Chrysler Concept Cars 1940-1970 (Chrysler) (Chrysler)
by David Fetherston, Tony Thacker
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Book Summary Information
Author: David Fetherston, Tony ThackerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-01-04
ISBN: 1932494707
Number of pages: 144
Publisher: Car Tech
Book Reviews of Chrysler Concept Cars 1940-1970 (Chrysler) (Chrysler)
Book Review: A plan to save the US auto industry
Summary: 3 Stars
Why three stars? Nothing's wrong with the writing or the research. The rave reviews are right. This is little known history; this is rare stuff. $25 might seem a bit steep for a quality hardback printed in the US. But it's not. It's a paperback printed in China, and at their labor rate ought to cost about a dime. At least you get a book drenched in rare color photos. But you don't. The majority of the photos are black and white, even though Popular Science and other magazines ran color photos of the same cars at the time. The subtitle: 1940-1970 ought also to tip off readers that this book only runs half way through the muscle car era, which ends in the mid-'70s.
So what we have is a book which will appeal to the collectors who drive their '40s and 50s restored showcars to Concours d'Elegance Show and Shines, but not to the casual fan of race day and Super Bees. On the plus side, this book deviates from the standard narrative history with pictures approach, opting rather for a sort of montage of writing, oral history, and anecdote. This makes for choppy reading, but also unearths little known insights buried in the Mopar vaults.
The Foreword, believe it or not, is not written by the authors for this book. It's a speech by designer par excellence Virgil Exner to Chrysler employees. Bits of it seem to have driven the company's turnaround in the '90s, and to have been taken to heart by its designers today. There is another book on this topic which claims that styling is what saved Chrysler. Styling, beginning with the distinctive RAM truck grilles in the '90s, continuing with the PT Cruiser, the rebirth of the 300 series and revival of the Charger and Challenger muscle cars, is what began the too-late turnaround of Chrysler and other American car companies. Although widely misrepresented in the press as being bailed out by the government, Chrysler subsequently fully repaid its loan, and after a hostile takeover by Daimler, revived as Chrysler LLC to create the Challenger.
The muscle car era from the mid '60s to the mid '70s was the pinnacle of modern American car design, and all three companies, after making junk for the intervening two decades, showed in the '90s they could still style a car: Ford with the Mustang, Dodge with the Charger, Chevy with the Camaro and Corvette. It's no accident they took their design cues from their namesakes, awaking from the amnesia of the '80s.
As this book shows, Chrysler had three experimental show cars, Chargers I, II, and III, two of them created before the first production Charger appeared in 1966. These cars could still turn heads today, and the new Challenger grille owes something to the Charger I. All three companies had been turning out experimental concept cars of the future for annual Detroit car shows since their inception, GM most notably in the Mororama exhibit at the World's Fairs. What Chrysler arguably did was simply bring them into the present, retooling its show models as production cars.
My plan to save the economy is simple. Retool the rich boy muscle car designs into well-styled, fuel saving compacts, and stop making all other cars. Instead of giving Oil Companies credits for crushing '60s era muscle cars, as is now done, crush all the behemoths from the 80s instead, and let collectors restore the remaining classic cars from the '60s and '70s. Levy an import "styling tax" on Hondas and Toyotas, whose "designers" have never heard the word "style". Stop making any American cars in China (or any books about American cars), and work to reopen American factories. Style has always been the wild card for Chrysler and American auto makers. Maybe it can save them again.
Summary of Chrysler Concept Cars 1940-1970 (Chrysler) (Chrysler)
From World War II through the muscle-car era, Chrysler s innovation and experimentation took center stage, quite literally, in the form of its concept cars. These concept cars hinted at future production vehicles and explored new and unproven technologies.Chrysler Concept Cars 1940-1970 follows the design, development, and creation of almost 50 Dodge, Chrysler, and Plymouth concept cars during the automotive industry's golden postwar years, when Chrysler set the Detroit style. Readers get an inside look not only at the styling of the cars, but also at performance developments and engineers unique ideas.
The book delivers many never-before-published vintage black-and-white and color photos located during hundreds of hours of research in the Chrysler Historical Archives, the Henry Ford Museum, the Detroit Public Library, and other private collections. While writing this book, veteran automotive writers David Fetherston and Tony Thacker enlisted the help of more than 10 Chrysler designers, engineers, technicians, and librarians over three years. The book is the definitive edition on this subject, as a book with such detail specializing in this period of Chrysler s history has never been produced.
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