The 1961 Plymouth is of course one of the more…unusual cars of its time, which was a pretty unusual time, actually. So that’s saying something. The fins were chopped, which is why Virgil Exner called them “plucked chickens”, for all-to obvious reasons. I see a lot of 1960 Corvair from this angle. Given that this was essentially a face lift and fin-ectomy, the timing seems about right.
It neither hurt nor helped, sales-wise. Unit sales were down some, but then it was a recession year. Market share was almost unchanged at 3.7%. The 1960 had been the disaster, with market share collapsing from 7.3% to 3.8%, thanks to a major styling miscalculation and the Dodge Dart, which boomed while the Plymouth busted.
I was just getting a bit warmed up from the rear view, and then this comes along: Pop! The 1958 Chevrolet’s rear end makes a return appearance, but on the front.
It’s all a bit muted on the wagon, which suffers some from having to use the sedan rear doors.
No wonder Chrysler management decided to pull the plug on big Plymouths and Dodges for 1962; it wasn’t really much of a risk, considering the stylistic dead end they backed themselves into, and the resulting feeble sales. A pretty pragmatic decision, actually, as big car market share had been dropping for years.
1961 Plymouth: Wearing a Lexus grill, before Lexus!
Exactly!
Another logical, pleasing and well-researched article from Paul with excellent supporting, vintage advertisements.
Keep ’em coming, Paul. I do enjoy your articles.
Imagine a time when executive egos weren’t so big that they hung onto any styling feature that inspired immediate criticism. Plymouth could try a radical look and see if the market responded. If it didn’t, then they tried another idea. None of this BMW-esque, “We’ll bring the buyers down to our flame-surfaced level with our mind-bending marketing,” or Acura’s, “Just watch us die on this guillotine hill!” “Nobody will even know we’re still around by the time we admit we were wrong!” Good times.
I’m not so sure that this car was a reflection of a willingness to take a risk as much as a reflection of chaos in the executive suite.
Styling was given a free hand when this car was developed because Lester “Tex” Colbert and then William Newberg were distracted by other matters (in particular, a nasty payola scandal involving suppliers and top executives).
Dealers were up in arms over the 1961 styling, and some would turn in their franchises on the spot when they saw the 1962 Dodges and Plymouths at the dealer previews.
Around the time that this car debuted, the Chrysler Board of Directors cleaned house in the executive suite and put Lynn Townsend in charge, and his first order was to get Chrysler styling back into the mainstream.
The other issue that hit the 61s was the low-level feuding between Bill Schmidt (who had been brought in when Exner was recovering from a heart attack and around the time Exner got promoted to a VP) and people loyal to Exner. The whole 61 program was a mess during this messy period in the Chrysler styling studios.
The 1962 S-Series of cars was Exner’s attempt to push out Schmidt and regain full control over styling. The “theme car” (a DeSoto) was completed in secret at Exner’s direction.
Message: Only cows can stand to look at it. (They probably hated it just as much as people did, but they couldn’t talk about it.)
Milk production went down when cows looked at it.
Chickens probably went off the lay as well. Doesn’t take much to do that…..
the one year wonder – and after that spectacular 1960, Dodge went fugly for 1961 and its sales collapsed
droooopy front and bizarre reverse fins, the 1961 Dodge was arguably worse than the Plymouth
Actually I felt the Dodge was nicer than the Plymouth. The Dodge’s front and rear actually looked coherent. Laying aside the gruesome grille, the Plymouth’s front fender bulge stopping at the doors looks weird, chrome strips or not, while the tacked on tail light pods also seem odd.
It’s like three different cars joined together. The Dodge’s design at least flows from front to rear; it’s more understandable, more conservative. But that’s relative! Neither design sat well alongside the competition.
