The 1950s were, as author Charles Hyde characterized it, a roller-coaster ride for Chrysler. The beginning of the decade had been rough: all of Chrysler's brands lost market share at an alarming pace, thanks in large part to stodgy, dated styling. Finally, in late 1952, company president K.T. Keller authorized Virgil Exner, then the head of Chrysler's small advanced styling studio, to dramatically redesign the company's entire line-up. Chrysler spent $100 million on Exner's "Forward Look" styling, which paid off with nearly doubled sales for 1955 and 1956. Emboldened, Exner called for another total redesign for 1957, with striking results. Added to the new torsion-bar suspension and superb TorqueFlite automatic transmission, Chrysler had the hottest products in the domestic industry.

The company should have been rolling in money by decade's end, but all was not well in Highland Park. Chrysler recorded a $120 million profit for calendar year 1957, but labor and materials problems meant that many of the flashy '57 cars were already falling apart before they even left the showroom floor. The facelifted '58 models were better, but still suffered alarming corrosion, and buyers were soured by the problems of the '57s. When the Eisenhower recession hit that fall, sales sank sharply, and Chrysler took a bath to the tune of $33.8 million -- the equivalent of about a quarter of a billion dollars today. Losses for '59 weren't as bad, but still totaled $5.4 million.


The hasty, last-minute downsizing of the 1962 Dodge Dart from its original, full-size dimensions was responsible for its awkward proportions, but not the hideous, warthog-like convex grille, which was created at the insistence of Dodge general manager M.C. Patterson. The outré side sculpting betrays these cars' structural kinship with the compact Valiant. From the side, the contemporary Valiant looks very similar, despite riding a wheelbase almost 10 inches (25 cm) shorter -- not surprising, since the big Dodge was essentially an expanded version of the Valiant body.

Chrysler's president in those days was Lester L. "Tex" Colbert, a former Dodge executive who had succeeded K.T. Keller in 1957. By 1960, Colbert was preparing to move from the presidency to the chairmanship of the Chrysler board. His chosen successor was the company's executive vice president, William C. Newberg. In true old-boy's-network fashion, Colbert and Newberg were close friends. They lived a few blocks apart in Detroit's Bloomfield Hills suburb, they belonged to the same country club, and their wives were good friends. Newberg had succeeded Colbert as head of Dodge in 1950, and when Colbert ascended to the presidency, Newberg became executive vice president. In due course, he was promoted to the corporate presidency on April 28, 1960.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING CHEVY

Not long after assuming his new office, Newberg attended a Detroit garden party, where he overheard Chevrolet general manager Ed Cole discussing the new, small Chevy the division was planning to launch for the 1962 model year. Only six months earlier, Chevy -- like Ford and Chrysler -- had launched its first compact car, the Corvair. Now, Newberg became convinced that Chevrolet was preparing to downsize its mainstream cars, as well.


The 1962 Dodge Dart and its Plymouth siblings were 7.5 inches (190 mm) shorter than the '61s, while wheelbase shrank to 116 inches (2,946 mm). They retained unitary construction, but they eliminated the front subframe of the 1960-61 models, which, combined with the smaller dimensions, trimmed around 350 pounds (159 kg) from their curb weight. Even a well-equipped convertible weighed only 3,400 pounds (1,542 kg), which benefited both fuel economy and performance, if not appearance.

At the time, Newberg's conclusion did not seem as outlandish as it may seem in retrospect. In the wake of the recession, American Motors' Rambler line, most of which consisted of compact cars, had risen to fourth place in industry sales, nipping at Plymouth's heels. (It would briefly displace Plymouth in the number-three spot for the 1961 model year.) Small, imported cars had seen unprecedented sales growth, something that would have been almost unimaginable ten years earlier. Meanwhile, Detroit had been savaged by critics for allowing its bread-and-butter cars to get too big. Even some in the auto industry suspected that the dismal sales of 1958 had stemmed from public dissatisfaction with what George Romney had called "Detroit Dinosaurs." The idea that Chevrolet might scale back for 1962 was not entirely far-fetched. (In fact, the 1961 Chevy line, which appeared a few months later, was smaller, albeit only by an inch and a half (38 mm).)

