(EXPANDED FROM 6/23/2023)
A while back Indie Auto reader Geeber asked about what happened to Chrysler Corporation’s market share in the premium-priced field after Dodge went downmarket in 1960. He was referring to a major corporate shakeup where Dodge was given low-priced entries, initially under the Dart nameplate.
I should start by acknowledging squishiness in historical accounts. Lanny Knutson (2025) implied that Dodge received the Dart in response to a dealer reorganization that took away Plymouth from Dodge dealers.
However, Richard M. Langworth and Jan P. Norbye (1985) reported that it wasn’t until later in the 1960 model year that the DeSoto, Plymouth and Chrysler brands were combined into one division. Might the dealer reorganization have occurred prior to divisional changes?
Dodge continued to offer premium-priced models, but they were marginal sellers. So from 1960 onward the brand generated most of its sales from low-priced entries.
In the early-60s Chrysler clearly needed to retrench in the premium-priced field because of a catastrophic drop in sales, but the shakeup arguably contributed to market share falling even further. Indeed, this represented one of the more significant shifts among the Big Three in the postwar era.
The Edsel’s rapid demise was less of a hit for the Ford Motor Company — at least when it came to market share in the premium-priced, big-car field. As of 1961 the automaker had captured 13.3 percent, which was around what it was before launching an aggressive expansion effort in 1956. (Note that market share would fall to around 8 percent in 1962-64 as Mercury focused more on compact and mid-sized cars).
Chrysler loses one of its greatest strengths
Chrysler’s success had previously been heavily driven by its strength in the premium-priced class. In the decade leading up to World War II, the popularity of its Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler brands was the key reason why the automaker frequently bumped the Ford Motor Company out of the No. 2 spot behind General Motors.
That said, Ford might not have fallen to third place if it had introduced the premium-priced Mercury and moved the Lincoln downmarket earlier (go here for further discussion).
As late as 1957 Chrysler still captured 27 percent of the premium-priced market, but by 1959 it dropped to under 18 percent. Only two years later Chrysler’s market share fell to 12.6 percent if you exclude Dodge’s low-priced Dart and compact Lancer.
To add insult to injury, in 1960-61 Ford surpassed Chrysler in premium-priced, big-car output for the first time. This was a remarkable turn of events. As late as 1957 Chrysler held almost double the market share as Ford in the premium-priced field.
My sense is that historians tend to pay more attention to the ill-fated Edsel than Chrysler’s collapse. Two reasons why may be that the latter occurred over a longer period of time and was spread out across more brands.
Let’s take a quick look at the numbers and see if we can gain a deeper understanding about what happened and why.
The ‘Forward Look’ ends up backfiring
If we just look at production figures, Chrysler’s problems in the premium-priced class became most obvious in 1954. My sense is that sales plunged primarily in response to a recession, flashy new models from General Motors and a brutal price war between Ford and Chevrolet.
A common narrative among historians is that frumpy styling also contributed to the automaker’s loss of altitude — and Virgil Exner’s “Forward Look” new designs in 1955 saved the day.
Also see ‘1955-56 Chryslers: ‘Forward Look’ wasn’t as successful as sometimes assumed’
Certainly Chrysler’s premium-priced offerings looked more contemporary, but output was nevertheless lower than for the dowdy 1953 models despite the U.S. auto industry experiencing record-breaking sales. Meanwhile, Chrysler’s market share only hit 18.4 percent in 1955. That was 7.5 percent lower than in 1953.
The dramatically redesigned 1957 models bumped up market share to 27 percent, but that obscured a bigger problem — the premium-priced field was in the beginning stage of a sharp sales decline. So while Chrysler’s 1957 output of almost 530,000 units was decent, it was below a peak of roughly 655,000 units in 1950.
And then in 1958 output dropped by almost 53 percent to under 251,000 units. As a point of comparison, GM’s three premium-priced brands saw their output decline by 49 percent while Ford’s fell by only 31 percent.
