With a complete design makeover for 1955, the Dodge division at Chrysler was full of surprises. A hundred of them, according to the carmaker.
When Chrysler chief of design Virgil Exner laid the groundwork for the Forward Look, the game-changing exterior design for the corporation’s five product lines in 1955, he split the work into two sections. Personally taking charge of Chrysler, DeSoto, and Imperial, he assigned his protégé Maury Baldwin to style the Plymouth and Dodge brands, working under Dodge/Plymouth studio manager Henry King.
For the ’55 Dodge, Baldwin faced a special challenge, as Dodge was to share its body shell with Plymouth, with the addition of five extra inches between the firewall and front spindles to stretch the wheelbase to 120 inches. To give Dodge its necessary distinction, he devised a twin-nostril nose with elaborate chrome grillework and heavily lidded headlamp surrounds. The rear quarters were sharpened up and fitted with “tandem jet” dual tail lamp assemblies, while the stainless hood and side trim combinations were designed to support two-tone and even three-tone paint schemes.
Custom Royal Four-Door Sedan
And so it is that today, the Dodge is seen by some as the busiest and most decorated of the five ’55 Forward Look designs. That’s in relative terms, of course, as by 1955 industry standards, the Dodge fits right in. It doesn’t seem overdone at all. And at Dodge, the new styling performed the same service as at the other four Chrysler divisions: It turned the brands around, moving them from the rear of the field to the front in Motor City styling trends.
Coronet Two-Door Suburban
When the corporation marketed the Forward Look theme with the tagline “the hundred- million dollar look,” that was a bit of an understatement. Chrysler had bet the farm on the ’55 makeover, engineering a $250 million, 100-year loan from the Prudential Insurance Company in early 1954. Part of the funding went to development and tooling for the new exteriors, and the rest to factory modernization and the purchase of the 12 Briggs Manufacturing plants where Chrysler body parts were stamped and assembled. The $35 million buyout had been forced in late ’52 when Briggs decided to vacate the automotive business.
Custom Royal Lancer Hardtop Coupe
The two-and-three-tone color combinations remain striking even now, especially on the Custom Royal Lancer, top of the line at the division (above). Dodge’s interior and instrument panel were standouts, too. The model line included the Royal and baseline Coronet with a price spread of $2,194 to $2974, facing off against Mercury and Pontiac. Engine choices ranged from the old 230 CID flathead six to a Red Ram hemi V8 with 270 cubes and 193 hp, all available with Chrysler’s Powerflite transmission.
In the Custom Royal Lancer line that year was one extra-special model designed (allegedly) for women, the dolled-up La Femme. (See our feature here.) Overall, it’s fair to say that with the Forward Look, Dodge was now presenting a very different face to the public. One of many Dodge slogans that year was “the car of a hundred surprises,” and for traditional buyers of Dodge’s heretofore conservative products, that probably rang true when they walked into the showrooms.
The makeover at Dodge was a thundering success, just as it was at the other four Chrysler divisions. Sales shot up 79 percent to more than 273,000 cars for Dodge, while the Chrysler Corporation grossed $3.45 billion in ’55, an all-time record to that point. But in the coming years, the carmaker rode out a famous series of ups and downs. The $250 million Prudential loan was restructured multiple times and never was fully paid off. The remainder was struck from the books with the 2009 bankruptcy.
Lawrence Welk and his Custom Royal Lancer Convertible 