When writing about the 1953-54 Plymouth, I wondered whether there could have been a compromise between the practicality of Chrysler head K. T. Keller and the trendiness of his successor, Tex Colbert. Let’s apply that question to the 1957-58 Plymouth.
Even more so than other Chrysler brands, the second-wave “Forward Look” Plymouth was the antithesis of Keller’s utilitarian early-50s designs. The new-for-1957 models were 17 inches longer, eight inches lower, four inches wider and around 250 pounds heavier than their 1953 counterparts.
The 1957 Chrysler Corporation cars had a big influence on the size and styling of subsequent designs from General Motors, but quality issues helped to torpedo initial sales gains. Click on ad to enlarge (Old Car Advertisements).
With a certain amount of justification Plymouth unveiled its 1957 models with the slogan, “Suddenly, it’s 1960!” Here was the pinnacle of Plymouth’s late-50s effort to make bigger, glitzier, more powerful cars than its Detroit rivals. Even Chevrolet’s restyled 1958 Impala looked old hat in comparison. And unlike Plymouths in succeeding years, the 1957-58 models had relatively clean and attractive lines.
Chrysler gets the attention of General Motors
The 1957 Chryslers were a wake-up call for General Motors, whose market share had risen to 52 percent in 1955 partly by being the industry’s style leader.
GM head stylist William Mitchell acknowledged in an oral history, “We got panicked by Chrysler and made crazy things, and wings, and everything” that he was “ashamed to look at” (Crippen, 1987).
In 1959 General Motors tried to one-up the 1957-58 Plymouth with a new, low-slung body for the Chevrolet that also sported some of the weirdest tail fins of that era (Automotive History Preservation Society).
Plymouth’s new look helped the brand regain third place from Buick and generate the second-highest output of its entire lifespan: 762,000 units.
Alas, the 1957 models didn’t quite hit a home run. Plymouth’s share of the low-priced market was only 18.6 percent. This was less than one point higher than for 1955 and slightly lower than the supposedly bad old days of 1953. Why? Sales may have been dampened after the public became aware of quality-control issues resulting from the new design being rushed into production one year early. Peter Grist (2007) stated that this was over the objections of chief stylist Virgil Exner.
The Plymouth “received the most criticism,” Grist reported. “Poor fit and finish, along with under-engineered parts, caused leaks, creaks and mechanical failure. A new sound was heard on the highways of America, the sharp retort of a snapping torsion-bar” (2007, p. 96).
The promise of the ‘Forward Look’ comes crashing
In 1958 a mildly changed Plymouth didn’t do as badly as one might expect during a recession. Output fell almost 39 percent. However, that was a few points less than the Ford brand and six less than Chrysler as a whole.
The rooster came home to roost in 1959, when Plymouth’s share of the low-priced field plunged to less than 12 percent — a postwar low. Output fell below 1954, which historians tend to talk about in cataclysmic terms (go here for further discussion).
The top-of-line family car series for 1958 was the Belvedere (top image). It was distinguished from cheaper models by a sweepspear and oddly sculpted “cow-catcher” bumpers (Old Car Brochures).
Chrysler’s attempt to outdo the Big Two failed. Ford likely lost more money on the ill-fated Edsel and 1958-60 Lincoln. However, at least Ford gained six points of market share between 1950 and 1959. This was almost identical to what Chrysler lost over the same period.
Chrysler’s market share fell more than independents
The independents are often pointed to as the biggest losers of the 1950s, but it was actually Chrysler. Although the number of independent passenger-car producers fell from six to two, they ended up with 9.4 percent of the market in 1959. This was only a 1.1 percent drop from 1950.
Colbert couldn’t blame Chrysler’s decline on a lack of resources. Early on he took out a $250 million loan. This was roughly five times larger than what Studebaker-Packard attempted — and failed — to secure in 1956 (Langworth and Norbye, 1985; Hamlin, 2002).
The 1957-58 Plymouth was hardly the biggest example of the “Dinosaur in the Driveway.” That was the derisive term used by American Motors’ head George Romney (Hyde, 2009; p. 186). Nevertheless, by 1958 soaring sales of imported cars and the compact Rambler made clear that the Big Three had gone too far in emphasizing glitz over practicality.
