1950 Plymouth XX-500 Concept Car's Inspiration

Chrysler Corporation's first postwar "concept car" was the Plymouth XX-500 of 1950 that wasn't actually a true Concept Car.  I wrote about it here in 2015.

I put the term "concept car" in quotation marks because the design was never an attempt to test styling features for future production consideration.  Instead, its main purpose was the evaluation of the assembly skill of its Italian coachbuilder -- Carrozzieria Ghia.

Also evaluated at the same time was Pinin Farina, whose work was judged marginally less excellent than Ghia's.  As David Holls and Michael Lamm explain in their essential book "A Century of Automotive Style," page 192:

"Both coachbuilders received chassis through Chrysler's overseas branch, and both fabricated sample bodies on them.  [Chrysler chairman] Keller didn't care what the designs looked like, but he wanted [Virgil] Exner to compare Ghia's and Pinin Farina's craftsmanship and standards of quality."

Based on what I've read on the internet and publications in my library, Chrysler supposedly included a body design along with those chassis, and Ghia opted to ignore it and build a body of its own design.  Another possibility is that both firms used in-house designs.  Unless there exists documentation in an old Chrysler Corporation archive, this matter probably will never be resolved, because the relevant events are now more than 75 years old.

Today's post presents images of the XX-500 along with a few of Ghia's 1949 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Sport Berlina designed by Giovanni Michelotti, who worked at Ghia at that time.  As images below indicate, the Alfa Romeo design abaft of the cowling/A-pillar was directly borrowed for the XX-500.

Gallery

Front quarter view of the Plymouth XX-500 that was first displayed at the March 1951 Chicago Auto Show.  Photos below show the car in a lighter paint scheme,  The above image might have been taken in Italy and the car repainted in Detroit.

Rear quarter view.

The Alfa Romeo Sport Berlina.

Another view.  Compare to the XX-500 shown below.

As noted, from the windshield aft, the design is essentially the same as that of the Alfa Romeo.  The passenger compartments and windows are almost the same.  The wheel openings are circular in both cases.  Door handle positions appear to be identical or nearly so.  The only difference is that the XX-500's front end is shorter and features a different grille, bumper and headlight ensemble.  Compare the distance from the front door's forward cutline to the front wheel opening.  Since Ghia already had experience with most of the design, it doesn't surprise me that build quality was better than that of Pinin Farina's who was building a new body design.  No wonder Ghia opted to ignore a possible Chrysler design.  If that actually happened, it won the firm many years of work for Chrysler.