More ominously, in 1959 the premium-priced field rebounded by 16 percent but Chrysler output grew by only half that amount — 8 percent — to roughly 272,000 units. That production level was well below the bad old days of 1954. Although Dodge sales went up 13 percent, the Chrysler brand grew by only 10 percent and DeSoto fell by 8 percent.
Chrysler takes a meat axe to premium-priced lineup
Chrysler management rightly recognized that it could no longer support such a sprawling premium-priced lineup. So for 1960 the DeSoto lineup was trimmed from four series to only two, and the brand no longer offered wagons and convertibles. J “Kelly” Flory quite rightly suggested that this showed how Chrysler was “preparing for the demise of DeSoto” (2004, p. 33). However, Charles K. Hyde curiously argued that management was at “first trying to prevent the demise of DeSoto” (2003, p. 180).
For 1960 the Dodge lineup received a radical makeover. All of its nameplates were ditched and the brand was given a line of cars that directly competed against the low-priced Plymouth. However, Dodge kept a foothold in the premium-priced field with its Matador and Polara series, which replaced the Royal and Custom Royal series. Output for these senior models went up 12 percent to almost 43,000 units.
The star of the show in 1960 was the low-priced Dart, whose production topped 323,000 units — even overshadowing Chrysler’s traditionally top-selling Plymouth, whose full-sized models tallied roughly 253,000 units.
Excluding the Dart, Chrysler Corporation’s premium-priced models output dropped to under 146,000 units. Then in 1961 production fell even further — to under 114,000 units. This partly reflected the death of DeSoto, but production of Dodge’s senior models also fell by 67 percent. This may have been a product of less attractive styling as well as the elimination of the Matador series.
In contrast, the Chrysler brand saw a 25-percent output increase to 96,000 units. This was largely due to the introduction of a lower-priced Newport. It was priced around $250 lower than the previous entry-level series, the Windsor.
Richard Langworth noted that “Chrysler’s upsurge was one of the few bright spots for the Corporation as a whole in 1961” (1993, p. 151). Even so, overall premium-priced sales only a fraction of what they were in the mid-50s.
Although one could primarily blame quality-control issues and Exner’s increasingly weird styling, a much smaller lineup probably didn’t help matters.
Chrysler partially recovers in the second half of 1960s
By 1966 Chrysler would inch back up to almost 25 percent of the premium-priced, big-car market if you include Dodge’s entire Polara/Monaco line. But by the late-60s the automaker would fall back to around 20 percent.
Remember that the above figures are just for big cars. If you look at the entire lineup of premium-priced brands, Chrysler Corporation captured around 25 percent of the market from 1963 through the early-70s. This was primarily on the strength of Dodge’s smaller cars (which arguably were positioned more as low-priced rather than premium-priced entries).
The positive side of this picture is that Chrysler’s diminished standing in the premium-priced, big-car field mattered less as the 1960s progressed because the marketed had substantially shifted toward smaller and lower-priced cars.
In the late-60s and early-70s Dodge did do particularly well in the mid-sized and compact fields. But with the possible exception of top-end muscle cars, they may not have been nearly as profitable as premium-priced big cars.
In addition, once Dodge was mostly positioned as a low-priced brand, that cannibalized Plymouth’s sales to a dangerous degree. The seeds of Plymouth’s demise were sown in 1960. Is it possible that Chrysler might have maintained a stronger presence in the premium-priced class and protected Plymouth by not moving Dodge downmarket with the Dart?
NOTES:
This is story was originally posted on June 23, 2023 and expanded on Feb. 20, 2025. Production and market share figures were calculated from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Flory (2004), Gunnell (2002) and Wikipedia (2020).
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Hyde, Charles K.; 2003. Riding The Roller Coaster: A History of the Chrysler Corporation. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI.
- Knutson, Larry; 2025. “1960 Plymouth Cars: Fins’ Final Fling.” Allpar.com. Accessed Feb. 20.
