Corey Lewis offers a questionable take on the 1961-63 Imperial

Corey Lewis may be The Truth About Cars’ best writer these days, but his piece on the 1961-63 Imperial offers a questionable take in some ways.

The biggest eye-opener is Lewis’s (2021) contention that Chrysler design chief Virgil Exner was fired because of disagreements over tail fins. Exner “wanted large fins to continue on cars” and management did not, Lewis insisted. As a case in point, the Imperial lost its fins in 1962 as the brand “started to back itself out of the styling corner Exner was so fond of. Given his disagreements with Chrysler’s management, design associates made required edits to the cars after Exner finished them.”

Lewis (2021) went on to state that “fins were falling out of fashion by the start of the Sixties, but Exner would hear none of it. He criticized the Dodge and Plymouth designs of 1962, shapes that were downsized by other design associates at Chrysler and had no fins, contrary to Exner’s protests.”

Is Lewis’s idea of a fin an Edsel-like brow?

There is arguably a grain of truth to Lewis’s perspective. Richard Langworth wrote that “Virgil Exner left (Chrysler) still supporting the tail fin,” arguing that it “gave our cars a visible difference” (1993, p. 154).

However, before he got canned Exner had championed a new look for Chrysler’s 1962 big cars that was shorn of traditional fins (Grist, 2007). For example, the Imperial was slated to get a rear end with a somewhat Valiant-like sloping deck with outboard taillights. Curtis Redcap’s (2020) story about the 1962 Chryslers includes images of a proposed Imperial and DeSoto.

Also see ‘Defense of Virgil Exner’s 1962 Plymouth doesn’t add up’

As we discuss here, at the 11th hour the so-called S-series was ditched in favor of downsizing the Plymouth and Dodge. However, the rear ends of both cars were somewhat similar to the designs Exner originally proposed for the aborted big cars, which trafficked in Edsel-like brows rather than vertical fins. For pictures, check out Paul Niedermeyer’s (2017) epic story.

Exner’s biggest complaint, according to his biographer Peter Grist, centered around cost-cutting measures such as eliminating curved side glass, which accentuated the “stunted” proportions of the shrunken cars (2007, p. 125).

Lewis says 1961 Imperial lost ‘prestigious sales crown’

Another questionable take by Lewis is that in 1961 the “Imperial no longer held the prestigious sales crown and handed it over to Lincoln.”

I don’t see how he got there. For one thing, the “sales crown” throughout that period belonged to Cadillac, which captured upwards of 70 percent of the luxury car market in the first half of the 1960s. In addition, Lincoln had a consistent lead over Imperial from 1958-60 if you include production of the higher-priced Continental.

Also see ‘1958-60 Lincoln: Failing to beat GM at its own game’

It doesn’t make sense to me to exclude the Continental just because it was treated as a separate brand from 1958-59. The car was merely a Lincoln with high-end doodads. The two companion brands competed against the Imperial’s full lineup, with the Continental going up against the LeBaron series.

Of course, Lewis may have been working with a different set of data, such as calendar-year sales figures. The most complete data set I have access to is model-year production. This can matter. Richard Langworth wrote that 1957 “was to be the banner year for Imperial, its best on record, with close to 38,000 sales for the calendar year — just edging out Lincoln” (1993, p. 126).

Fair enough. But even in that instance, I wonder whether Lincoln would have bested Imperial if you add production of the 1958 Continental, which was introduced in the fall of 1957. The Mark III generated a whopping 41 percent of total Lincoln/Continental production for the 1958 model year.

Why should we care?

I grant you that your casual reader’s response to my nitpicks may be, “Who cares?” This is a reasonable reaction, particularly given that The Truth About Cars does not specialize in automotive history. Nevertheless, the best time to nip in the bud a questionable fact is when it is first published. Otherwise, it may bounce around the Internet for years.

NOTES:

Production and market share figures were calculated with data drawn from the following sources: Auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006), Gunnell (2002) and Wikipedia (2020). All figures should be for model-year production, so will be different than the numbers presented in histories using calendar-year data (e.g., Langworth, 1993). I have also mixed and matched data to correct for what appear to be obvious errors.

Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.

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RE:SOURCES

• Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
• Grist, Peter; 2007. Virgil Exner, Visioneer. Veloce Publishing, Dorchester, England.
• Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
• Langworth, Richard M.; 1993. Chrysler & Imperial 1946-1985: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks, Minneapolis, MN.
• Lewis, Corey; 2021. “Rare Rides Icons: The History of Imperial, More Than Just a Car (Part IX).” The Truth About Cars. Posted Dec. 13.
• Niedermeyer, Paul; 2017. “Automotive & Design History: 1962 Plymouth & Dodge – The Real Reason They Were Downsized.” Curbside Classic. Posted Dec. 4.
• Redcap, Curtis; 2020. “Inside Chrysler: the 1962 cars.” Allpar.com. Posted Nov. 16.
• Wikipedia; 2020. “U.S. Automobile Production Figures.” Accessed March 28.

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• oldcarbrochures.org: Dodge (1962); Imperial (1962); Lincoln (1960); Plymouth (1962)