In a recent story about the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge, Bill McGuire (2024) of Mac’s Motor City Garage stated that the downsized cars were based upon a stretched version of the compact Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Lancer (renamed Dart in 1963). He wrote that the wheelbase was “extended from 106.5 to 116 inches, creating a new platform that became known as the Chrysler B-body.”
McGuire didn’t include any citations so it is unclear as to where he got his information. And as is typical of his recent articles, this one is so short — under 600 words — that it offers only the barest of explanations.
Nevertheless, Mac’s Motor City Garage has the credibility of being a recent winner of an award from the Society of Automotive Historians. So it wasn’t surprising that readers assumed McGuire was presenting correct information.
As a case in point, Kevin McCabe (2024) commented that “your mention of the B-body platform being conceived as a stretched A-body platform is the first mention of this I’ve seen in print, but it does make perfect sense. Why reinvent the wheel when you just have to tweak it a bit!”
The stretched-compact theory has been questioned
It’s true that some historical accounts have stated that the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge were stretched compacts. However, this theory has been questioned in what strikes me as pretty convincing ways. We have discussed this before (go here), but let’s take an updated look at the literature.
By at least some accounts, Chrysler designers were told that the new platform — which was internally referred to as the B-body — should be no wider than 72 inches at the door posts because that was identical to what a Chrysler executive supposedly heard a downsized Chevrolet would be (Katz, 1995). The wheelbase ended up being 116 inches because the Chevy that Chrysler management anticipated competing against would be “around 115 inches” (Redgap, 2019a).
Also see ‘1962-64 Plymouth: The odd case of prescience interruptus’
In order to meet those goals, some writers have stated that designers were told to draw upon major elements of Chrysler’s compact platform, which was called the A-body (Pearson, 2023; Redgap, 2019b; Severson, 2009). In contrast, Paul Niedermeyer (2017) presented evidence that management called for the next-generation compacts to be based off the B-body.
Niedermeyer’s (2017) skepticism about component sharing between the A- and B-bodies is well deserved. An anonymous Chrysler designer told John Katz that management’s initial marching orders were for the B-body to share a cowl and doors with the A-body — but the plan was abandoned late in the design process because it was realized that “they couldn’t make a Valiant and a Lancer that were saleable and economical to manufacture” (1995, p. 62; original italics).
B-body was too wide to be a stretched compact
One reason that attempts to share components failed was that, as Niedermeyer pointed out, cowls didn’t lend themselves to being stretched in width. The 1962 B-body Plymouth was 5.2 inches wider than the A-body Valiant.
A useful comparison may be Rambler’s attempt to share components between its mid-sized Classic and compact American. The new-for-1964 American didn’t share a cowl with the Classic because the latter was four inches wider. However, the two platforms did share inner-door hardware. For 1964 they even shared the same outer-door sheetmetal (go here for further discussion).
Also see ‘David Burrell’s take on the downsized 1962 Dodge and Plymouth gets partway there’
The first-generation B-body does not appear to share doors with either the first- or second-generation A-body. This may have been because the B-body was slightly taller and had a more squared-off greenhouse, presumably to increase interior room.
However, Chrysler appears to have followed in AMC’s footsteps when the B-body was redesigned in 1966 and the A-body the following year. In the promotional materials below, notice how the door-window frames appear be identical in the 1967 Plymouth Belvedere and Valiant.
Will AI help to perpetuate questionable auto history?
I can imagine why McGuire might have adopted the stretched-compact theory. I typed into Google (2024) the question, “Was the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge a stretched compact?” The answer provided by artificial intelligence stated that, “Yes, the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge were built using a stretched version of the Valiant/Lancer compact shell to save time and reduce costs.”
In addition, a goodly number of the top-listed links espoused this theory. So why not go with what would appear to be the majority opinion? I suppose you could, but doing so would disregard Katz’s reporting and Niedermeyer’s (2017) point that the A-body’s cowl didn’t lend itself to being stretched in width.
Also see ‘Paul Niedermeyer updates his thinking on origins of 1962 Plymouth and Dodge’
Of course, Katz’s article didn’t show up in a Google search because it isn’t on the Internet — it was published in Collectible Automobile back in 1995. And while Niedermeyer’s article ranked high in a search, his discussion about this particular point was buried far down in a lengthy story lacking in subheads. So if you are writing on deadline you could plausibly miss this debate.