What Newberg didn't realize was that Cole was actually talking about the all-new Chevy II, a conventional, front-engine compact, which was then being readied as an alternative to the rear-engine, air-cooled Corvair, whose sales had been disappointing. Others within Chrysler were probably aware of the Chevy II, or could have found out easily enough -- the Detroit auto industry is an insular world, and unless a company makes a deliberate effort to keep a project secret, gossip spreads rapidly. Unfortunately, instead of investigating, Newberg panicked, ordering a crash program to make the 1962 Dodge and Plymouth lines smaller.

CRASH COURSE

By the time Newberg issued those orders, the design work on the 1962 models was basically complete, and the cars were only a few months away from production. To redesign them in time for the start of production -- only about a year away -- the styling department had to go to double shifts, working around the clock to alter the dimensions of the previously approved designs.

Those designs were not Virgil Exner's finest hour. After trumping GM in 1957, Exner seemed to be struggling for a new direction. His "S-series" designs took themes developed for the compact Valiant and expanded on them for the bigger cars. That was a curious decision; GM styling usually went in the opposite direction, introducing new concepts on Cadillacs and filtering them down through the lesser makes. Even if the designs hadn't been tampered with, the '62 Dodge and Plymouth lines would have been odd-looking. As they emerged, they were disasters.


As outré as the nose may be, what was under the hood was not a problem. Six-cylinder Darts had Chrysler's trusty Slant Six, while V8 models could have anything up to the fearsome 413 (6.8 L) "Max Wedge." Performance was greatly improved, thanks to lighter weight.

To save time and reduce costs, big Dodges and Plymouths were moved to a stretched version of the Valiant/Lancer compact shell. They were considerably smaller than originally planned: wheelbase was reduced from the planned 119 inches (3,023 mm) to 116 (2,946 mm); overall length shrank by 7.5 inches (190 mm), and width was reduced by about four inches (100 mm), with a less than felicitous effect on the cars' proportions. To make matters worse, the Engineering staff was standing over the stylists' shoulders throughout the process, looking for ways to cut costs. Various features Exner had planned for the big cars, like curved side glass, wraparound bumpers, and an attractive new roofline for the hardtops, were eliminated. Exner, horrified, insisted that the results would be a commercial debacle, and declared that Styling should not be held responsible.

Curiously, no one -- other than Exner, whose protests fell on deaf ears -- thought to question Newberg's actions, or even to investigate the rumor that had provoked them. Indeed, many Chrysler executives had apparently convinced themselves that the downsized '62s would be big hits.

DOUBLE-DIPPING

Even as this disaster was taking shape, a different crisis was brewing. At the annual stockholders meeting in 1959, Chrysler stockholder Sol Dann had charged that Chrysler's executives were handing out contracts to suppliers in which they had a personal stake -- driving up the company's costs in order to line their own pockets. Dann accused Chrysler's president, Lester "Tex" Colbert, of nepotism and payola, claiming that under Colbert's leadership, Chrysler would end up like Packard (which had closed its doors in 1958). Dann reiterated his charges in the April 1960 shareholders meeting. This time, he got the attention of George Love, the chairman of Consolidation Coal Company, one of Chrysler's largest stockholders. Love convinced the board to hire the accounting firm Touche, Ross & Co. to conduct an extensive audit. The auditors discovered evidence that Bill Newberg and his wife, Dorothy, had partnered with a local businessman in three different automotive suppliers, all of which had received lucrative Chrysler contracts. The auditors reported that the Newbergs had earned $455,000 through those suppliers' Chrysler business.

With the stockholders already in a furor, something had to be done, and so Newberg was fired on June 30, only 64 days after becoming president. Chrysler's PR department initially said that he had resigned over unspecified policy issues, but on July 21, Chrysler announced that Newberg and his wife would have to repay all the money they had received from their supplier interests. The same day Newberg was fired, Tex Colbert ordered other Chrysler executives to immediately divest themselves of any interests in the company's suppliers.