- Langworth, Richard M.; Chrysler & Imperial 1946-1985: The Classic Postwar Years. Motorbooks, Minneapolis, MN.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1985. The Complete History of Chrysler Corporation 1924-1985. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Wikipedia; 2020. “U.S. Automobile Production Figures.” Accessed March 28.
ADVERTISEMENTS & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Chrysler (1961); Dodge (1933, 1960)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Dodge (1954, 1959, 1960); Oldsmobile (1954)
I don’t know what Dodge was thinking coming out with a Plymouth competitor. Was this something the Dodge dealers wanted? I know Chrysler Corp’s history was different from Ford and GM where their core was always the low price popular brand. Was there a dealer reorganization at this time? Was the thought that Dodge would compete more with the Edsel and Pontiac, with everyone having five brands, just like GM?
In 1960 Chrysler restructured its dealer networks in such a way that Dodge would not longer be paired with Plymouth. I assume that management gave Dodge a low-priced competitor partly to keep the peace with its dealers (Geeber has a letter to the editor on this topic here).
However, the alarming drop in sales in 1958-59 undoubtedly contributed to the shift downmarket. With the elimination of DeSoto, this restructuring greatly reduced Chrysler’s internal competition within the premium-price field . . . which made some sense given the shrunken state of the premium-priced class.
Of course, moving Dodge downmarket also created major internal competition with Plymouth that would take entirely too long to rectify. We discuss that further here.
Also, moving Dodge downmarket was an opportunity for others, like Pontiac who quickly fill the void with its wide-track Catalina, Grand Prix and Bonneville and later with the mid-size LeMans/Tempest/GTO.
And it didn’t help either then Dodge ditched the Coronet, Royal, Custom Royal names for Polara, Madator and Dart. I guess they tried to fix that mistake for reviving the Coronet nameplate for the 1965 intermediate who was previously the 1962-64 “full-size” Polara and to a latter extent, recycling the front end of the 1961 Dodge with the Chrysler Newport body to create the “Custom 880” (I think “Custom Royal 880” might sounded a little bit better) as a “1962½” model after the cold reception of the “plucked chickens”.
Interesting to note then in Australia, Dodge couldn’t used the Dart name since someone else owned the trademarks of the nameplate Down Under and they called it “Phoenix”. First based on the 1960 Dart and later a rechristened Plymouth Fury.
http://oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Chrysler/DeSoto-Dodge-Plymouth/1960-Dodge-Phoenix-Folder/index.html
http://oldcarbrochures.org/Australia/Chrysler/DeSoto-Dodge-Plymouth/1965-Dodge-Phoenix-Folder/index.html
That ‘somebody else’ would be Goggomobil!
https://assets.shannons.com.au/CB170P0DE5N52A9E/NEA13OQ54XL65W8B/osmdlx7jh5sl03ce/jpg/2400x1800x3/vehicle/1959-goggomobil-dart.jpg
The Phoenix name continued until the end of local assembly of the big Plodges; I think that was 1972.
https://i.imgur.com/UMWm1KB.jpg
The premium-end of the full-size market began to “hit the wall” in 1956. While Oldsmobile and Cadillac saw good sales in 1956, Buick’s quality problems in 1955 (brakes, etc.) began a sales slide that hurt Buick that did not pick back up until the mid-1960s. Certainly the 1958 Buick and Oldsmobiles were in my opinion “over-styled” in the same manner as the 1958-1960 Lincolns. The Mercurys suffered from “angry bumpers” in 1957-1958. Even the Edsels that shared the Mercury platform had styling that few accepted.
Economists have often reported that recessions really begin about six months prior to when it is actually recognized, which means that June, 1957 is when the Eisenhower Recession hit, coinciding with the Edsel press introduction. Also, by June of 1957, the experiences of those whom bought 1957 Chrysler-products were likely well-known, which likely cost Chrysler sales across all of its brands in 1958-1959, despite its styling lead over G.M. and Ford. Talk of “lemons” growing in the automotive marketplace were a common issue at gas stations in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Although I am a fan of the 1960 Dodge and the 1960 Chrysler, I think Exner could have lowered his fins in 1960. They had lost their elegance and prestige which Bill Mitchell realized as he was directing styling for G.M.’s 1961 cars. By 1961, Chrysler’s styling was to my eye unbelievably bizarre. Understandably, Elwood Engel fixed the volume cars in Chrysler’s lineup first. The Chrysler full-size / premium cars did not arrive until the fall of 1964. The premium cars of G.M. and Ford also hit the showrooms, but at least Chryslers and Dodge Monacos looked the part.