Plymouth took a beating in the late-50s and early-60s. Although production figures can vary among auto histories, the general pattern is clear: Chrysler’s best-selling brand didn’t begin to get its mojo back until 1963-64, when Plymouth didn’t offer a “standard-sized” car. Hmmm.
Why not a more efficient standard-sized car?
In the early-60s the Big Three responded to the rise of the imports by keeping their standard-sized cars big while coming out with compacts. An alternative option would have been to downsize their big cars. Chrysler did so in 1962, but sales were initially so weak that this strategy was discredited until the late-70s. I have argued (go here) that the problem with the 1962 Plymouth wasn’t its smaller size but weird styling and weak marketing.
As a mental exercise, let’s imagine what a 1957-58 Plymouth would have looked like if it combined Exner’s styling with a smaller size. The photoshopped image below preserved the Plymouth’s basic look but the car’s length was cut by roughly 12 inches. The wheelbase and width were reduced by four inches.
This fake Plymouth (bottom image) is only slightly longer and wider than the 1953 model. Click on images to enlarge; base photograph courtesy of Old Car Brochures.
The fake Plymouth would not have had as much interior room and trunk space as its standard-sized competitors, but the gap could have been reduced through more efficient design.
The 1957 Plymouth’s body had plenty of fat to cut
For example, in the late-50s each of the Big Three stretched the widths of their cars to roughly 80 inches. Even so, that didn’t translate into all that much extra shoulder and hip room because the doors were thicker. The photoshop below takes a different tack.
Four inches of width were photoshopped out of the real Fury’s fenders (bottom image). One can barely tell that the car is narrower except for the “wide-track” stance. Click on image to enlarge; base photograph courtesy of Old Car Brochures.
One goal of this exercise is to show that it wouldn’t have taken much effort to prune the big cars of the late-50s. Another goal is to show that a more efficient size wouldn’t have required a Rambler-like dowdiness.
I would argue that the fake Plymouth looks better than the real one. The excessive qualities of Exner’s design have been toned down, such as the overly tall fins and ungainly bumper tips. The car looks taunt rather than overdone.
Would a smaller Plymouth have been successful? It’s hard to say how the public might have responded in 1957, when big and glitzy still sold fairly well. In contrast, 1958-59 could have been an ideal time for a smaller standard car. The zeitgeist was changing.
How would the Plymouth have fit into Chrysler’s line?
Perhaps the most difficult question would have been how the fake Plymouth could have achieved adequate economies of scale by sharing body parts — but without hurting the sales of Chrysler’s higher-priced brands.
Chrysler’s ambitious 1957 lineup of new models. Click to enlarge ad (Old Car Advertisements).
The automaker could have continued its practice of using one platform for all of its brands. As usual, the Plymouth would have been on a shorter wheelbase, which would have required unique greenhouse sheetmetal for some body styles. The biggest question would have been whether other Chrysler brands would share the Plymouth’s unusually thin doors.
If Chrysler had been afraid to go too far upmarket with a narrow body, it could have used a two-pronged approach. All brands could have shared the same inner-door frames, but Plymouth and DeSoto might have used thinner outer-door panels. Meanwhile, Dodge, Chrysler and Imperial could have been given thicker doors.
Why downsize the DeSoto rather than Dodge? Because the DeSoto was redundant. If the brand was going to survive it needed a new reason for being. As a case in point, a two-door model with a longer hood and shorter deck could have resulted in an attractive sporty coupe — and a competitor to the wildly successful four-place Ford Thunderbird.
For 1959 the “mid-sized” Ford Thunderbird outsold DeSoto and almost beat the Chrysler brand (go here for further discussion). Click on ad to enlarge (Automotive History Preservation Society).
This platform strategy would have been more expensive than if all Chryslers shared outer door sheetmetal. However, the extra costs might have been offset by not giving Imperial its own body in 1957.
Perhaps even more importantly, Chrysler could have avoided the considerable cost of developing a distinct platform for its compact cars. A shortened version of the fake Plymouth might have sufficed. This strategy would have been similar to that used by Ford with its 1966-70 Falcon, which was put on a shortened mid-sized platform but priced similarly to other compacts.
If this sounds silly to you, how else to beat Rambler?
A downsized Plymouth had no hope of happening under Colbert prior to the 1958 recession. Up until that point he was too insistent on erasing every last vestige of the Keller era.