Newberg was furious. He claimed loudly that he was being treated as a scapegoat, and that his dismissal was a whitewash. Newberg alleged that Colbert had asked him to take the fall for the conflict-of-interest scandal, promising he would be taken care of. He also insisted that Colbert had been well aware of his outside interests, and that Colbert's wife had even asked him to give the Colberts' son a summer job at one of the supplies in which Newberg had an interest. Colbert denied those charges, insisting that he had been unaware of Newberg's outside interests, but in January 1961, Newberg filed a $5.3 million lawsuit against Chrysler, naming Colbert as a correspondent. According to author Richard A. Wright, the two old friends encountered one another in the country club locker room later that year, where Newberg allegedly punched Colbert in the face. The lawsuit was not resolved until 1970, when Chrysler settled with Newberg for $85,000.

Newberg's dismissal did little to mollify Sol Dann. After Tex Colbert resumed the presidency, Dann and his allies filed more than a dozen lawsuits, claiming that Colbert was a threat to shareholder interests and accusing several other Chrysler executives of improper dealings with company suppliers. Colbert's reputation was further damaged by Newberg's accusations, and by the revelation that Colbert had $200,000 in negotiable bearer bonds in his office safe, which columnist Drew Pearson alleged were supplier kickbacks. (Colbert admitted having the bonds, but described them simply as his life savings.) In August, Dann and stockholders Karl Horvath and Samuel Schwartzberg filed an ultimately unsuccessful petition with the Delaware courts to force Chrysler into receivership.

The beleaguered Colbert resigned in July 1961. George Love, by then the chairman of the board, made Colbert president of Chrysler Canada (a post Colbert retained until his retirement in 1965), and named administrative vice president Lynn Townsend the new president.


The curious "kick-up" behind the front door was not intended for the hardtops, which were originally slated to have long side windows with no quarter lights, not unlike the 1970½ Camaro and Firebird. The hardtop was also intended to have a V-shaped backlight, similar to that of the 1967-70 Cadillac Eldorado. Those features were eliminated at the last minute, as was the intended curved glass for the side windows. The flat glass melds awkwardly with the pronounced curvature of the body sides, which you can see if you look closely at the section just ahead of the chrome side spear.

THE PLUCKED CHICKENS TAKE FLIGHT

By the time Townsend took over, the downsized '62s, which Virgil Exner, Sr. had fatefully nicknamed "plucked chickens," were just entering pilot production. Shortly after Townsend took office, he called a meeting of all of Chrysler's dealers to present pictures of the new models. The dealers were aghast; according to writer Curtis Redgap, whose father was present that day, over 20 of them walked out in disgust and canceled their franchise agreements on the spot. The sales force had not been fans of the '61 styling, and they liked the looks of the '62s even less.

The sales organization and dealers had apparently not been consulted on the downsizing plan, and they were not supportive. Car salesmen and advertisers had been telling American consumers for years that bigger was better. Now, they were being asked to sell cars that were not only visibly smaller than the competition, but that looked like overgrown, mutant versions of the compact Valiant. The 'big' Dodge and Plymouth cost as much as a Chevrolet or a Ford (and almost as much as a Pontiac Catalina), but they were closer in size to Ford's new mid-size Fairlane, or even GM's Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac "senior compacts." Plymouth and Dodge dealers were left in the awkward position of offering mid-size cars at a full-size price.

DAMAGE CONTROL

With their sales down almost 25%, Dodge dealers screamed bloody murder. Chrysler responded by cobbling together a new big Dodge, the Custom 880, which went on sales in February 1962. It was contrived by combining the body of the Chrysler Newport (which the big Dodge line had previously shared) with a lightly made-over front clip from the '61 Dodge. The Custom 880 was well received by Dodge salesmen, who sold more than 17,000 of them, despite the late introduction. However, it brought howls of protest from Chrysler dealers, who felt that Dodge was encroaching on their turf.


The big Plymouths, which shared the same body as the Dart, were also clumsy-looking, but their boxier shape is easier on the eyes than the Dodge. The Plymouths sold better than the Dodge Dart, although not well enough to keep Plymouth from slipping from fourth place to eighth in industry sales ranking. (Photo © 2008 Bull-Doser; released to the public domain by the photographer)

Chrysler's sales revenues for the 1961 calendar year (which included the second half of the 1961 model year and the first few months of the calamitous '62) were even lower than 1959, but Townsend's cuts and layoffs meant that Chrysler actually ended 1961 $11 million in the black.