I think the Dodge took by far the bigger collapse in sales
the Dodge front fenders are hideous, as is the droopy grill – as for the rear, it was so bad that people ordered extra added tail lights
the Dodge reverse fins have to be the worst fins on any major brand
ever
so I guess we disagree, but at least I have sales figures on my side
That first picture looks so much like the Ghia L6.4, which makes sense because of the common ancestry, but I hadn’t realized the resemblance before…
That’s what came to mind too. But the ’61 Plymouth rear end has the very clearly defined horizontal line that is very much Corvair-inspired, while the one year older Ghia doesn’t. It’s the key difference, along with the rear window, which was also considered for the still-born large ’62 cars before they were downsized.
It’s a shame the rear of the Plymouth didn’t come out looking more like this.
Yes ! that looks pretty .
-Nate
Exner might have derided them as plucked chickens, but so long as the photos stayed away from the bizarre front end, the ’61 Plymouth actually looked pretty good.
It’s too bad they had to go with the really strange treatment on the front. Sales might have picked up enough to keep from the crash downsizing of the ’62s. I might go so far as to suggest the ’61 Plymouth inspired what would become the 1965 Impala fastback. It’s just another one of those “what might have been” automotive history moments.
Just noticed, too, that the front line of the front wheel arch looks like someone ran into something and booped out the fender, especially on the wagon photo.
The ’62 Plymouth front end would have worked on this. Wonder if the design drawings were around in time to use on the ’61?
It could have been worse. One clay model for the 1961 Plymouth featured a single fin rising out of the middle of the deck lid!
By the early 1970s, these were old cars, but even then, I thought that early 1960s Mopars were downright strange, although fascinating. The GM and Ford cars from that era were obviously old, but seemed thoroughly conventional. But the 1960-62 Mopars looked like they came from another planet! And the weirdness carried over into the dashboards, including the dashboard-mounted rear-view mirrors on the full-size cars.
So true. As a kid the weirdness appealed to me. Only with hindsight do I realize how out of step they were.
Poor mugly thing. Art Fitzpatrick himself could not have painted that front end in such a way it would appear attractive.
Over at Cold War Motors on YouTube several derelict ’60 Chrysler products were welded together and the best bits preserved in an astonishing effort to keep an Exner Fury on the road. So much stainless! Definitely worth a long look.
These would really not be bad looking cars – but for that weird front end. I can’t decide – are those headlights strictly side-by-side and level or are they ever so slightly canted?
There is some truth to these ads – those Mopar Unibodies were very tight cars, with far stiffer structures than contemporary Chevys.
The decision to reduce the size of the Plymouth and Dodge for 1962 is what the whole industry should have done in their lower priced brands, but what good is a right answer when the competition and the buying public see things differently. Neither the short wheelbase Ford of 1957-58 nor the 62 B body Mopars set the sales world on fire.
The big question whose answer we’ll never know is how the downsized ’62 Plymouth and Dodge would have sold if they had more conventional styling. The ’63-’64s sold considerably better.
I reaize that I am (once again) in the minority on this one; but I still like the ’62 Fury/Belvedere inside and outside.
Classy in black enamel.
That colour scheme is just classic, and would make just about anything look good! 🙂
+1. Love this car.
I agree
they are handsome
loved them in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World”
long hood, short deck before the rest
If I recall correctly, from looking at these cars up close (at least one 1961 Plymouth will show up at the Chryslers at Carlisle show), the headlights are slightly canted.
Sales of the 1963 and 1964 Dodges and Plymouths improved greatly, thanks to more conventional – and much cleaner – styling. The problem with keeping the downsized Plymouth and Dodge as each marque’s “full-size” offering through the rest of the 1960s was that Dodge dealers, in particular, demanded a true full-size car to sell. Chrysler-Plymouth dealers at least had the Chrysler Newport.
The irony is that when the all-new 1965 C-bodies debuted, the Plymouth version sold well, but the Dodge version failed to gain much traction!
The 1964 Dodge Custom 880 was probably the most conventionally sized and styled car in the Chrysler lineup in 1964 (excepting the Imperial, of course) and it didn’t sell all that well during its 1962-64 life.
The Chrysler big car program(s) (which was their bread and butter) was truly a train wreck in the 1960-64 period.
