Insider's History of Chrysler and Plymouth - The Brand and The Cars (Part 1, 1946-1953)
Greetings, friends of (Chrysler and) Plymouth. This is the first article in a series.
Near the end of World War II, Chrysler President K.T. Keller had become heavily involved in the electronics side of Chrysler Corporation. They were deeply involved in the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb, but the Corporation has never disclosed just how deeply. What did it have to do with automobiles? Absolutely nothing! Chrysler was a big military contractor by this time, and its electronics division was second to none.
The U.S. military was stunned by the capabilities that the Germans had
achieved with the V-2 missiles. The U.S. was nowhere close in that game. Using captured V-2 rockets and captured German scientists, the U.S.
Army set out to create a missile program. Missiles make heavy use of electronics, and
that meant Chrysler was right there. In 1950, President Harry Truman
appointed K.T. Keller to be head of the U.S. Army's Redstone Missile program.
Mr. Keller never looked back to the automobile business he sprang from.
Meanwhile, Chrysler's automobile divisions were in chaos with nobody at the helm. Divisions were competing against each other as hard as they competed against Ford and General Motors. From 1946 to 1950, Chrysler survived mainly on the pent-up demand for new automobiles and the booming economy after the huge World War.
During that period, customers began a shift from solid, reliable, anvil-like cars, to models like the new step-down Hudson with its lowered floor and racy profile. Automatic transmissions, power steering, power brakes, electric windows, and more engine power were rising fast. Chrysler looked to its Chairman for guidance. His response was the usual sort of 3 box design philosophy (one box sitting on two boxes) for the entire Chrysler line of cars. Solid, silent, and stodgy! Keller was quoted as saying that the styling "won't knock your hat off, and neither will getting in one of our cars." I guess he thought it was a good pun.
Plymouth, by the way, was always the largest division.
The logic however was that it was the “small margin” car, and
depended on the other divisions for its existence. Plymouth production
surpassed 1/2 a million cars in 1936 (520,025) and it never looked back
— until Buick gave Chrysler board members a real shock in 1954 when Plymouth
fell to fifth place in production behind Buick (3rd) and Pontiac (4th)!
My father and grandfather owned a full MoPar dealership, one of the rare outlets that dealt directly with the factory, and was not a franchise; they could sell every make that ChryCo had to offer, including Dodge trucks. They made interesting and insightful journal entries about the Corporation. Both disliked the 1953 model Plymouth not only due to its stubby appearing design, but also for its poor quality of assembly and lack of creature amenities. No automatic, no power steering, no power brakes. And it was a dusty, leaky vehicle. The gas filler on the left hand side just above the rear bumper was an engineer's nightmare according to Grandpa, causing more gas spills than "Carter had farter starter pills." But, they didn't end there.
1951 was a critical year, and materials were hard to get due to the Korean “police action.” Harry Truman toyed with the idea of declaring it a war, so that production of war materials would be assured, but automakers assured him that he would have all the things the Armed Forces needed, and they would also be able to sustain passenger car production. Truman, therefore, did not have to officially declare war; it was a politically expedient decision that kept the cash flow coming into the car maker's coffers.
Like all things of this nature though, compromises had to be made. Certain materials, such as steel, were in short supply. Car makers found ways to reduce the amount of steel it took to make a car. Chrysler sheet metal was thinned out, some braces were eliminated, and fasteners were spaced further apart. The 1952 Plymouth was visibly less sound than the 1949 and 1950 models.
1952 was a decision year for the corporation in another way, as well. Dodge was due to receive its own V-8 “double rocker” (original Hemi) engine in 1953. Plymouth should have received its own V-8 in 1954; it had already been agreed that the Plymouth V-8 would have the cheaper “polysphere” head.
Plymouth took it on the chin, again. With materials critical for engine manufacturing in short supply, the Board hid behind the military demands for products and shoved Plymouth's V-8 into the year 1955 at the earliest. Dodge also cried that it didn't have the production capacity to build engines for its own vehicles, its truck division, and Plymouth too! Further, the company’s first fully automatic transmission (project JUS95A which later became the Powerflite) was put up for further study as to its adaptability to the requirements of Plymouth!
To add to the Plymouth division's woes, the government kept threatening to curtail materials necessary to build cars. The Board decided that Plymouth would be the first to stop production if that occurred! Despite all the bad things thrown its way, Plymouth managed to hang onto its traditional third place finish in the production race. But not by much, as a surging Buick was snapping at its heels.
Surely 1953 would be better. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, after his first year in office, had gotten the North Koreans to the bargaining table, slowing demand for war materials. Plymouth launched its new models, which on the inside were virtually the same as they had been since about 1941. Outside, they were new looking, and management was convinced they were on the right track when new car sales took off on a pace that equaled the 1951 record year of over 660,000 Plymouths. That is, up until July 1953.
The Korean War ended in an armistice. Ford began an all-out sales blitz to regain the #1 spot and Chevrolet joined in the fray. The dealers had to unload their cars, because the factory was just dumping them on their doorsteps, whether they ordered them or not. Suddenly the independents, and Chrysler, began to sweat a little.
Plymouth was running over capacity, and was pushing out 20,000 cars a week. That was the absolute best they could do, especially without help from the other divisions. That level of production came at the expense of quality. Even so, it was still not enough. Ford was running at 26,000 cars a week, and Chevrolet grabbed whatever space it needed from other GM divisions to reach 37,500 cars a week.
Suddenly, it dawned on Highland Park that Plymouth not
only lacked capacity, it also lacked the marketing glitz shown by its
competitors. While other cars were growing, Plymouths
shrank. While other cars laid on the chrome trim, Plymouth took it
off. While the competition was increasing its engine power, Plymouth had the
same old flathead six that had been around for over 20 years. Plymouth
couldn't even point to its oddly acquired NASCAR racing record any more,
since the usual Plymouth drivers had switched to V-8 power from Dodge
or Oldsmobile.
Plymouth was one of only seven cars that did not have an automatic transmission, or even the semi automatic. There was no power steering, no power brakes, no fancy packages of any kind. Still, at the end of the 1953 production year, Plymouth hung on to its third place in the units-built race. Still, one of the last things that K.T. Keller did before he retired was to hire a new corporate designer. The 1954 models were set. The arrival of the new designer met with no fanfare, and little notice — but by the disastrous end of 1954, Virgil Exner was to be put on a pedestal at Chrysler.
- Curtis Redgap
Part 2 coming soon • If you have comments, please e-mail PlymouthRIP62801@aol.com.
Thanks to Wolven for proofing this page.
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