Paul Niedermeyer (2024) recently commented that the “new 1949 Chrysler Corp. line has to be seen as a failure inasmuch as Ford regained the #2 spot, and never looked back. Excellent cars, but not what the post war market was looking for.”
This is a fairly popular perspective among automotive historians — and makes a certain amount of sense. However, I would suggest that it obscures as much as it illuminates the postwar U.S. automobile industry. So let’s do a quick data dive.
Chrysler and Ford ran neck and neck from 1931-48
The graph below shows how the Chrysler Corporation and the Ford Motor Company battled it out for second place from 1932 through 1948. In 1934-36 Ford had a slight lead but from 1937 through 1940 Chrysler edged it out by narrow margins.
The only years when Chrysler had a meaningful lead over Ford was in 1941 and 1948 (this graph doesn’t include the years 1942-47 because they were impacted by World War II). For example, in 1941 Chrysler production topped one million whereas Ford only hit roughly 792,000 units.
Also see ‘Six myths about the misunderstood 1953-54 Plymouth’
A key thing to keep in mind is that from 1931-48 Ford was operating at unusually low production levels. As late as 1930 it was the top U.S. automaker, with output that reached almost 1.15 million units. Ford would not surpass that level until 1949, when production soared to 1.49 million.
If we stand back and look at the big picture, one takeaway is that the Chrysler Corporation came out of nowhere in the early-30s to join what became known as the Big Three. The automaker’s output rose from under 300,000 units in 1930 to more than one million in 1937. That was an extraordinary amount of growth, particularly during the Great Depression.
However, equally important was the Ford Motor Company’s dramatic decline. You can see from the graph below that its market share fell from 39 percent in 1930 to a low of 14 percent in 1948.
To what degree was Chrysler’s rise made possible by Ford’s decline? And when a new generation of Ford management began to modernize the automaker after WWII, how likely was it that Chrysler could have maintained its No. 2 status even if it did everything right?
These are questions that critics of the 1949-52 Chryslers would do well to engage more deeply before dismissing the cars as failures.
Ford’s postwar expansion played out on two fronts
From 1949 onward Ford pulled away from Chrysler on two fronts. Most importantly, the Ford brand rebounded to levels that it had enjoyed prior to the Great Depression. In 1924 Ford production had peaked at 1.7 million units — which was in the same ballpark as output in the banner years of 1955-56.
Also see ‘Lincoln-Zephyr was a first step in Ford surpassing Chrysler’
In addition, beginning in 1949 Mercury and Lincoln brands started to generate enough sales that they undercut the Chrysler Corporation’s traditional advantage in higher-priced fields.
The graph below shows how in the early postwar period Chevrolet and Ford brand output skyrocketed while Plymouth stayed relatively flat.
For example, in 1949 both Chevrolet and the Ford brand produced more than one million cars while Plymouth only pumped out roughly 520,000.
Meanwhile, the Mercury and Lincoln brands together generated almost 375,000 units in 1949. This was more than three times as much as their previous record in 1940, when the two brands surpassed 105,000 units.
Without the Mercury brand the Chrysler Corp. would have outproduced the Ford Motor Company in 1950-53. Yes, that’s even with the conservative styling that Niedermeyer describes as a failure.
There’s a flip side to that story. If Mercury had been around in the first half of the 1930s Ford might not have been bumped out of the No. 2 spot. The premium-priced brand wasn’t added until 1939. In addition, Lincoln only broke out of four-digit production levels in 1936 with the introduction of a junior model called the Zephyr.
The 1949-52 Chryslers were unusually space efficient
So what was all the fuss about the 1949 Chrysler lineup’s design? The Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler shared a basic body that — unlike some rivals — was all new rather than merely a reskinning. Yet it was still relatively tall at 65.6 inches, which was four inches higher than a Ford and 1.6 more than a Chevrolet. This was intended to allow more headroom to wear a hat.
In addition, the Plymouth four-door sedans had a 118.5-inch wheelbase, which was 3.5 inches longer than Chevrolet’s and 4.5 inches more than Ford’s. Yet the Plymouth’s length was 191.5 inches, which was roughly five inches shorter than its Big Three competition.
Wayne Whittaker of Popular Mechanics wrote that Chrysler stylists “were sure that the public is more concerned with headroom than with a low, super-swanky silhouette parked at the curb; that people like larger doors which open all the way and stay open for easy entrance and exit, and a reduced overall exterior width” (1949, p. 118).
