At the Chrysler Corporation, the Chrysler division’s take on the sensational new Forward Look styling theme was called “The 100 Million Dollar Look.”

Virgil Exner was appointed director of styling at the Chrysler Corporation late in 1952, but due to manufacturing lead times, his influence was limited until the introduction of the 1955 product line. The Forward Look, as he called his design theme, reinvented the Chrysler Coporation, at least in the eyes of the car-buying public. Now the automaker was setting styling trends instead of following them from a safe distance. At the Chrysler division, where Exner took a more personal role in product design than in the corporation’s other car brands, the styling theme had its own name: The 100 Million Dollar Look.

Deluxe Windsor Newport Nassau

Along with the dramatically new styling, there were other important changes at the Chrysler division in ’55. The luxury Imperial was spun off as a separate brand, while the old flathead six in the base Windsor model line was finally abandoned. Its replacement was the Spitfire V8, specially designed for lower manufacturing cost than the complicated Firepower hemi V8. (See our feature on the poly-head Spitfire V8 here.)

Now Chrysler was an all-V8 brand, and the Powerflite automatic transmission was also standard in all models, distinctions shared only with Cadillac and Lincoln. For ’55, the Powerflite’s gear lever was moved from the steering column to the dash. One year later in ’56, Chrysler would introduce its signature push-button gear selector, which remained in production through 1964.

Deluxe Windsor Newport Nassau

The two model lines were called Deluxe Windsor and Deluxe New Yorker in ’55, with the New Yorker listing for around $800 more than the Windsor. Both trim levels were offered in the same four body styles: a four-door sedan, a Newport pillarless two-door hardtop, a convertible, and a Town & Country station wagon.

Additionally, both the Windsor and New Yorker lines featured specially trimmed two-door hardtops. The Windsor version was known as the Newport Nassau while the New Yorker was called the Newport St. Regis (lead photo). Priced at only slightly more than the standard Newports, the Nassau and St. Regis were strong sellers. In fact, the St. Regis outsold the standard New Yorker Newport at a two-to-one rate.

New Yorker Deluxe Town & Country

The Town & Country wagons were not big sellers at the Chrysler division in ’55. The Windsor and New Yorker T&Cs combined barely moved 3,000 units, with the lower-priced Windsor accounting for two-thirds of the sales. At $4,209, the New Yorker T&C was the most expensive model in the lineup that year, and the biggest, costliest, and most luxurious production wagon on the American market that year. Total Chrysler sales in ’55, a boom year for the Motor City, ran to more than 152,00 cars, a 45 percent increase over ’54.

As it should go without saying, the ’55 Chrysler of supreme interest to enthusiasts today is the C-300. Introduced on February 10, 1955, the factory hot rod was described by Tom McCahill of Mechanix Illustrated as “the most powerful sedan in the world, and the fastest.” With two four-barrel carburetors and an aggressive solid-lifter camshaft, the 331 CID hemi V8 was rated at 300 hp and could pull the C-300 to 130 mph. Only 1,725 were produced, but the C-300 inspired an entire series of Chrysler letter cars through 1965, and it burnished Chrysler’s reputation as an engineering and performance company.