(EXPANDED FROM 3/19/2021)
Virgil Exner was a champion of neo-classical styling throughout his career. His best designs were arguably a handful of 1950s Chrysler show cars but his most influential work didn’t come until later.
At the top of the list may well be a 1966 Duesenberg prototype, which inspired the 1968 Lincoln Continental Mark III, according to Exner biographer Peter Grist (2007). Another influential design was the Stutz Blackhawk, which took the brougham look of the 1970s to a rather baroque extreme (go here for further discussion of both cars).
All that said, the Exner neo-classical design that achieved the highest production was the 1961-63 Imperial. More than 40,000 units left the factory.
1961 Imperial: Trying to out-bold the 1959 Cadillac
The 1961 Imperial holds a special place in Indie Auto’s heart because of its sheer excess (go here for details). Our reaction is apparently not unusual. For example, Richard M. Langworth and Jan P. Norbye declared the Imperial’s styling “awful” — especially in comparison to the 1961 Lincoln Continental, which they described as “elegant, tastefully conservative, and today hailed as a modern design landmark” (1985, p. 184).
A facelift for 1961 gave the Imperial many of Exner’s neo-classical design trademarks, such as a radiator-style grille, free-standing headlamps and taillights, and what may very well be the most bombastic tail fins of that era.
Chrysler designers appear to have been trying to one-up the 1959 Cadillac in flamboyance. Meanwhile, the Imperial actually came off as a bit less unwieldy than the 1959 Lincoln.
In a road test of American luxury cars, Motor Trend magazine described the Imperial as the “last disciple of big, bold luxury” (1961, p. 76). The article went on to note a central paradox of the car: It was larger than the Cadillac or Lincoln but had superior handling.
That paradoxical quality was carried over to the Imperial’s new-for-1961 dashboard. Although it had the most outrageously sci-fi styling in the luxury car field, the instrument cluster also had an unusually complete array of gauges.
If there were any justice in the world, the 1961 Imperial should have been the new Continental. After all, the Imperial’s more athletic underpinnings would have been a much better match with the Lincoln’s smaller size. Alas, Chrysler management inaccurately assumed that gaining pedigree in the luxury car field required making the biggest and gaudiest car of all.
Also see ‘Chrysler brand looked the least weird of automaker’s 1961 line’
Imperial output for 1961 fell almost 31 percent to under 13,000 units, which was its worst performance since 1956. A recession didn’t help, but the Imperial also saw its share of the luxury car field slide to 7 percent. That was 1.6 percent lower than the previous year and almost as low as the market share for 1955-56 models, which didn’t have a unique body.
Could it be that the Imperial’s sci-fi styling looked too excessive compared to the competition? For 1961 the Cadillac’s sheetmetal was toned down and the Lincoln Continental was the epitome of understatement.
1962: Fins were shaved but outboard taillights stayed
For 1962 fins mostly disappeared from American cars. Thus, it is not surprising that the Imperial’s fins were completely shaved off. However, the outboard taillights were held over — this time perched atop the rear fenders as they were in 1955-56.
The new taillights proved to be a better match with the still-outboard headlights, but the overall look was getting rather dated compared to the more angular and creased 1962 Cadillac (go here for further discussion).
The Imperial was positively huge, with a length of 227 inches and a curb weight that surpassed 4,800 pounds. Even so, entering the rear seat required a surprising amount of contortions. That’s because the C-pillar jutted unusually far forward for a four-door body style. Shown below is the top-of-line LeBaron, which had a landau-style roofline.
The lower-rent Imperial models had wrap-around rear windows with a character line that curved into the roofline. This served to accentuate the curved side glass, which in 1962 was still relatively rare.
Oddly enough, the 1961-63 Lincoln Continental and Ford Thunderbird had curved glass but they lost it in 1964 — just as the rest of the auto industry was rapidly embracing this feature.
Imperial production improved slightly in 1962 but market share held steady at 7 percent of the luxury car field. Meanwhile, Cadillac’s market share was a whopping 78 percent.
1963 Imperial: Rear looked more normal but not front
For 1963 the taillights were integrated into the rear fenders but free-standing headlamps remained. That gave the car a disjointed appearance. Presumably management didn’t want to spend money on a more normal-looking front end that would be in production only one year. A major redesign was planned for 1964 — and Exner would not be overseeing it. He was canned.
The Imperial could have been given a facelift for 1963 with the idea of a complete redesign in 1965 that placed the car on Chrysler’s new unit-body platform. The corporation’s new executive team may have wanted a new look a year earlier because the Imperial was not selling all that well.
Or perhaps the bigger motivation was to extend the life of the Imperial’s body-on-frame platform by giving it a reskinning in 1964. When the platform was finally replaced in 1967 it had been in production a decade — an unusually long time for a postwar Big Three passenger car. Even the 1961 Lincoln Continental’s unusually slow-changing body was kept around for only nine years.
