Their smash success brought a major profit increase for Chrysler, perennial last place finisher of the Big Three. Some of their designs included revivals of classic cars, like the 1966 Duesenberg, and designs for pleasure boats. Exner's, low-slung, bubble-topped space coupes boasted the longest, tallest fins yet. Chrysler designers appear to have been trying to one-up the 1959 Cadillac in flamboyance. In this super-heated consumerist environment, cars designs got wilder and wilder until America’s 1959 cars represented a peak of design for design’s sake.Ĭhrysler design chief Virgil Exner laid down the gauntlet with his radical new Forward Look 1957 Plymouths, Dodges, Chryslers and DeSotos. 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. It was a baroque flowering that burst like a super nova into 1959. It glowed like a brave new world.Īmerican car companies saw explosive growth as jet age car design progressed until finned space coupes glittering with chrome were speeding down America’s new interstate highway system. Just after World War II, a wave of optimism swept the country that won the war, gathering momentum towards the greatest explosion of consumerism ever, heated up by inventions like television, transistor radios, and stereo sound systems.
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