1958 Imperial D'Elegance Concept Car: What Were They Thinking?

According to the article "Chrysler Idea Cars" in Special Interest Autos magazine's October-November 1972 issue, "Exner never liked 1958 Imperial D'Elegance pillarless fastback.  It had several different designers who never could agree on the overall look."

The quote was based on an interview, probably by Michael Lamm, of Virgil M. Exner, Chrysler Corporation's former VP of Design.

For some reason, the concept car's name was the same as that of a much more attractive 1953 Chrysler show car.  Unlike most Chrysler concept cars, the '58 D'Elegance was not drivable.

Also unlike some Chrysler show cars, it no longer exists.  And there are few photos of it.  Most of the known ones can be seen below.

Gallery

The front fenders terminate in what appears to be non-functional shapes.  Quad headlights (if they were ever installed) would be behind the doors directly below those sculptings.  This was in an era where Chrysler styling incorporated bold, sculpted shapes not strongly related to functional needs.  I wrote about some instances here.

Below the upper bumper segment is the grille.  Presumably a functioning vehicle would have an opening, but what we seem to be seeing here are only thin, horizontal chrome bars.  Perhaps this was harkening back to the 1942 Chrysler grille design.

The side character line might be interpreted as a variation of Buick's trademark Sweepspear.  D'Elegance's passenger compartment greenhouse is light, airy.  Note how low the basic body is.  But the greenhouse, because it's so airy, does not dominate, as might otherwise be the case.

In profile, the design is not attractive.  I think the main defects are: (1) the bumper-grille element does not transition well to the front wheel opening that itself is oddly shaped; (2) the windshield is not well integrated with the rest of the greenhouse; (3) the tail fin is bloated-looking;  and (4) the bulge below the fin also is too bloated.

Slender, smaller tailfins are in order.  And different tail lights, placed elsewhere, would be an improvement.  The fastback profile falls off so sharply that trunk space is drastically curtailed -- a production version would not have it this way.