Virgil Exner Sr has been treated somewhat unfairly by history. Yes, some of the designs that he rendered himself or that he oversaw as head of Chrysler styling make the nickname “Virgil Excess” seem appropriate. His best work, though, influenced other designers and had a purity of line and a design cohesion that his contemporary designers at GM and Ford rarely matched. Though Exner had been in charge of Chrysler styling for a while, it was the 1957 “Forward Look” Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth and DeSoto cars that were the first production cars to bear his full personal stamp. Based heavily on the Flite Sweep concepts of 1955, the ’57 Mopars created a firestorm within the auto industry, and put Chrysler at the head of the Detroit pack styling wise, briefly taking the lead from GM.
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When he’s not busy doing custom machine embroidery at Autothreads Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth and contributes to The Truth About Cars and Left Lane News
For a view of Exner’s absolutely most beautiful design Google 1957 Imperial.
“Nuff said.
I’ll be putting up a post about Imperials on Cars In Depth sometime soon. There were a bunch, from ’56 to the early ’70s at the Orphan Car Show. It’s a matter of taste, but I think the ’57 Imperial is a bit much, while the Fury is a cleaner design. Actually, I kind of like the ’57 Desoto front end a bit more than the Fury. I suppose that the purest Forward Look cars were the Flight Sweep concepts of 1955. Have you seen Murray Pfaff’s Imperial Speedster custom show car? He took a ’59 Imperial, and turned it into a two seat roadster. I think it was a masterful job. You can see it here: http://www.carsindepth.com/?p=1196
Yeah, but mechanically those cars were horrific. Almost put Chrysler out of business (again, first, second time, whatever).