw that episode in the early 80s, the whole idea of that car was just ridiculous.
This 300 styling proposal is right up there with the one from MIkePDX a few weeks ago showing a 1959 Olds with a third “eye”.
As JCP was saying it’s like all the designers back then were experimenting with mind altering drugs. Can you imagine what it would be like driving that Chrysler 300 down a highway during heavy cross winds, which is most of the time in Calif.
Does anyone know of a really good book on Virgil Exner? I’m not enough of a Chrysler fan to know the stories by heart and surely there must be enough to make a really good book.
“Does anyone know of a really good book on Virgil Exner?”
Well, there’s this, which my library has:
http://www.amazon.com/Virgil-Exner-Visioneer-biography-extraordinaire/dp/1845841182/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365603176&sr=1-1&keywords=virgil+exner
Thanks for the tip I’m going to order it.
I have that book; it’s quite good. Of course, it’s not critical, although some aspects are handled fairly even-handed. I should do a series of posts on it.
I hope they didn’t seriously consider that for production. I mean the size of the fins are bad enough but the length of the rear overhang doesn’t even work with them. Interesting to notice how the left fin ends at the c-pillar while the other flows a bit more. Looks like a caricature of a 50’s car. Like mentioned above, it had to be so the production version would look toned down, I hope!
Ah yes…..the famous Bulgemobile. Quite a car, quite a car……
“Too great not to be changed, too changed not to be great!”
Remember the second half of the 50s spaceships, sci fi, jet age, even Sputnik, were all very prominent themes in people’s mindset. Chrysler was on the vanguard of incorporating fins in their product early on to be topped by Cadillac in 1959. Of course these are concepts which were toned down considerably.
Below is the Dodge Dart concept from that time period.
That’s a Dart that a giant could toss at his giant dartboard in his giant rec room. Bullseye!
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