Chrysler came up with another interesting innovation: The two-door sedan, coupe and wagon were placed on a seven-inch-shorter wheelbase than four-door sedans. This resulted in a lower weight than the equivalent Chevrolet or Ford but not the Studebaker Champion.
Yes, the Chrysler lineup’s design was problematic
I don’t say all of this to dismiss the idea that the styling of the new-for-1949 Chrysler lineup was too utilitarian for a fast-changing marketplace. At the very least, the automaker kept its basic design around at least one year too long. In 1952 Plymouth was the only low-priced big car that still had a flat windshield.
Richard M. Langworth and Jan P. Norbye are among those who have criticized the “stolid practicality” of the 1949 models, noting that the best one could say about them was “that they just managed to be as modern as their Kaiser-Frazer rivals, which by then were three years old. Even so, K-F had integral fenders fore and aft, while fenders were still separate at Chrysler Corporation” (1985, p. 137).
Also see ‘Was the 1951 Ford the end of the sensibly-sized standard American car?’
What Langworth and Norbye considered old hat Chrysler marketing presented as an advantage — much like Volkswagen did with great success in the 1960s — by arguing that more easily detachable fenders “don’t cost you a fortune to repair.”
Despite their criticisms of Chrysler design, Langworth and Norbye acknowledged that the automaker “had a fine year” in 1949 when it came to sales. And in 1950 the largely unchanged designs sold “even better” — hitting 1.27 million cars (1985, p. 141). However, the authors argued that Chrysler’s strong performance was a product of a seller’s market, and that management did not recognize how buyers were “quite willing to put up with the extra entry/exit contortions required in a car styled more like a torpedo than a tank” (1985, p. 138).
Why Chrysler’s chances of staying No. 2 were shaky
A seller’s market was undoubtedly helpful to Chrysler, but a sale was a sale — and a long-lasting, quality product likely increased the likelihood of a repeat buyer more than the highly-styled but defect-riddled 1957 Chryslers. I would suggest that the latter may have negatively impacted the corporation’s reputation more than the dowdiness of the 1949-52 models.
Also see ‘1955-56 Chryslers: Forward Look wasn’t as successful as sometimes assumed’
Be that as it may, I suspect that even if Chrysler had consistently been a style leader in the late-40s and early-50s that it still could have had a difficult time maintaining second place in industry sales. Ford arguably had more capacity to grow, both because of its larger scale as well as the extraordinary level of dysfunction that the company escaped from once Henry Ford II took the helm from his badly out-of-touch grandfather in 1945 (Nevins and Hill, 1962).
For example, in 1950 the Ford brand tallied 175 new-car registrations per dealer franchise compared to 198 for Chevrolet and only 55 for Plymouth (Edwards, 1965; p. 228). Here Chrysler looked more like an independent automaker than one of the Big Three. And while the numbers grew with the trendy 1955 and 1957 models, Plymouth didn’t appreciably close the gap with Chevrolet and Ford.
This is why I wish that automotive historians would present a more nuanced assessment about why Chrysler was overtaken by Ford in 1949. Styling may have mattered, but I would suggest not nearly as much as is commonly assumed. Even if one subscribes to the school of thought that snazzy design was the key to success in the 1950s, a whole range of other factors such as the strength of dealer networks may have been bigger factors in Chrysler falling to No. 3.
NOTES:
Production figures and specifications are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Flory (2009), Gunnell (2002) and (Wikipedia (2022).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International; Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Edwards, Charles E.; 1965. Dynamics of the United States Automobile Industry. University of South Carolina Press.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2009. American Cars, 1946-1959: Every Model, Year by Year. McFarland & Co.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1985. The Complete History of Chrysler Corporation 1924-1985. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2024. Commentator in “Car Show Classic: 1949 Plymouth Special Deluxe – We Don’t Build Excitement.” Curbside Classic. Posted in Sept. 17 at 8:23 am.
- Nevins, Allan and Frank Ernest Hill; 1962. Ford: Decline and Rebirth 1933-1962. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, NY.
- Whittaker, Wayne; 1949. “Chrysler Family Debut.” Popular Mechanics. April issue: pp. 118-123, 270, 272.
