Given the typical three or four year development time to get to be a new body design into production, Exner's styling staff was truly in crash-project mode to redesign in time for body-engineering and productionizing of cars for arrival in 1955. Fortunately, the new designs were successful in terms of sales as well as aesthetics.
Chrysler's entry-level Plymouths and Dodges shared one basic body (as they did for 1953-54), while DeSoto, Chrysler and Imperial received a different one. Exner took charge of the latter, while Henry King led the group working on the former. But, as noted below, there might have been some tooling shared by all five brands.
In those days, American carmakers with more than one brand in their portfolios shared basic bodies over at least two brands for reasons of economy -- spreading tooling costs over larger production runs. Usually, brand differentiation was in the form of different front-end clips, especially differing grille designs. At the rear, tail lights normally differed. But the 1950s saw a trends towards more serious sheet metal and body framing differences. For example, 1953 Dodges and Plymouths had differing C-pilars, whereas DeSoto's and Chryslers did not.
Due to the crash-project timeline, the '55 Chrysler Corporation cars had little in the way of basic mid-body differences. Brand identifiers seen on side views were in the form of chrome trim and paint schemes.
Below are side views of 1955 four-door sedans. I selected models with minimal trim so as to help reveal the basic sheet metal. Cars are displayed in descending brand prestige order.
Imperial was a new brand for 1955. Previously, the name Imperial was given to the largest, most luxurious models of the Chrysler brand. The '55 Imperials were nice-looking cars, though some observers didn't like the tail lights atop the rear fenders. Chrysler Corporation panoramic windshields had a relatively normal appearance due to the backward-slant of the A-pillar.
Fender designs were taken from the 1952 Chrysler Imperial Parade Phaetons that I mentioned here. Basic differences from the Imperial are few, but include less-rounded wheel openings and details at the aft of the rear fender.
Nearly the same as the Chrysler aside from the tail lights. The three cars shown here have differing mid-level side trim, but that trim is found at the same general location on each design.
Now for the other basic body. Although this design looks different at first gone...and even beyond... the greenhouse window framing and front door cutlines appear almost the same. So there might have been some shared tooling. Unlike the sculpted fenders shown above, the fenderline here is simple, and sculpting minimal.
Headlight areas of front fenders differ, unlike the similarities seen in the first three images above. Rear side doors differ due to wheelbase differences, though wheel openings seem the same. Again, side chrome trim positioning is consistent for both brands.
1 comment:
They all have the same windshield and no doubt firewall and all the stuff that is a part of or attached to it, saving a lot of money. No doubt lots of other body bits like door internals and floor pans (only different lenghts) etc. and of course most of the mechanicals. Not as complicated as GM's insane mixing and matching of everything on three different bodies at the time.
The different fenders and their rounded open wheel openings for the Imperial unfortunately only lasted the one year.
Post a Comment