For 1959, the Chrysler Corporation was on a roll with its Forward Look styling by Virgil Exner. See the entire product lineup in this series of great promotional spots produced for An Evening With Fred Astaire.
On October 17, 1958, NBC broadcast the highly successful live one-hour variety special, An Evening with Fred Astaire. The first television program recorded on color videotape, the show earned nine Emmy awards and reaffirmed Astaire, suave and graceful as ever at age 59, as one of America’s most beloved entertainers. “When Fred Astaire danced,” film director Stanley Donen once remarked, “Everything in this world was perfect.”
As was common in television in those days, the program’s sponsor, the Chrysler Corporation, was written directly into the production with a series of promotional spots. There’s an air of confidence in these commercial segments. Chrysler products were solid sellers in ’59, partly on the strength of Virgil Exner’s Forward Look styling language. Meanwhile, the company was working overtime to differentiate itself from General Motors and Ford with distinctive features including push-button transmission, swivel seats, and torsion-bar suspension. The Chrysler Forward Look lineup for ’59 looks pretty darned attractive in these promotional spots. As Astaire quipped at the program’s close, “I only hope the show is as good as the cars.” Video below.
In 59 so much of these cars were trendy,,in 10 years torsion bars type writer trannys and push button heat A/C were all very old fashioned, and hard to repair too. Swivels seats look fun, I will have to check them out on the next cruise. Though even then they were throwaway cars. Though many survive and they still do everything well when maintained properly. And they do stand out, a finned Mopar everyone remembers.
Though 5 makes of car was a couple too many, and they all seemed to have different styles of engines. I have never kept up with those, the Mopar nuts confuse me and them selves too I feel!
I do like the dig about the knee knocker door openings,,I bashed my knee on numerous occasions with my fathers EK Holden. No better with a flat fin Chev or even a Caddy. Though those cars you could see out of! As you can the Mopars too though.
I was all of 14 when the ’59s came out. Being the consummate car lover since age 4, I remember my excitement when these models were introduced. I also recall my hyper excitement when 1955 was the threshold year for car designs across the board. Not meaning to sound too nostalgic, The ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s were awesome years for American auto design and creativity. And, those years were very good to me.
Chrysler Corporation in 1957 hit the jackpot with their finned forward look styling and engineering and convenience features however poor build quality and rust issues was a constant problem. The 58 and 59’s improved on build quality and styling remained appealing for the most part but in 1960 after redesigning their cars and going to unibody construction styling started to go downhill and some consider the 61’s unattractive cars with Plymouth the worst. Then in 62 the downsizing and even stranger styling led to sales falling even further.
I too was a diehard MoPar kid whose addiction was fed by a friend of my parents who was a factory exec in Detroit; we all went there to take delivery of the ’57 Sport Suburban which, at age 9, I had spec’d out with the PowerPac 301 and pushbutton Powerflite (bad move, I know, but it did quite well with its two speeds). The delivery was attended by Lynn Townsend, brand VP, and covered in Plymouth’s house organ. I thought then and I think now that the MoPars of the late ’50s were better-engineered and better looking than its Big 3 competitors, and yes, I mean YOU, ’57 Chevies, whose stodgy design pales next to a nice ’57 Belvedere. If I could have one now, and no ’57 Furies were available, I’d take a ’59 Plymouth convertible with decklid “spare” and swivel seats. Thanks for the memories ~
My dad was a Chrysler man from the 1930s, his first car a ’32 Plymouth; his second a ’39 Dodge; then Chrysler Windsors and Saratogas. He like Chrysler BECAUSE of the engineering, himself an engineer. Regrettably, my experience with Chrysler products were minimalist at best. I owned a ’69 Dodge Polara my mechanic never could get tuned right. I bought a special order ’75 Cordoba which ran horribly. If the a/c was turned on the entire car shook. I later learned that Chrysler could never figure out the vacuum leak causing this in their ’75s. This also was the first year for the catalytic converter. Somewhere in that mix I suspect the converter was involved.