That’s too bad, because making ever-bigger mansions of glory at the expense of quality and practicality ended up almost killing Chrysler. The ultimate indignity was that the Rambler edged Plymouth out of third place in 1961 (and by some accounts in 1960 as well).
For 1961 almost 242,000 Rambler Classics and Ambassadors were produced. This was meaningfully higher than full-sized Plymouth output, which fell to roughly 207,000 units (Automotive History Preservation Society).
Think about that for a moment. How could Rambler have outsold Plymouth when it had a weaker dealer network and a narrower range of products? Most remarkably, the Rambler line was based on some of the oldest — and stodgiest — bodies in the U.S. auto industry.
Given that context, I’d argue that Chrysler moved in the right direction when it downsized the big Plymouth in 1962. The automaker might have saved itself even more heartache by doing so in 1957 instead.
NOTES:
This is an expanded version of a story first posted February 20, 2017 and expanded Nov. 13, 2020. Market share for brands were calculated from figures listed in Wikipedia (2013). Market share and production figures for individual nameplates were calculated from base data from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006) and Gunnell (2002). All data is supposed to be for model rather than calendar years. In instances where data from one source appeared to be erroneous, data from other sources were substituted. I was not able to fully resolve the variance in brand production figures for 1959-61, so data should be viewed as approximate. Volkswagen sales figures are from Gunnell (2004). Dimensions are from the Classic Car Database (2016).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
Hamlin, George; 2002. “The Last of the Marque: The Fifty-Seventh and Fifty-Eight Series, 1957-1958.” In Kimes, Beverly Rae, ed., pp. 622-635. Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company.Automobile Quarterly Publications.
Indie Auto stories are occasionally linked to — and then debated — on other automotive history websites. A recent example is Curbside Classic, where a subthread discussed the 2004-to-present Chrysler 300C. This debate is a […]
(EXPANDED FROM 10/22/2021) One of the most pervasive myths in US automotive history is that a V8 engine became essential to an automaker’s success in the first half of the 1950s. This narrative is summed […]
Peter recently submitted a comment that took to task our article, “1958 Studebaker: Honesty is the best policy.” One part of his critique was that I “mis-quoted facts.” I strive to be accurate — particularly […]
9 Comments
“some of the weirdest tail fins of that era”? The batfin ’59 is a classic, & better looking by far than the ridiculous tall-finned Mopars & Caddys of the era.
In 1954 and 1955, down-sizing the Plymouth was a non-starter. The 1955-1956 Plymouths were the right size, in my opinion. The 1957 trimmed down as in the article is an interesting “what-if”. So is the down-sized DeSoto as the future “Cordoba”. As the future unfolded, the wheelbase of 115 to 116-inches is ideal. But the 1957 Plymouth on a shorter and narrower platform against the 118-inch wheelbase of the Ford Fairlane 500 probably would have suffered in the marketplace of late-1956-1957 !
What if Plymouth had kept the Belvedere, Savoy & Plaza smaller, pushing Plymouth into Rambler territory? Theoretically, this puts Dodge up against Chevy & Ford and gives DeSoto way more room in the medium-priced segment. A smaller “standard” Plymouth would, of necessity, have to result in a smaller Valiant, closer to the Corvair than the Falcon in size. Such a repositioning of Chrysler’s brands might still have resulted in DeSoto’s eventual termination but could also have allowed Plymouth to create their own domestically-designed and built Vega/Pinto competitor (which could potentially have been a much better car).
Or going a step further, having the Savoy and Plaza becoming what the Valiant wass the the Balvedere in Rambler territory. Then on the other side of the spectrum, Imperial is amalgated back to Chrysler and the Imperial is rechristened Chrysler New Yorker more earlier instead of 1976 leaving more space for DeSoto as well to survive a couple of additional years.
I also remember once a old story of Collectible Automobile about the low-price three of 1959 mentionning then Chrysler was also hit by strikes in 1959 and they amalgated briefly Plymouth division with DeSoto as “Plymouth-DeSoto division”. For strikes, there was one at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass who forced Chrysler to do more inhouse glass from what I saw at that old headline of the NY Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1959/04/01/archives/chrysler-will-make-about-half-of-glass-needs-in-detroit-plant.html
Maybe the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press might have old archived articles about this.
