RE: [Chrysler300] Interesting article on the history of fins on cars

["Richard Barber" <c300@xxxxxxx>]

Here is the interesting and relevant part of that article..  I never saw the
?fins? on our 1955 Chrysler C-300 as pointing to the sky, but most folks
think that design is pretty nice.  Personally, I don't think the design
improved with time and the fin race pooped out by 1962.

There things might have stayed, fin-wise, if not for the smallest of
Detroit's Big Three car companies, Chrysler. It had a reputation for
engineering excellence but boring design. So the company lured Studebaker's
styling chief, Virgil Exner, a talented man who had worked under Mr. Earl at
GM early in his career. 
When Mr. Exner arrived, Chrysler's U.S. market share, traditionally about
20%, had shrunk to about 13%. So he took to the drawing board. The result:
Chrysler's 1955 cars looked like nothing else on the road. 
They had bushy-browed "Frenched" headlights, as the design was called, and
big tail fins that pointed to the sky. Chrysler dubbed it "The Forward
Look." The company's market share quickly jumped to 18%, confounding not
only GM but government trust-busters, whose allegations that GM was a
monopoly were undermined. In the first two months of 1955, Chrysler's
earnings outstripped its net income for all of 1954. 
Emboldened, Mr. Exner added even bigger fins to Chrysler's tails in 1956 and
in 1957, when the company touted its styling with the memorable slogan
"Suddenly, It's 1960!" Mr. Exner was honored by the Harvard Business School.
Tail fins "reflect the growing artistic taste of the American consumer," he
proudly declared. Well, they reflected something, if not exactly that. 
Meanwhile, in the late summer of 1957, rumors spread around Detroit that Mr.
Exner would unveil still more styling magic on Chrysler's 1958 models. So a
Cadillac designer decided to do some sleuthing. His name was Chuck Jordan. 
Mr. Jordan took a lunch-hour ride one day up Mound Road, a major
thoroughfare north of Detroit. As he passed a Chrysler facility, he spotted
some cars parked in a grassy field behind a fence. He drove in, peeked
through the fence and spotted the biggest fins yet. 
The young man tore back to the GM Technical Center, which housed the
company's styling studios, and ran into the office of Bill Mitchell, the No.
2 man on the design staff. "You've got to see what I just saw," Mr. Jordan
sputtered, as he recalled when I interviewed him a couple of years ago. "You
won't believe it." Mr. Jordan, Mr. Mitchell and another colleague piled into
a car and drove back up to the Chrysler field. The sight at the site
confirmed that GM was about to get out-finned. 


Merry Christmas and a Happy 300'ly New Year to all.
Rich Barber
Brentwood, CA
1955 Chrysler C-300 (Bushy-browed with big tail fins??)

From: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Dave Schwandt
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2010 5:12 AM
To: list server
Subject: [Chrysler300] Interesting article on the history of fins on cars

  
OK, I'll confess!!!

I stole this link from the Forward look site

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019463520583944.ht
ml?mod=WSJ_Autos_LS_Autos_7_1

Dave Schwandt

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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