SHOOTING THE MESSENGER

Although Tex Colbert had assured Virgil Exner that he would not be held responsible for the design of the '62s, Chrysler's board wanted someone held accountable for their failure. By that time, though, the real culprit, Bill Newberg, was long gone. In November 1961, Lynn Townsend fired Exner -- a bitter irony, considering how strenuously Exner had protested the redesign program. Exner was allowed to remain in a nominal consultant role until his 55th birthday, allowing him to collect his pension. He and his son launched their own design firm, Virgil M. Exner, Inc., in early 1962.

In a further irony, Exner's designs for the '63 models proved to be very successful. His replacement, former Ford stylist Elwood P. Engel, made few changes to Exner's designs, which were popular enough to boost Dodge sales by 86% and Plymouth sales by 44% for 1963. The '63 Plymouth line retained the 116-inch (2,946-mm) wheelbase of the '62s, although they were three inches longer overall. The standard-size Dodge line was stretched to a 119-inch (3,023-mm) wheelbase; the big 880 retained the 122-inch (3,099-mm) wheelbase introduced the previous year.

In 1965, Chrysler restored a restyled version of the short-wheelbase car (now known as the B-body) to the Dodge line, this time advertising it as the intermediate Dodge Coronet. Meanwhile, the '65 Plymouth Fury was moved to the big corporate C-body. The Belvedere series remained on the shorter platform, now also rechristened a mid-size, rather than full-size car. As a result, both divisions now had a full array of models in compact, intermediate, and standard sizes, putting them in a better competitive position.

SMALL MINDS AND BIG IDEAS

In the movie business, the commercial failure of a project will often cast a pall over similar projects for years to come. When Cutthroat Island tanked in 1995, for example, pirate movies were considered box office poison until the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie made a mint in 2003. Similarly, the failure of the '62 Dodge and Plymouth were cited many times in in the sixties and seventies as reasons Americans wouldn't accept smaller cars, at least prior to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo.

That conclusion, which remains the conventional wisdom in most automotive histories, doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. The year before, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac had trimmed almost five inches (127 mm) from the overall length of their full-size cars, which had done their business no particular harm (their sales were down, but more as a result of a general economic slump that affected all automakers). In the 1962 model year, U.S. automakers sold around two million compact cars, accounting for almost a third of all domestic auto sales. AMC's Rambler line -- the largest of which was a full 12 inches (305 mm) shorter than the Dodge and Plymouth standards -- outsold Plymouth five to four. (And that's not even mentioning the nearly 200,000 Volkswagens sold stateside that year.) Clearly, the American public was not categorically opposed to the idea of smaller cars. The fundamental problem with the '62 Mopars was not their size; it was that they were ugly, and seemed like poor value next to their Chevrolet, Ford, and AMC competition.

Even if Newberg's assumption that Chevrolet was about to downsize had proven correct, his response would have been foolish. If Chrysler had created cohesive designs for downsized standard-size cars, along with some kind of coherent marketing strategy, it might have been a different story, but it's hard to understand how anyone seriously expected that these cars would stand a chance against even an awkwardly downsized Chevrolet. Nor did Chrysler make any great effort to educate buyers on the virtues of a smaller big car, like ease of parking, or the better gas mileage and performance made possible by the reduced curb weight. Instead, they simply dumped these cars on the market as if they were business as usual, expecting their dealers and salespeople to sort it out. Worse, they fired the only person brave enough to point out the holes in the plot.

The arrival of Lynn Townsend proved to be a mixed blessing. Townsend, who made the cover of Time in December 1962 for his role in Chrysler's recovery, managed to restore the company to profitability, despite the dismal sales, but only at the cost of thousands of jobs. By most accounts, Townsend was a better accountant than a manager, and his regime brought about a deep-seated conservatism that did Chrysler no favors in the years to come. Other than the revival of the Hemi engine and a few stand-outs like the 1968-1970 Dodge Charger, the Townsend era was marked by a general stagnation in engineering, styling, and product planning. By 1969, the rot had set in, setting the stage for Chrysler's late-seventies near-death experience.

A few generous souls have called the '62 Mopars the right cars at the wrong time. We would call them a missed opportunity -- a blunder whose consequences reverberated throughout the American industry for decades to come.

