Dodge and Plymouth buyers ran away from the unconventional styling of the 1962 models, and even their chief designer hated them. Yet the cloud had a silver lining

It’s fair to say the early 1960s were troubled times for the Chrysler Corporation: declining sales, quality headaches, an unhappy dealer network, even a major scandal in the company’s highest ranks. (See our feature here.) But in Motor City lore, the darnedest story of them all surrounds the unusual styling of the 1962 Dodge and Plymouth models. Even the company’s vice president of design, Virgil Exner, hated them. In the the now-famous phrase, he called the cars “plucked chickens,”

1962 Plymouth Fury Convertible

As the story goes, the chickens came to roost when Chrysler CEO William Newberg, attending a posh Detroit-area garden party, heard or overheard Ed Cole, then general manager at Chevrolet, describing a plan to downsize the 1962 Chevys. (Cole was actually referring to the ’62 Chevy II, it’s said.) The following Monday, the story continues, Newberg gathered his styling and engineering chiefs and ordered them to radically downsize the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge in response.

Since by that time the 1962 models were almost ready for production, a crash program was required to produce a smaller vehicle platform and somehow shrink the 1962 sheet metal designs to fit a much smaller package. To save time, engineering based the new cars on a stretched version of the compact Valiant Unibody with its wheelbase extended from 106.5 to 116 inches, creating a new platform that became known as the Chrysler B-body.

1962 Dodge Dart 440 Hardtop Sedan

Meanwhile, Exner and his stylists rushed to make their full-sized designs fit the much shorter and narrower package. Ordered to subtract cost from the vehicles as well, the Chrysler stylists also eliminated the curved side glass, simplified the bumpers, and removed other details. No one in the Chrysler studios was pleased with the results, least of all Exner, delivering his oft-quoted appraisal: “plucked chickens.” Furthermore, he added, the cars would not be competitive and the Chrysler styling team should not be held responsible.

But by then it was too late. The formerly full-sized 1962 chickens were introduced to the public on September 28, 1961, and they weren’t well received. Already in decline, the sales numbers plunged again in ’62, as Dodge declined more than 10 percent and Plymouth fell from fourth place all the way to eighth in the U.S. sales race. Despite his warning, in the aftermath Exner was pushed into retirement and a consulting role by Chrysler’s new CEO, finance man Lynn Townsend. Deciding that a fresh start was in order, Townsend appointed Elwood Engel of Ford to the top styling post.

1962 Plymouth Fury Hardtop Sedan

In retrospect, the problem was not the size but the styling. Ford and GM were racking up big sales numbers with their mid-sized models, and the Mopar B-body cars were a nice fit in the category. For ’63, the exterior designs were cleaned up, then refined over the next few years as sales climbed back to acceptable levels. In fact, many of Chrysler’s most memorable cars of the muscle era, including the Road Runner, GTX, Charger, and Super Bee, were based on the hastily conceived ’62 package. The B-body proved to be one of the corporation’s most valuable platforms, remaining in production through 1978.

1962 Plymouth Fury Station Wagon