Or you could have come across it but decided to side with the stretched-compact theory — and not bring up questions about its accuracy in the article you are writing. After all, most readers won’t notice. And perhaps even care.
It all depends on what you are trying to do. If a goal in writing about automotive history is to advance its study, that means trying to resolve lingering debates. This topic is one of them.
I still suspect that the stretched-compact theory does not accurately describe the downsized 1962 Plymouth and Dodge — and would ask its advocates to explain why they believe that it does.
NOTES:
Specifications are from Automobile Catalog (2024), Consumer Reports (1963) and Flory (2004).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Automobile Catalog; 2024. “Full detailed specifications listing and photo gallery.” Accessed Sept. 24.
- Consumer Reports; 1963. “Basic Body Dimensions.” April issue: pp. 164-165.
- ——; 1970. “Basic body dimensions.” Auto Buying Issue, pp. 221-223.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Google; 2024. “Was the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge a stretched compact?” Answer to query Sept. 24.
- Katz, John; 1995. “1962-64 Plymouth: Pivotal, Panic-Driven Mopars.” Collectible Automobile. Published April, pp. 57-69.
- McCabe, Kevin; 2024. Commentator in “The Year of the Plucked Chickens: 1962 Dodge and Plymouth.” Mac’s Motor City Garage. Posted Sept. 17.
- McGuire, Bill; 2024. “The Year of the Plucked Chickens: 1962 Dodge and Plymouth.” Mac’s Motor City Garage. Posted Sept. 17.
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2017. “Automotive & Design History: 1962 Plymouth & Dodge – Brilliant Blunder, or Suddenly It’s 1977.” Curbside Classic. Posted December 4; accessed August 16, 2019.
- Pearson, Mal; 2023. “Lets Get Small: The Unfortunate Tale of the 1962 Plymouth.” The Makes That Didn’t Make It. Posted Oct. 30.
- Redgap, Curtis; 2019a. “1962 Plymouth Sport Fury car reviews.” Allpar.com. Posting date unknown; accessed August 16, 2019.
- ——–; 2019b. “Inside Chrysler: Corruption Topples the President.” Allpar.com. Posting date unknown; accessed August 18, 2019.
- Severson, Aaron; 2009. “The Dodge That (Almost) Ate Detroit: Chrysler’s Disastrous 1962 Downsizing.” Ate Up With Motor. Posted January 11.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Dodge and Lancer (1962); Dodge Dart (1963); Ford Fairlane (1966); Ford Falcon (1966); Plymouth (1962); Plymouth Belvedere (1967); Plymouth Valiant (1960, 1967)
It’s partly a matter of semantics. What exactly does “stretched” mean? Generally, it implies that certain elements of the body have been changed, and others presumably not.
The B Body undoubtedly shares its structural/architectural principles with the Valiant/Lancer, and it’s utterly obvious (and extremely logical) that the Chrysler engineers drew on their experience with the Valiant body to create the B-Body. That was a huge head start, and a key element that allowed the whole 1962 downsizing to happen as quickly as it did. But it wasn’t a “stretch” of the Valiant body, inasmuch as a close look at all the key structural elements show differences. They drew on their experience, but made changes based on the higher structural demands of a larger and heavier car program as well as simply improving on the original. The B-Body is a direct development or evolution of the Valiant body, but not a “stretch”.
It’s not unlike an architect that is asked to design a larger house than one he designed previously. It may have similar-looking aspects, but structural demands require it to have new structural components, as well as improvements based in the prior building.
Paul, I don’t have enough experience with the development of an automobile platform to wager how much time and money would have been saved by starting with the A-body and modifying it enough to get to the production B-body. However, I would guess that a new car rarely starts with a clean sheet of paper. And we can clearly say that the B-body wasn’t literally stretched in the sense of the 1966 Ford Fairlane versus the Falcon, which meant that Chrysler wouldn’t benefit from the economies of scale that Ford would enjoy. Nor did the B-body have shared doors like the 1963-64 compact and mid-sized Ramblers. Katz says that efforts to share major body parts between the A- and B-bodies ultimately failed. That strikes me as a crucial piece of information that you mentioned in your story.
