Electel Blogspot

The 1953 DeSoto Adventurer show car was one of those attractive Ghia-built Chrysler Corporation show cars of the early 1950s. It was designed by Virgil Exner , who later became head of Chrysler styling.  During the early 1950s he was greatly interested in the styling of sports and sport-touring cars by Italian coach builders such as Ghia, Pinin Farina, Vignale, Touring and Zagato.  He felt that Italian designs were closer to what automobiles should be than the jet fighter and spaceship design features that were starting to appear on American cars and that were evident in some dream car designs, especially those from Ford. The Adventurer's design was a favorite car of Exner's, who drove the car for a few years following its car show duties.  It was based on a shortened DeSoto chassis and powered by the DeSoto Firedome V-8 motor. Exner was at the top of his game in those days, so who am I to gainsay his belief that the Adventurer was a very fine example of the stylist's ar...

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...