We may not have chosen a twisty road course to showcase the capabilities of the 1959 Dodge, but the Chrysler Corporation did and it’s quite a show.
Admittedly, this old Chrysler Corporation clip is not in the best of shape, but on the plus side, we do get to see a new 1959 Dodge swerving and drifting around the 4-mile, 14-turn Road America road course. Also, we get a wonderful look at the Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin track in its early, rustic form, so we had to share. The pilot was sports car driver Ed Crawford, who more often was wheeling Porsches and Lister-Jaguars for John Edgar and Briggs Cunningham, and here it appears that the big, softly sprung Dodge was more than a handful in the trickier bits.
For ’59, Dodge was in the third year of the sensational Forward Look styling revised in 1957, with torsion-bar front suspension and body-on-frame construction. Engine options ranged from the venerable 230 cubic-inch flathead six to the Super D-500, an RB-series 383 cubic-inch V8 with twin Carter AFB four-barrel carburetors and 345 hp. Of course, push-button control for the Torqueflite automatic transmission and swiveling bucket seats (see our feature here) were among the distinctive Mopar features. The awesome tagline in Dodge advertising for 1959 was “The newest of everything great and the greatest of everything new.” Video below.
That was too cool!
“Right off the showroom floor.” SURE!!!
Dodge was the car of choice for the California Highway Patrol and would build a convertible the same way. Aside from having a slightly smaller dual quad engine and being a little lighter, Dodge could sell you the same car as the Chrysler 300E convertible.
Also, no actual testing regime is shown and no specific test results are reported. It’s just pictures of a big car going pretty fast around a race track. A car doesn’t need preparation to do that.
Yes, too cool! And it just wouldn’t be a Dodge ad without Lou Crosby doing the talking.
Ed Crawford was a serious shoe at Road America. Wonder if he needed to do a couple laps in his Porsche Spyder after this to get his senses back! 😉
Bruce McCall wasn’t that far off, was he?
Bulgemobile!!
The Dodge 383 was a “B” series engine, not an “RB.” The RB 383 was Chrysler and only lasted a couple of years (59 and 60).