In 1949, the Chrysler brand celebrated its 25th anniversary with its first new postwar cars, carefully engineered for the conservative upscale buyer.

Saratoga Sedan

We’d love to be able to tell you who styled the 1949 Chryslers, but the fact is it wasn’t really “styled” in the usual Motor City sense. In those days at Chrysler, the styling studios were under the supervision of chief body engineer Oliver Clark, who reported to vice president of engineering Fred Zeder. And they all had to answer to K.T. Keller.

No slave to fashion, Chrysler president Kaufman Thuma Keller was a product of the shop floor and a man of straightforward tastes. Tall and square-faced, he’d started as a drill press operator in a kitchen hardware factory at 13, then rose to chief of production at Chrysler and ultimately, head of the company as the hand-picked successor to Walter P. Chrysler. His core beliefs were that cars should be functional first, handsome second, and that a low roofline was no attribute at all. In 1948, he told a class of Stanford business school graduate students that as a first requisite, cars must be styled for people in hats. In Chrysler lore, it’s an article of faith that Keller really did once say, “We build cars for people to sit in, not to pee over.”

New Yorker Sedan cabin

So while the stylists in the Chrysler studios dutifully produced a number of advanced prototype renderings and models, Keller ignored them all and selected a proposal by Charles G. Walker, head of the clay modeling department. While not homely by any means, the resulting 1949 Chrysler was in the eyes of many, barely more modern than the 1948 Chrysler it was replacing. But to be fair, there were many Americans at the time who shared Keller’s uncomplicated approach to aesthetics, and the 1949 Chrysler, tall and square, suited them just fine.

Spitfire High-Compression Eight

In the Keller years, Chrysler proudly identified as an engineering company with technical advances large and small, from bonded brake linings to a Superfinish machining process. While the six and eight-cylinder L-head engines (116 hp and 135 hp) were carried over from previous years, the technical improvements for ’49 included an upgraded chassis with a longer wheelbase, and the Fluid Drive (M5) and Prestomatic semi-automatic (M6) transmissions received further refinements.

Crown Imperial Sedan 

The product catalog for ’49 included seven models built on four different wheelbases, from 125.5 inches for the Royal and Windsor in standard length to 145.5 inches for the Crown Imperial Sedan and Limousine. The Royal line included a beautiful woody station wagon, while the Town & Country woody was available only as a convertible at the New Yorker trim level for ’49. Prices varied from $2, 114 to $5,345, spanning a broad range from Pontiac to Cadillac.

Like all the Chrysler Corporation car divisions, the Chrysler brand got off to a late start in 1949 and the ’48 models were carried over through early ’49 as “First Series” models. Due to retooling and production delays, the Silver Anniversary models weren’t introduced until March 1. And despite their dated styling, the 1949 Chryslers were well received, through volume slipped slightly due to the short production season. But ultimately, even K.T. Keller had to remove his hat and bow to the inevitable. That same year the company formed an Advanced Styling Studio independent from the Central Engineering Office, to be headed by Virgil Exner.

Town & Country Convertible