Also see ‘1964 Imperial could have been a better Lincoln Continental’
For 1963 the LeBaron’s roofline was carried over but the rest of the line received a new hardtop that had a more squared-off look shared by two- and four-door models. The new greenhouse was the handiwork of Elwood Engel. Langworth noted that Chrysler’s new head designer “always resisted roundness at the expense of angles (1993, p. 163).
Imperial marketing materials tended to avoid showing how big of a cave was carved out of the Imperial’s front end to allow its headlights to float proud and free. So for the record, here it is. This Imperial is one of the vehicles on display at the LeMay Collections at Marymount in Tacoma, Washington.
To cleanse your palate, here is a more flattering view of the Imperial’s front end — and the upstanding people who chose only the finest in American automobiles.
The 1962 Imperial’s output and market share declined only slightly despite Cadillac getting a major reskinning that took a step toward adopting the cleaner look of the little-changed Lincoln Continental.
Even Exner’s biographer thought Imperial went too far
Grist’s sympathetic narrative acknowledged that the Imperial’s neo-classic styling was “lost on the leviathan car” (2007, p. 116). However, he suggested that Exner had at least some plausible deniability for the sheer excessiveness of the overall styling for 1961 models. During the time they were under development, Exner was on medical leave and Cliff Voss was Chrysler Corporation’s acting chief stylist. Even so, Grist did not give Exner a get-out-of-jail-free card on the Imperial:
“Although Cliff was undoubtedly responsible for some of the more bizarre aspects of the (Chrysler Corporation’s) 1961 cars, Ex must take some responsibility. Cliff was in constant contact with Ex while he was recuperating from his heart attack, and although Cliff had his own thoughts on how cars should look, Ex’s influence was great. It is hard to imagine anyone but Virgil Exner creating the Imperial head and tail lamps.” (2007, pp. 117-118)
Amazingly, someone else has since stepped forward to admit — unapologetically — to their involvement with the 1961 Imperial. Fred Hudson said that he came up with the basic design in 1958, when he was the chief stylist of Imperial exteriors. Below is a sketch that suggests that a goodly proportion of his ideas made it into production.
Hudson discussed his experience working on the Imperial in a fascinating interview filmed shortly before his death. You can view the film here and read our take on Hudson’s eclectic automotive design career here.
Exner clearly had kindred spirits at the Chrysler Corporation — and the rest of the U.S. auto industry. So even though he was pushed out of Chrysler, his neo-classical design sensibility was at least partly legitimized over the next decade by the popularity of the brougham look.
NOTES:
This story was first posted Sept. 1, 2018, expanded on March 19, 2021 and Nov. 22, 2023. Production data and specifications are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Gunnell (2002) and Automobile Catalog (2021).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Automobile Catalog; 2021. “Search Automobile Catalog.” Accessed March 17.
- Grist, Peter; 2007. Virgil Exner, Visioneer. Veloce Publishing, Dorchester, England.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1993. Chrysler & Imperial 1946-1985: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks, Minneapolis, MN.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1985. The Complete History of Chrysler Corporation 1924-1985. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Motor Trend; 1961. “Testing the luxury cars.” April issue: pp. 74-83. Posted at imperialclub.com.
- Pillsbury, Whitney; 2011. Hudson: By Land and By Sea. Chris-Craft Commander. Posted on YouTube Jan. 7.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Cadillac (1959, 1961, 1962); Chrysler Falcon (1955); Imperial (1961, 1962, 1963); Lincoln (1959, 1961)
Here’s the thing: In 1959, when the Imperial and the 1961 models were in design, Exner and his team were looking at the 1958 Lincolns and 1958 Cadillacs. With the Valiant styling locked-in, and Exner looking at the horizontal blade style front-end as the next big thing, the 1961 Imperial front-end took flight. (It is strange that it was the Valiant that launched the the style-trend in 1960.) I think the big reason the 1961 Imperial made it into production was the corporate turmoil between Chairman L.L. “Tex” Colbert and his hand-picked successor, William Newburg. I imagine the divisional heads were just trying to keep out of firing range, which is why the strange styling quirks on the Plymouths, Dodges, the unfortunate 1961 DeSoto and the Imperial, While executives have often screwed up styling, the divisional managers at Ford and G.M. in the 1960s rarely messed up a good design. The best reason for not abandoning the 1961-’62-’63 Imperial front end was to not hurt the 1963-1964 Chrysler with the horizonal blade fenders.
“Eclectic” styling on high-end luxury cars is still with us… Lex-mess and May-bucks, for example, proving once again that money can’t always buy good taste or good design.
Yup. At least in the case of Lexus styling, I suspect that we can at least indirectly credit Clotaire Rapaille (go here for further discussion). He deserves a story because his basic approach has done so much damage to automotive design in recent years.
As for Mercedes, I sometimes wonder what the brand’s cars would look like if they had maintained their Germanic design tradition. The globalization of automobile design hasn’t been a net plus in my book.