I also think that after the Exner years, Chrysler’s dealership network and advertising was less than fully competitive, which is something Lynn Townsend set to work fixing when he became the C.E.O. But after 1966, Chrysler-product’s quality issues became a factor again, which ultimately culminated in bankruptcy.
Interesting as always. It might be more illuminating still to compare Chrysler and GM production at the brand level: Chrysler vs. Buick; DeSoto vs. Oldsmobile; Dodge vs. Pontiac.
A couple of other observations:
Up until the late ’50s, one of GM’s great strengths was the Buick Special, which gave buyers the opportunity to enjoy top premium brand prestige at a lower premium price point. Chrysler did not match this. A Chrysler Windsor cost something like 10% more than a Buick Special. Perhaps Chrysler felt constrained by the lack of a luxury brand, or by its different divisional structures which may have discouraged the level of internal competition allowed at GM.
The decline of premium brand market share in the late ’50s appears correlated to the increased size and power of offerings of the low priced three. Historically the value proposition of premium products was greater power and size. Without any more meaningful difference after 1957, why buy a Dodge over a Plymouth? Particularly when they were in the same showroom. With the benefit of hindsight, we could see that the best solution would have been to add cost to the interiors as one went up through the brand ladder to differentiate the touch and feel of the products even as the mechanical package became less distinguishable. I wonder why that didn’t seem to have occurred to the industry until relatively recently.
Lastly, when thinking about whether the decision to take Plymouths away from the Dodge dealers in 1960 was the right one, one has to think about the underlying thesis for the change, which was that Plymouth lacked true dealer champions like the standalone Chevrolet and Ford dealers, and this was part of the reason as a brand it lagged behind even though it was sold through more dealers than either of its competitors. Personally, I tend to think that thesis was wrong. I think Plymouth’s problems related to marketing weakness and lack of equivalent economy of scale, which necessitated a slightly higher price point for comparable profitability.
DECG50= May I call you D? Yes, you make an excellent point. The low priced 3 were longer lower and wider than previously, and you could get a high compression V=8 most of the power doodads, and room you would kill for in 2023. However, nameplates still meant something. I wonder how many MOPAR salesmen made a pretty good living telling customers that for %5 a month more I can put you in a Dodge with the same features.
This series of comments underline why badge engineering is so destructive to a multiline automobile manufacturer. From 1970 to the 1990s, the most successful car manufacturers in the U.S. were the imports: Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Volkswagen, B.M.W., Mercedes-Benz and Volvo. I can understand a slight overlap between Plymouth Fury and the Dodge Matador (What’s a Matador ? At least the 1960 Plymouth and the 1960 Dart looked different.), but the De Sotos from 1955 to 1961 were slightly less-fancy Chryslers. Oldsmobiles were different in many ways from Pontiacs and Buicks in terms of sheet metal, suspension and engines, even with Bodies by Fisher. When Chrysler priced mid-year Newports at $ 2,964.00 in the 1960s (at least in Indianapolis), the zone sales staffs cut the floor out of Dodge 880 and top-of-the-line Plymouth sales. One of the problems about Chrysler were that many sales from 1958 to 1980 were from the “sales bank”, so dealers were motivated to undercut each other and move Detroit Iron out of the bank. Who was the Chrysler executive that embraced the “sales bank” idea ?
Since we’re on this subject, why were De Soto’s and Edsel’s last model years cut off after a couple months? Why have a token model year when ending the brand was clearly in the works. I doubt there were any standalone De Soto or Edsel dealers that would be left in the cold.