In 1961, Plymouth offered its first new model in six years without tailfins. While it wasn’t a great success in the showrooms, the lack of fins probably wasn’t a factor.
“The Times They Are a Changin’,” Bob Dylan wrote, and from that day forward, lazy journalists like ourselves have reached for that all-too-handy line to point to the turbulent change of the early ’60s. And yes, the Motor City was undergoing its own rapid transformation. Tailfins, a major trend of the ”50s and a signature feature of Virgil Exner’s Forward Look at the Chrysler Corporation, were now out of style. So at the Plymouth division for 1961 the Forward Look was shorn of its fins, and in their place was a flat, broad expanse of rear deck and a pair of bolt-on bullet tail lamps, nicknamed “flashlights” by the stylists.
But up front, the familiar Forward Look styling elements were still very much in evidence, including an almost menacing headlamp treatment and a grille the prolific historical writer RIchard Langworth described as “frightening.” As we often note, vehicle design is a highly subjective topic, so there will always be a wide range of opinions for and against. However, in the case of the 1961 Plymouth, the views tend to congregate at the negative end of the spectrum. But Langworth did add, “Those who condemn the package because of one unfortunate design aspect haven’t given the poor thing a fair chance.”
While the exterior sheet metal was a departure, underneath was the same Unibody platform the Chrysler Corporation introduced in 1960. (It was Chrysler that invented the term “Unibody.”) This was a sort of hybrid construction that utilized a front stub frame so that existing components, including the torsion bar front suspension, could be continued, and the automaker’s manufacturing processes as well. For corrosion resistance, a well-publicized problem on the ’57-’59 products, an intensive, multi-stage chemical dipping and coating process was developed for the Unibody. With hindsight we know that the effort was only moderately successful.
As usual at Plymouth, the engine choices for 1961 were plentiful. They included the 225 cubic-inch Slant 6 introduced one year earlier, the 318 CID A-series poly-head V8 in two flavors, and the 361, 383, and 413 CID B-series V8s (the 413 in limited applications). The 383 (330 hp) and 413 (375 hp) versions featured Plymouth’s Sonoramic intake system with tuned-length runners that sprawled across the engine room. (See our feature here.) There was also a rare “short-ram” setup (actually, the intake runners were the same external length) that boosted the output to 400 hp.
The finless Forward Look for ’61 can’t be called a success as the sales volume at Plymouth continued to slip away to not quite 350,000 cars. This was the year, famously, in which the brand lost its perennial third place in U.S. sales to lowly Rambler. And while the styling is often singled out for blame, the truth is the corporation was bathing in troubles at the time. Though the base model Savoy was the best seller among the full-sized Plymouths, the compact Valiant actually accounted for 40 percent of the division’s volume. Chrysler responded with a smaller, totally redesigned Plymouth for 1962, but sales wouldn’t recover for several more years.
