We've touched on the Italian-bodied American concept cars in the past, but I feel that this Plymouth in particular deserves a closer look. Her sister car, the... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
Here's a few snapshots of the car at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance: click thumbnails to enlarge
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This car is on display at the Heritage plantation in Sandwich Mass right now, along with some other GM and other show cars from the fifties. It is beautiful to see in person.
Man I'd love to load up that luggage and take it up the PCH or on numerous mountainous byways that I can think of. I wish there was a video that actually let you hear and see it going down the road, although I can understand why they probably never drive it on the street.
Recall looking thru my Granddad's Dodge dealer magazine.....Came across several articles on these Virgil Exner "dreamcars".........The Explorer was the companion to the Dodge Firearrow III Coupe'........Despite the directive to return the cars the the builder (Ghia) or destroy them, nearly all survive......Only the Chrysler K-310, C-200, & DeSoto Adventurer II(?not sure about this one) were supposedly crushed......The Dodge FireArrow (I was a styling buck only) II, III, and IV, Plymouth Explorer, Dart, at least 1 Falcon sports car and the beautiful Chrysler D' Elegance are all still around and seem to be well cared for.......Joe Bortz is responsible for finding, & restoring many if the big three 50's dreamcars.......
Should clear up one thing.... those cars were NOT Ghia designs. They were designed in Detroit in the Chrysler Corp styling studios. Virgil Exner was head of styling. Around 1950, Chrysler discovered they could get custom built bodies made in Italy for about 1/10 what it cost to have them made in the Chrysler shops by union labor. This was partly due to the favorable exchange rate of US dollars vs Italian lira, partly due to the lower wages paid in Europe, partly because the Italian shops were experts at hand work and could build a car from a few drawings, no blueprints or elaborate tooling required. This cut the time needed to do the work by half. From then on they farmed out this kind of work to Ghia. They even built Imperial limousines, after Chrysler stopped making their own limousine bodies in the mid fifties. As for the Karmann Ghia. The VW company wanted a sports car style body made on a VW Beetle chassis and Ghia filled the bill. This was in 1954. Similar looking show cars had been made for Chrysler from Chrysler designs in 1951-53. You can draw your own conclusions.
The cars never belonged to Ghia, they were a sub contractor who built bodies to Chrysler designs on chassis supplied by Chrysler. Different companies had different policies regarding show cars. GM's policy was to destroy the cars when they were through with them. Chrysler was more likely to sell the cars to some trusted insider, such as the president of a company that supplied parts to Chrysler or a senior Chrysler employee.
Nyet bibsheekoff to you too, Todd (my video was in Russian). Cool car, love most of the concepts. Something really appealing about a sleek One-off.
On PBS they have a show called Mystery Cars & have shown just about every Ghia car ever made,good show with crappy music.
The Firearrow IV (the red convertible) was the basis for the Dual Ghia.......A prototype was built that looked very similar (painted black) differing in that it had bumpers..Called the Firebomb, it was in the Blackhawk museum last I heard.....
I saw it in the portland oregon art museum, i thought it looked damn good sitting next to the Tucker!!
It's pretty well documented that Luigi Segre & the boys @ Carrozzeria Ghia "borrowed" many styling cues from Virgil Exner & the boys @ Chrysler when they designed the 1955 Volkwagen Karmann Ghia body ... but it wasn't from the 1954 Plymouth Explorer Ghia Sport Coupe ... but rather the 1953 Chrysler Ghia D'Elegance:
Here's an interesting article by Virgil Exner Jr........ http://www.carlustblog.com/2012/05/the-desoto-adventurer-1-my-favorite-show-car-of-all-time.html But I think since this was Exner's favoite car (and drove it for about 3 years) it was not crushed, but was either sold overseas (per a Chrysler document I was sent) or is sleeping in a Exner family barn/shed/garage/etc.........Would love to find that car......
We are super fortunate that not only does this car survive, but is in good hands at present .....It has sold recently 2-3 times.........
The only distraction and it's a huge one is the toilet seat on the trunk, that is one of the biggest Chrysler failures of all time.
That is why they build experimental cars, so they can tell the good ideas from the bad ones - and use the bad ones.
I've often wondered why Detroit could churn out such magnificent designs for the shows year after year and then all the consumers got was fuddy-duddy inverted bathtub crap.
There are a lot of factors involved when you want to sell a car by the millions. Practicality, interior room, lowest cost to build, even things like having to leave enough room for tire chains (required by law in certain states), headlight height etc etc. An artist can draw up a real pretty car but it has to be made practical before it hits the showrooms. Chrysler had a real spotty record when it came to styling. Some years their cars took after Miss America, others resembled a Zombie or the Bride of Frankenstein. GM had about the highest average when it came to looks and style. Ford seemed to take a middle of the road approach, they seldom made a real knockout but the seldom made a real dog.
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