Electel Blogspot

American automobile production ceased in February 1942 on orders from the government due to the USA's entry in World War 2.  Before that time and even during the war years carmakers contemplated postwar offerings. This post deals with Chrysler Corporation styling models from that era . The photos of styling studio models presented below suggest that Chrysler was thinking of offering a major facelift rather than a complete redesign once production could resume following hostilities. Thanks to the postwar pent-up demand for new cars, most American car builders indeed marketed facelifted prewar designs until around the 1949 model year. The images of styling models below are interspersed with production Chrysler Corporation cars so as to strongly suggest that the models were based on prewar rather than totally new bodies. Gallery Styling model from December 1941 that has a grille with some postwar Dodge detailing.  Compare the basic body with that shown in the following image. 1...

Rendering by Chrysler stylist Gil Spear - 1941 Many American cars were redesigned around 1940-1941.  Absent the USA's December 1941 entry into World War 2, the next redesigns might have appeared around 1944.  What would those cars have looked like? Some clues are offered in design models by Chrysler Corporation stylists made in the early 1940s.  A few of these are shown below.  Other models made around 1943 suggest postwar cars that might have been launched around 1947: these also are shown. As it happened, there was great pent-up demand for new cars in the early postwar years, so most American manufacturers profitably produced facelifted prewar designs until around the 1949 model year when the redesigned Chrysler Corporation line appeared.  Thanks to that delay, the projected circa-1947 designs pictured here never materialized. Regardless, I find these stillborn designs fascinating, and hope that you do too. Gallery Design for a Chrysler Windsor, May 1941. Chr...

As I discussed here , the 1956 model year Chrysler Corporation line had small tail fins tacked onto the restyled 1955 bodies for the model year facelift.  Then for 1957 the line was redesigned again, this time with the incorporation of such fins as a major part of its styling theme. During the lead-ups to the 1956 and '57 model introductions, Chrysler publicized the idea that tail fins were the way things were going in some advanced, high-performance machines other than automobiles. Examples included delta-wing (and tail) jet fighters such as the Convair F-102A Delta Dagger, shown here in a Air Force museum photo. Another example was Gold Cup hydroplane racers such as the famous world speed record setting Slo-mo-shun IV seen here on Seattle's Lake Washington in the early 1950s in a photo whose origin I do not know.  It too has a delta-shaped tail fin. To further publicize the tail fin theme, Chrysler commissioned the Delta Dart show car from Gia in Italy, the subject of this p...

Starting with the 1956 model year, Chrysler Corporation began adding tail fins to its cars.  According to this Motor Trend article, what inspired this styling feature was the 1955 Ghia Gilda, a car adopted by Chrysler as its Streamline X.  More background can be found here and here . The Gilda was designed by Ghia under the direction of Giovanni Savonuzzi.  Given its late-April debut at the 1955 Turin automobile show, it might be unlikely that it inspired the addition of fins to Chrysler's 1956 line that was launched not many months later.  However, given the close relationship between Chrysler and Ghia in those days, it is likely that Chrysler's styling boss Virgil Exner was kept abreast of the Gilda project as it matured and that his staff might have provided input for details. The Gilda seems to have been essentially an aerodynamic exercise, given its wind tunnel testing.  Its tail fins are not prominent, so it is possible that their origin was more for sty...

It was built by Ghia in Italy, but didn't have the Italian-influenced styling of many Chrysler concept cars of the early to mid 1950s.  Rather, it had the look of a potential American production car. I'm referring to the 1956 Chrysler Norseman that was lost when the Italian liner Andrea Doria sank following a collision. According to some accounts I've read, it was intended to test the concept of a roof cantilevered from a robust C-pillar -- there was only a "hardtop" type stub B-pillar and no structural A-pillar.  This was probably not a realistic idea even in 1956 and something that would strike today's safety-conscious bureaucrats, engineers and car buyers with horror. That said, the Norseman -- why was it given that name? -- was a very attractive mid-1950s work of styling. Due to its brief lifespan, few images of the Norseman exist. Gallery Styling staff rendering. Front quarter view.  The bumper-grille ensemble is more show jazz than practical.  Semi-ditt...