Steve, I like the fact that you are shaking up conventional wisdom on the ’57 Plymouths. Am not sure a more slab-sided appearance would deliver a satisfactory appearance, might look more like the large ’55 Nash in that the windshield would almost be as wide as the body.
A different approach would be to simply narrow the vehicle by 3-4 inches and leave the body curvature alone. Personally, I’d also leave the OAL alone too even though it would have been a bit longish. The fins are my biggest dissatisfier, too tall and splaying outward. Would replace them with subtle fins that continued the feature line that begins aft the coupe’s doors and extends to the beginning of the large fins.
Other decisions that might have helped Plymouth would have been to launch them in 1958 rather than 1957 to ensure quality, and keep them in production through 1961, replaced by the familiar unibody mid-large ’62 Plymouth, though on that car I would connect the fore and aft side flairs, get rid of the kick-up above the rear door sills, and maybe add nice integrated skirts.
“some of the weirdest tail fins of that era”? The batfin ’59 is a classic, & better looking by far than the ridiculous tall-finned Mopars & Caddys of the era.
In 1954 and 1955, down-sizing the Plymouth was a non-starter. The 1955-1956 Plymouths were the right size, in my opinion. The 1957 trimmed down as in the article is an interesting “what-if”. So is the down-sized DeSoto as the future “Cordoba”. As the future unfolded, the wheelbase of 115 to 116-inches is ideal. But the 1957 Plymouth on a shorter and narrower platform against the 118-inch wheelbase of the Ford Fairlane 500 probably would have suffered in the marketplace of late-1956-1957 !
What if Plymouth had kept the Belvedere, Savoy & Plaza smaller, pushing Plymouth into Rambler territory? Theoretically, this puts Dodge up against Chevy & Ford and gives DeSoto way more room in the medium-priced segment. A smaller “standard” Plymouth would, of necessity, have to result in a smaller Valiant, closer to the Corvair than the Falcon in size. Such a repositioning of Chrysler’s brands might still have resulted in DeSoto’s eventual termination but could also have allowed Plymouth to create their own domestically-designed and built Vega/Pinto competitor (which could potentially have been a much better car).
Or going a step further, having the Savoy and Plaza becoming what the Valiant wass the the Balvedere in Rambler territory. Then on the other side of the spectrum, Imperial is amalgated back to Chrysler and the Imperial is rechristened Chrysler New Yorker more earlier instead of 1976 leaving more space for DeSoto as well to survive a couple of additional years.
Hmm, sacrifice Imperial for Desoto… I’m sensing you might be a Desoto fan 🙂
What if the 1957 Tulsarama Plymouth had shrunk instead of rusted ? Then, it would have been, “Suddenly, It’s 1962 !”.
I also remember once a old story of Collectible Automobile about the low-price three of 1959 mentionning then Chrysler was also hit by strikes in 1959 and they amalgated briefly Plymouth division with DeSoto as “Plymouth-DeSoto division”. For strikes, there was one at the Pittsburgh Plate Glass who forced Chrysler to do more inhouse glass from what I saw at that old headline of the NY Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1959/04/01/archives/chrysler-will-make-about-half-of-glass-needs-in-detroit-plant.html
Maybe the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press might have old archived articles about this.
Steve, I like the fact that you are shaking up conventional wisdom on the ’57 Plymouths. Am not sure a more slab-sided appearance would deliver a satisfactory appearance, might look more like the large ’55 Nash in that the windshield would almost be as wide as the body.
A different approach would be to simply narrow the vehicle by 3-4 inches and leave the body curvature alone. Personally, I’d also leave the OAL alone too even though it would have been a bit longish. The fins are my biggest dissatisfier, too tall and splaying outward. Would replace them with subtle fins that continued the feature line that begins aft the coupe’s doors and extends to the beginning of the large fins.
Other decisions that might have helped Plymouth would have been to launch them in 1958 rather than 1957 to ensure quality, and keep them in production through 1961, replaced by the familiar unibody mid-large ’62 Plymouth, though on that car I would connect the fore and aft side flairs, get rid of the kick-up above the rear door sills, and maybe add nice integrated skirts.
Re: last comment, Dodge would share with Plymouth while Chrysler would use Imperial’s body. DeSoto I DuNoto.