UGLY(??) Chrysler Corp cars of the 50's and 60's

[TxGTX]

Not sure if this has been posted in the past or not, but interesting take and criticisms on various models of Chrysler's Imperial, Dodge and Plymouths of the time period.

 

[toolmanmike]

Those are cool.

 

[Backrd.Junkyard]

My Dad and I have wondered for years if Exner had been part of the army’s lsd experiments in 1959. Turns out that some people you just don’t want to piss off at you! Just very egocentric when it came to his art.

 

[rumblefish360]

I think some of the styles are really weird and some just simply butt *** ugly. It’s all good. Todays cars may fall under the same video in 60 or 70 years from now.

I’ll just laugh at it. “You don’t like my ‘18 Ram? It’s butt ugly? OK cool…. Whatever…. My Duster looks like a freak show? Excellent! Thank you…. My Magnum looks like it went through “How to be a Pimp school?” Outstanding! Thanks, ya wanna girl for an example 10 minutes cheap?

What was is not now and now isn’t tomorrows cool.
Everybody’s got an opinion just like the wind from there backside.

 

[Darter6]

So ugly that they look good is what I say.

 

[super-bee_ski]

I have 3 1963s...
B-bodies
Nothing restored....

 

[slimt]

To be honest. I think between Dodge, Plymouth, Chrysler and KF via the Dragon, Henry J and Willys. They had the most bizarre body styles. Most far ahead of there times.

looking at todays crap from yesterdays. Yesterdays had a vision. That we all look back too.

 

[33 IMP]

I tell everybody that my 62 is the second-ugliest car ever built. Any 61 Mopar (possible exception, the Imperiall) was worse.
Of course, I've had my savoy for thirty years, and I love it. They grow on you. (Like fungus).

 

[Backrd.Junkyard]

I've always like the '62 Plymouth savoy and belvedere myself. So ugly they're pretty. We jokingly say we're going to get a '62 Savoy four door and paint it candy crab apple green and put a bundle of snakes wrap on the roof. Followed by blue/white LED lights in the headlight rings and name it Medusa. So ugly that it would turn other cars to stone...

 

[RT6PK]

Here is my '61. It was a 24,000 mile original when I got it in the late 90s. Ran and drove like new. Really goofy *** styling. There was not one single line that flowed smoothly into the next.

 

[GetX'd]

I don’t know if anyone has a pic of the beautiful Dodge Pioneer - wagon. Circa 60”s. My dad bought one new back then and we were stuck with that eyesore for over 10 years. No carpet, no a/c, no radio. We lived in Minnesota and I truly swear that he would have bought one w/o a heater if they sold them that way. As proof I offer the fact that any of the few times we were allowed to drive his cars we were not allowed to use the heater - and later when radios became standard we couldn’t use that either. He was as thrifty a man as you’ll meet. We were pretty sure he thought using the heater meant using more gas. And besides if it was zero* outside it was at least 15* inside the car - what did you need heat for?

 

[Backrd.Junkyard]

Exners Revenge… the asymmetrical prototype in clay looked like Ed Roth was hanging around the studio

 

[440 4 speed]

Here is my '61. It was a 24,000 mile original when I got it in the late 90s. Ran and drove like new. Really goofy *** styling. There was not one single line that flowed smoothly into the next.

View attachment 1275545

 

[RemCharger]

View attachment 1275589 View attachment 1275590

You were probably more proud looking here than 61 years ago?

 

[440 4 speed]

View attachment 1275589 View attachment 1275590

Pioneer 313 3 on the tree. Had a very weak clutch. Got to drive it a week after it was purchased. Maybe it was ugly, but handled better than GM’S and Fords on gravel curves especially.
Kept it in the family until I sold it to a young fellow in spring of 2019. He has a 61 Seneca wagon, the Pioneer, 61 Fury 4dr, 60 Plymouth cop car, 60 Plymouth 4 dr Belvedere. And maybe more.
He is planning on touching up the interior of the Pioneer and driving it.

 

[440 4 speed]

You were probably more proud looking here than 61 years ago?

Absolutely !!

 

[Darter6]

62

I've always like the '62 Plymouth savoy and belvedere myself.

we were not allowed to use the heater

62 Savoy is on my bucket list !
My Dad was the same way. I remember going to church frezzzen my A$$ of as a little child.

 

[Ron H]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Ford and GM had some fugly cars during the era. How ‘bout a ’59 Chev, Edsel, or? Good example in the vid was the comparison with the huge Lexus grille, IMO, weird looking..

 

[#41]

The transition from the 50's fins cars into the early 60's was a challenge for all makes. I'd say it was the most awkward car styling era of them all. There are hits and misses. I personally like the cars of that period because of they are different and under-appreciated...... especially Mopars. In fact, I think the 61 Chrysler Newport hardtop was the most beautiful car ever made (Newport because it had a cleaner grille than the 300 and New Yorker). The massive fins, canted headlights, sweeping roof line, tapered deck lid, and astrodome dash are just so distinctive.

The only Mopar styling that I did not like was the dowdy roofs of the late 40's and early 50's cars. The roofs are very square, tall, and wide and all the glass too flat.

 

[moparedtn]

The transition from the 50's fins cars into the early 60's was a challenge for all makes. I'd say it was the most awkward car styling era of them all. There are hits and misses. I personally like the cars of that period because of they are different and under-appreciated...... especially Mopars. In fact, I think the 61 Chrysler Newport hardtop was the most beautiful car ever made (Newport because it had a cleaner grille than the 300 and New Yorker). The massive fins, canted headlights, sweeping roof line, tapered deck lid, and astrodome dash are just so distinctive.

The only Mopar styling that I did not like was the dowdy roofs of the late 40's and early 50's cars. The roofs are very square, tall, and wide and all the glass too flat.

I agree with that assessment of the periods' designs.
The late 50's had devolved into a great big pi$$ing contest between makes of "oh yeah? Well, how about THIS!?!!"
as they constantly tried to out-do one another in MORE fin, MORE chrome, MORE spear this or spike that...
It had to peak/crash at some point - and once it did, I don't think any of the manufacturers knew where to go
from there with things.
I mean, where do you go from TOO MUCH EVERYTHING??

Turned out, back to square one - clean lines, simpler....ok, a bit plain-Jane, really.

Design was mirroring our society in general, if you think about it - we were transitioning from all the exuberance
and sky's-the-limit optimism that was the post-war 50's to the cold hard realities of a harsh recession and the
sudden possibility of nuclear war with a new enemy.

Humans are quite the fickle beings, turns out.