It started with the 1960 compacts. Ford seemingly had a hit with the Falcon except the majority of the Falcon’s big sales numbers were cannibalization from Ford’s more profitable big cars, and it continued with the 1962 intermediate Fairlane. It was a case of winning the battle but losing the war.
GM got it right with the radical Corvair. Few, if any, Corvair sales were from their big cars. But they had to take on Ford eventually, so the Chevy II followed in 1962, then the Chevelle for 1964.
That leaves Chrysler with their solid, but goofy, Valiant trying to figure out a way to get some of those smaller car conquest sales. If they’d had the resources, the proper thing to do would have been to follow both Ford and GM with intermediates much sooner than 1965 when they came back with proper big cars and relegated their downsized full-size cars to the intermediate class, and making the switch to a legitimate, complete Big 3 model line-up in 1966.
Even then, Chrysler might have had a hit (maybe a big one) if only they’d have downsized the 1962 cars properly. But the half-assed way they went about it by aping the styling of the 1960 Valiant virtually guaranteed failure.
In short, Chrysler’s early sixties big-car program wasn’t technically wrong; they just executed it very badly.
I guess one factor who didn’t helped the Dodge C-body for 1965 was the revival of the Coronet nameplate for the 1964 “full-size” who had been morphed into an intermediate/mid-side. I wonder what if Dodge called the C-body Coronet while it let the Polara soldiering on the B-body?
Calling the 1964 Dodge a C-body would be confusing. The 1965 Fury was referred to as a C body and thus the Dodge was as well. Both the Belvedere and Coronet were B body cars.
the lights are canted,bit of a ticked off 59 Buick look. i apways liked the front with the bumper bar here’s a pic of my ’61 FURY cvt, its disintigrasting but the colors are more out of this world
don’t know if this will work, trying to sejd article i did for Plymou5ty Bulletin
I think Plymouth was aping the 1960 Buick front
If you take away the ugly chrome snakes above the headlights in front and straighten out the headlights you can see hints of what became the 63-4 Chrysler front end. Which actually started out as the 1962 S-series Imperial front end, before that entire line of cars got axed.
Aside from the ugly front end (which looks like a monster from a cheap black-n-white monster movie) the rest of the car is fairly clean. So much better to my eyes than the awkward and bizarre 1961 Dodge Dart.
The other slightly odd thing is out back where there was nothing in that big cove except for an optional backup light that wasn’t on the same plane as the taillight pod. It occurs to me that the 61 picked up a design theme from the 59 (but without the fins) and that a horizontal taillight arrangement (even one that incorporated the outboard pod) might have worked better.
You likely know me as a ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ MOPAR guy, BUT, the 1960 and then the 1961 Plymouth convinced me I needed a break from the Dealership! I hatet those cars looks!
I joined the US MARINE Corps. That was a great experience in many ways, particularly the opportunity to attend my first Daytona 500 in ‘64 to witness the fantastic 500 win by Richard Petty in his 1964 Plymouth Belvedere with the MIGHTY 426 HEMI.
CC effect at work, this model popped up on my Facebook feed just yesterday.
The look of these cars is growing on me. For years, I thought these cars, especially the front seemed akin to abstract sculpture, bizarre, dramatic, unusual forms and shapes not related to the function of an object at all.
However, I find it visually entertaining today. Our roads today are full of unpleasant angry robot -themed overstyled and overwrought vehicles, so my tolerance for the unusual has increased . This Plymouth seems less bizarre these days and more whimsical.
That top photo ad is the first time that I ever considered this model to have any redeeming stylistic qualities. I think that it looked better than my Dad’s ’61 Dodge Seneca. Especially from the rear three quarters view. The tacked on tail lamp pods are pure Exner. A comparison of the front ends is a toss up, but I’d prefer the Plymouth. I’d give the styling crown to the ’61 Pontiac bubble tops.
I love ’61 Mopar’s. They are strange but oh so cool. Back in 1966 my dad drove a ’61 Chevy Belair two-door sedan. Our next door neighbor drove a ’61 Fury two-door hardtop. I was six year’s old and in love with that car. I remember one day the neighbor was in a hurry, fired up the 383 and left 20 feet of rubber down the street. Say what you want, but that Fury left me with great memories. My dad’s Chevy looked old in my opinion. The Fury was a spaceship in my eyes.