So I guess it comes down to how specific one wants to be for the purpose of writing automotive history. Part of what gives me pause about calling the B-body a stretched A-body is that it was a bigger and more substantial car than the 1962 Fairlane, which did draw to a degree from the original Falcon’s parts bin when it was developed. The B-body ended up being the biggest “intermediate” of the mid-sixties. That would not have been possible if the B-body had been based on the first- or second-generation A-body. Even the third-generation A-body didn’t share the same cowl and windshield, although it appears to have shared inner-door parts.
Having said all of that, I can see why some would use the term “stretch”. It’s not completely outside of the elastic definition of that word.
It’s a relatively simple matter to take the drawings for the 1960 A platform and stretch them on two axes to create the 1962 B body. Far easier, and more importantly, much quicker than starting from scratch as the engineers were on a short schedule. If you look at the two chassis and floorpans it’s easy to see.
Paul, the great innovation of the 1962 Fairlane was that it was essentially a Falcon with extra air between the parts, generating a greater markup. A story, could be apocryphal: it’s said this was the car McNamara designed while sitting in church one Sunday. There were no sketches or drawings, only tables of figures. He showed it to one of the engineers (possibly Frey) who asked what kind of car he envisioned: Sporty? Family? Oh, that’s interesting, McNamara allegedly replied. You can work all that out.
As I said at the beginning, it’s a matter of semantics. Some would say that “stretch” in this application means adding a few inches to the wheelbase of an otherwise essentially identical car, like Pontiac did with the Bonneville (and others too; it was quite common). But that still allowed the great majority of body parts to be the same.
In regard to the B-Body, if one wanted to stretch the term to cover what was done there, I’m not going to argue with using that term in that situation, but will point out that not a single body part was carried over from the Valiant. They applied the same basic architectural concepts, but everything was changed.
For that matter, that pretty much applies to the Fairlane too. Was any single body part carried over? They all had to be redrawn, and many/most scaled up in their strength as well as size. The Fairlane’s suspension also had to be completely scaled up in strength.
So yes, I can well see the image that McNamara had in his mind; but he wasn’t an engineer who actually had to make it happen.
In both these cases, these were the first modern unibody compact cars these manufacturers had made, and a pretty radical change for them. Of course it made sense to base the larger cars on the fundamentals established by the compacts.
So is the new perimeter frame 1965 GM B-Body just a stretched 1964 A-Body? In your definition of the word “stretch”, it certainly is. Same perimeter frame and suspension, just scaled up a bit. Same process as what Ford and Chrysler did. So if you’re ok with calling the GM B/C Bodies stretched A Bodies, then you’re simply using the term in a way that I prefer not to use it.
Paul: As I wrote that the development of the ’62 Dodge/Plymouth produced a new platform (later known as B-body) this is indeed a semantic exercise in my view.
I also agree that the 1965-on GM B-body chassis can’t be described as a stretched 1964-on A-body chassis. The front suspension, rear suspension, and frame designs are remarkably different, especially Chevrolet. Front-steer vs rear-steer, etc.
Bill, FYI that your exchange with Paul inspired me to write a follow-up article (go here) that breaks down five reasons why I think that your framing is problematic.
Yes, I saw. The ’62 front K-members interchange, which should give you a clue.
Just because individual parts were shared does not add up to a shared platform. The passenger cabin was meaningfully wider, which required a new cowl and windshield. Go that far and you’re not sharing platforms anymore.
LOL. They definitely are not a shared platform. As I clearly stated in the article, a new platform resulted in 1962 that became known as B-body. As distinguished from the A-body of 1960. As stated earlier, this is all semantics.
Welp, words are the basic tools of the trade for writers. So to dismiss this discussion as semantics strikes me as a cop out.
Would the 72 Torino/Montego be considered a shrink of the full-size Ford? Would the Panthers be considered a shrink of the 69 full-size Ford (most seem to think it was all-new, not just a restyle of the 65)?
Some used to think the 77 B/C bodies were just an update of the 73 A body, but most seem to reject that idea now, but I wonder if the 78 A body was a shrink of the 73 A body.