- Wikipedia; 2022. “U.S. Automobile Production Figures.” Page last modified Jan. 26.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Chevrolet (1949); Plymouth (1949, 1951)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Chevrolet (1949); Ford (1949); Plymouth (1949)
It’s a crying shame that over the decades. Chrysler has been saddled with incompetent leadership compared to that found at the Big Two. From killers ASIS on high, boxy styling in the early 50s, to the rushed-into-production ‘57 models which were riddled with gremlins (that cost the corporation. It’s long-standing reputation for quality), to the late-50s double-dipping and invoice padding scandals of the senior leadership which led to the dismissal of Colbert and his lieutenants, to the over-tolerance of Virgil Exner’s increasingly bizarre styling culminating in the disaster that were the ‘62 models, To the fiscal shortsightedness of the Lynn Townsend years, which eventually led to Chrysler’s crashing and burning in the mid 1970s. WHY couldn’t the corporation hire or promote some competent, forward-thinking individuals who would have avoided the repeated mistakes that finally cost Chrysler its independence??
Very interesting, Steve. I love your data dives, and you;ve given us a lot to think about here.
Down here in Australia the Chrysler brands of this era were much more commonly seen in the sixties than Fords or Chevs – I say Chrysler brands because we followed the Canadian model, with minor trim differences between Plymouth, Dodge and DeSoto, all on the same shell and chassis. I’m not sure whether this is a reflection on fifties Australians’ more conservative tastes, or a reflection on the longevity of Chrysler engineering. Maybe both. I saw one early-fifties Chevrolet in my neighbourhood as a kid in the sixties, and had to read the badge to tell what it was. I saw ’49-’51 Fords in books long before I ever saw one on the road; they seemed to wear out very quickly, and anecdotally rust even quicker. But the Chrysler brands seemed much more common. To my knowledge production figures were lost when Mitsubishi bought out Chrysler in ’81 (alternative universe? Nope, just Australia!), but registration figures are probably available.
I remember seeing a ’49 Plymouth in daily use into the early eighties, until a power pole fell on the roof. Interestingly the roof wasn’t crushed much, just enough to jam the doors shut. And, much like today, a thirty-three year old car wasn’t worth the cost of repairing at that point.
The sales figures per dealer that you quote are quite revealing. Shocking is that the Plymouth dealer only sold a quarter the cars the Chevy dealer moved. That may well be a large part of the story – how long could dealers survive with sales figures so much lower than the competition? But also there must have been something about the product that motivated buyers to look elsewhere. These Plymouths somehow seemed to be proportioned more like a thirties car, rather than being a clean visual break with the past like the other two. Maybe it was the styling after all?
There were several factors at work here – and blame can be laid at the feet of Keller.
There is nothing wrong with practical styling, but the 1949 models have hardly any flair. Practical doesn’t have to mean dowdy or dull. The 1949 models were dull. It was apparent by the eve of World War II that good design could be a selling point – one can argue that the styling efforts of Bob Gregorie and Edsel Ford had helped keep Ford afloat during the 1930s.
The 1965-68 C-bodies, and 1965-70 B-bodies, show that practical styling could be attractive. They hold up well today, and even when compared to their contemporaries. The 1949 Chrysler Corporation cars, on the other hand, still look dull and old-fashioned. And Keller kept vetoing one-piece, curved windshields as a “gimmick” until the 1953 models. That was hardly a smart move. It’s telling that Chrysler was the last of the Big Three to establish a separate styling section.
But even worse than the stodgy styling was the lack of a fully automatic transmission throughout the line until the 1954 model year. This was an unforgivable omission by a company that had prided itself on engineering leadership. GM had been selling Hydramatic since 1940, and after World War II Ford and the independents were either developing their own automatic or buying Hydramatic from GM.
Keller insisted that his cars retain a clutch for “control.” An increasing number of drivers didn’t want to mess with a clutch – they wanted a fully automatic transmission. The lack of a fully automatic transmission gave Chrysler Corporation cars a reputation for being behind the times. This especially hurt Chrysler in the medium-price class. Oldsmobile and Buick were booming during the early 1950s, while Chrysler and DeSoto fell further behind.
The failure to address how Plymouth was sold was another issue. Plymouths were sold through each of the corporation’s three dealer networks – Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler. Plymouth was treated as a “companion make” at the dealer and corporate level. Dealers wanted to sell prospects one Plymouth – and then move them up to a more profitable Dodge, DeSoto or Chrysler. Chevrolet and Ford had their own dealer networks.
I would also note that Ford, under Henry Ford II, modernized its entire management structure. Chrysler remained largely a one-man show under Keller. The time had come for a large corporation to move beyond that type of management by the late 1940s.
Good points and also wasn’t Chrysler hit by a UAW strike in the early 1950s?
And Plymouth being treated as a “companion make” and later being hit by Dodge stepping into Plymouth territory with the full-size Dart in 1960 didn’t helped things either.