1955 Chryslers

MEET AMERICA’S MOST SMARTLY DIFFERENT CARS

We feature a lot of Chevrolet-affiliated films here, mostly because a pre-war General Motors seems to have tossed Jam Handy Productions a blank checkbook and instructed the studio to make wacky films on everything from differentials to precision manufacturing.

But other automakers were eager to use the wonder of moving-picture technology to get their product in front of the American consumer, as we saw in a recent Lincoln Continental spot. Today’s reel is actually a series of brief commercials for the revolutionary 1955 Chrysler model lineup; we’re not sure if these spots were run in theaters or if they were beamed directly into living rooms and screened on shiny new Philco 4406 Phonoramas.

With the introduction of the so-called “100-million-dollar look,” also known as the "forward look," these '55 Chryslers really were radical departures from the previous year’s models. Their sweeps and swoops and modest (at least initially) fins erased the last vestiges of bulging prewar fenders and upright passenger cabins. This new styling direction was previewed by the Virgil Exner-penned 1952 Chrysler Imperial Parade Phaeton. But it took a few years for the split grille and long, low style to reach production.

These ’55 Chryslers are massive cars, but they wear their lines well and never come off as bloated. And they were packing near-modern power; the top-of-the line New Yorker Deluxe’s V8 produced 250 hp, which means you could feasibly pilot one of these beauties on today’s roads with a reasonable amount of confidence.