# # #

Our sources for this article included the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide, "1962-1964 Dodge Polara 500" (9 October 2007, HowStuffWorks.com, http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1962-1964-dodge-polara-5002.htm, accessed 11 January 2009); "Chrysler's Troubles (Contd.)" (author unknown, 3 February 1961, Time, http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,872080,00.html, accessed 10 January 2009); Milt Freudenheim, "Lester Lum Colbert, 90, Chief at Chrysler During the 1950's" (19 September 1995, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/ 1995/09/19/ obituaries/lester-lum-colbert-90-chief-at-chrysler-during-the-1950-s.html, accessed 11 January 2009); Charles K. Hyde, Riding the Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation (Great Lakes Books) (Chicago, IL: Wayne State University Press, 2003); Michael Lamm and Dave Holls, A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design (Stockton, CA: Lamm-Morada Publishing Co. Inc., 1997), pp. 151-171; "Middle-Sized Gamble" (author unknown, 15 September 1961, Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827980,00.html, accessed 11 January 2009); "Payola at Chrysler" (author unknown, 1 August 1960, Time, http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,869699,00.html, accessed 9 January 2009); "Payola at Chrysler (Contd.)" (author unknown, 22 August 1960, Time, http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,869846,00.html, accessed 9 January 2009); "Newberg Attacks Chrysler," (author unknown, 27 January 1961, Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,826827,00.html, accessed 9 January 2009); Curtis Redgap, "Chrysler Corporation R Bodies: 1979-1989 Downsized, Full-Sized Cars" (2008, Allpar.com, http://www.allpar.com/cars/dodge/R-bodies.html, accessed 11 January 2009); Curtis Redgap, "Insider's History of Plymouth" (original date unknown, Allpar.com, http://www.allpar.com/history/inside/index.html, accessed 9 January 2009); "The Battle at Chrysler (author unknown, 2 May 1960, Time, http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,826401,00.html, accessed 9 January 2009); "The Man on the Cover: Lynn Townsend & Chrysler's Comeback (author unknown, 28 December 1962, Time, http://www.time.com/time /magazine/article/0,9171,827980,00.html, accessed 11 January 2009); "Time Clock: Feb. 17, 1961," (author unknown, Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,826827,00.html, accessed 11 January 2009); Jim Wright, "Plymouth Sport Fury," Motor Trend, April 1962, reprinted in R.M. Clarke, ed., Plymouth Fury Limited Edition Extra 1956-1976 (Cobham, Surrey: Brooklands Books Ltd., 2002), pp. 46-51; Richard A. Wright, "Chapter 13 - Dinosaur slayer falters; car guys vs. money men," (1996, A Brief History of The First 100 Years of the Automobile Industry in the United States, TheAutoChannel.com, http://www.theautochannel.com/ mania/industry.orig/ history/chap13.html, accessed 11 January 2009); David Zatz, Lanny Knutson, and Dave Stern, "Chrysler Corporation 1962: The right cars for the wrong time," (2006, Allpar.com, http://www.allpar.com/history/plymouth/1962.html, accessed 9 January 2009); and David Zatz and Bill Watson, "The Early (Big) 1960-1962 Dodge Darts" (date unknown, Allpar.com, http://www.allpar.com/model/dart.html, accessed 10 January 2009).

Information on the development of the Dodge 880 came from "1962-1964 Dodge 880" by the Auto Editors of Consumer Guide (23 August 2007, HowStuffWorks.com, http://www.howstuffworks.com/1962-1964-dodge-880.htm, accessed 9 January 2009) and "Chrysler Fights Back" (19 January 1962, Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895873,00.html, accessed 10 January 2009).

• Charge of the Light Brigade: The Last Stand of the Packard Motor Car Company
• Dodging the Issue: The Original Dodge Charger
• Everybody's Kid Brother: Chrysler's Compact Valiant
• How Big Is Too Big? The Ford Fairlane and the Rise of the Midsize Car
• Fish Story: The Plymouth Barracuda (Part One)
• Fish Story: The Plymouth Barracuda (Part Two)
• Plymouths Great and Small The Ups and Downs of the Plymouth Fury and VIP

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