Solid maybe, but beauty? Not to my eyes.
And no CC-in-scale for this one. 🙂 Some kits get reissued many times over the years, others not even once. Johan had a USA Oldies series back in the seventies, where they reissued a selection of their old sixties kits – including the ’60 and ’62 Plymouths. But not this one.
The big question is how the downsized
Plymouth and Dodge would have sold if
they had more conventional styling.
The bigger question is how would the S- series cars have sold with more conventional styling. My guess is very well. The S-series cars- especially the Desoto “theme” car- were quite striking. See the convertible. These full-sized models carried off the radical Exner themes with greater aplomb than the shrunken ’62 Plymouth and Dodge. Had their styling proved to be too radical for the public, a more conventionally styled S- series car-with its better proportions- would have sold very well indeed.
I cannot unsee the 58 Chevy rear on the back!
I think the 61 Plymouth’s are attractive overall, the plucked chicken quote applies more so to the Chrysler body IMO, where the Plymouths fins in 60 were too big and awkward looking. By comparison the 61 Plymouth’s rear end is more thorough and modernized in the vein of the 61 Corvette rear end.
Agreed. The ’61 and later Plymouths, along with the ’62 Dodges, don’t have anything in the quarter panels that really resemble fins, but the ’62 Chrysler sure looks like they had fins that were shaved down and with the rounded taillights, do, indeed, look like the rump of a chicken that had its tail feathers removed.
I would be willing to bet it was specifically the ’62 Chrysler to which Exner was referring with his ‘plucked chicken’ remark, and not of any other Mopars.
I would be willing to bet it was specifically the ’62 Chrysler to which Exner was referring with his ‘plucked chicken’ remark, and not of any other Mopars.
His son Virgil Jr. is the the source of that “plucked chicken” quote. What’s your source?
And of course it makes sense; Exner loved fins, which he had referred to as comparable to the beautiful plumage on roosters. They were “plucked” in 1961.
The ’62s were never originally conceived to have fins, or rooster tails. Nothing to pluck there.
Virgil Exner, Jr. is quoted in Richard Langworth’s “Chrysler and Imperial: The Postwar Years” as saying: “He always referred to them [the 1962 Chryslers] as the picked chickens because somebody got the wild ass idea up there to make them low in cost. He had a beautiful line designed for ’62 but they were cut. He was done out of that series, so he went back and started to develop his next big phase, the short deck-long hood idea mentioned to the press, like the 1962 Dodge.”
Yes, in this version it’s “picked” chickens, and as a money saver? None of it makes much sense. Having read this and Exner, Jrs. oral history given to the Henry Ford museum, I would take his stories with several grains of salt.
and as a money saver? None of it makes much sense.
That was precisely one of two key reasons why the ’62s were downsized. Full story here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/automotive-design-history-1962-plymouth-dodge-brilliant-blunder-or-suddenly-its-1977/
There were many motivations 1961 Plymouth wild styling but it might have been as simple as “Chevy did it for 1959, Ford followed for 1960, we’d better get on board as soon as we can!” The 1960 Plymouth styling certainly was largely frozen when the 1959 Chevy appeared, so 1961 was their first chance to truly join in the flamboyant styling trend.
Oh, the memories of the 61 Plymouth wagon, better know in our family as “the Queen Mary”. The only thing power on this land yacht was the rear window. With the Y block 318 and drum brakes, the only way to stop it was to hit the dock. I had the “pleasure” of driving it to school, while other kids were driving their dads Charger. The only things cool about it was the push button transmission and the rear facing 3rd seat. The rear view mirror mounted on the dash was an eyesore and the mirror on the left fender was just stupid! Someone had to adjust it for you. What were they thinking? All in all though, it did what it was intended for, it hauled the 8 of us around in one car, and on the way home from our grandmas house with pockets loaded with candy, the smart ones jumped into the “way” back seat so dad couldn’t hear the candy wrappers opening up. But mom could……