Great Mopar Designs
From its inception, Chrysler was engineering-led, and its multiple divisions (Plymouth, De Soto, Dodge, Imperial) were for many years satisfied to case its numerous technical advances — hydraulic four-wheel brakes and Hemi V-8 power to name just a few — in car bodies that were decidedly workaday. Chrysler’s strength was good solid engineering to advance the cause of the automobile, and to help it last longer than you might have thought worthwhile in those days of trading up every three years.
Traditionally, styling wasn’t part of Chrysler’s makeup. In an era of longer, lower, and wider, Mopars were styled so drivers could continue to wear their hats as they drove. Meanwhile, GM and Ford competed for the sexiest designs, and the best sales.
In the 1950s, once Chrysler finally figured out that styling really mattered, man, they went for it, pens a-blazin’ with up-to-the-moment creativity and stylistic flourishes that are seared into America’s collective memory. Some were design whimsy, but a couple of them changed the automotive industry for good.
This is not a story about the prettiest Mopars ever built. It’s about designs that opened eyes and shifted markets, and about style that would have long-lasting effects out there on the American road. It’s about success and failure, sometimes simultaneously.
AIRFLOW
Chrysler’s Director of Research, Carl Breer, envisioned an automobile as a harmonious whole: all parts of a car designed specifically for the goal of advancing driver and passenger comfort and efficiency. The oft-repeated story is that Breer was driving home one night when he caught sight of a flock of geese overhead; further investigation revealed that it was, in fact, an Army Air Corps squadron on maneuvers. This set Breer wondering why aircraft had been evolving at such a rapid pace, when cars were not so radically changed from a decade before.
Passenger comfort was foremost on Breer’s mind, and all else had to be made to fit. His years of aerodynamic experiments yielded the ultimate shape: a teardrop. Thoughts of a
