1961 Plymouth Fury Design Tweak

Refining One of Virgil Exner's Last Masterpieces

For this week's design tweak, I chose a 1961 Plymouth Fury 2 door hardtop. While I find the original Exner design stunning, its contemporary buying public didn't agree. Many automotive hacks wracked their brains trying to colorfully describe this car—The Car that Ate Tokyo—a riff on the Japanese horror flicks of the day, comes to mind, and they still do to this day in classic car magazines. The "pinched" grille and dramatic headlight placement seems to be the car's main issues, although the suddenly finless body was referred to as a "plucked chicken" by Exner himself. My main issues are with the details. There are fussy chrome doodads, fussy side sculpturing and an abundance of shiny chrome slathered in the front. Ironically, Lexus is just now introducing its new "spindle" grille across its entire lineup, and it's almost exactly the same shape as this '61 Plymouth. See the BTW sidebar at the end of this post. Let me describe how I "fixed" it to my own tastes.

T H E   C H O P — First I "radiused" the rear wheel wells. This means I opened up the fenders to reveal the entire wheel and tire. The original had a very low wheel opening which didn't really relate to the front wheel well and made the rear end look like it was dragging. I think this change did the most for "lightening" the look of the car. I resculpted the sides, continuing the front fender shoulder all the way to the back of the car instead of ending it at the front door. I also eliminated the ornate trim behind the front doors, and lowered the entire car about 3 inches so it sat closer to the ground hugging the tires more. At the front, I blackened-out the grille, which simplified the look of it, and made the dramatic "swoosh" around the protruding headlights work better. I added a satin chrome "header" above the now-black grille, with P-L-Y-M-O-U-T-H letterspaced across it. This serves to "rationalize" the grille shape, giving more prominence to the horizontal aspects of it, rather than the angularity of the opening. The front bumper was simplified too, deleting the rather baroque center section with its five raised ridges, and I raised it a few inches so it wasn't so close to the ground.

The original photo of the '61 Fury. Note the odd way the front fender shoulder sculpturing stops at the front door cutline, though the chrome trim continues. Also, just behind the front door is a set of chrome hash marks that seem really out of place, though they do serve as a start for a small sliver of white paint, matching the two-toned roof. The rear of the car seems to drag, a combination of the now-finless rear fenders and very low wheel well opening.

BTW: 

Exner has the last laugh after all, as Lexus introduces its brand new "Spindle" grille on its entire lineup. I call it an updated '61 Plymouth grille!


U P D A T E :  For some reason my chop wasn't enlarging from the thumbnail. Now it should be.

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Re-imagining the Past

Early-ish Chops of Early-ish Cars

2006 Chrysler 300 Sport Wagon—This was my creation of a "true" Chrysler 300 station wagon. I modified a Dodge Magnum body, adding more glass to the greenhouse and suicide doors. I gave it a classic 1955 Chrysler front end and slightly later MoPar "flashlight" taillights. I think all of these disparate parts really hung together well! I hope Virgil Exner, Sr, would approve!

1964 Thunderbird Squire—Taking one of my favorite Thunderbirds, the "Squarebird" of 1964-66, and making it into a classic 1960s Country Squire, was one of my more fun chops in the "early days." I first had to make it into a four-door, predating the actual 4-door T-bird by three years, and posted a sedan version online first. Then I went further adding the wagon bodystyle and then the "wood" paneling. I would love to see someone build this today for the car show circuit! The rear trunk on these 'Birds was low enough that the rear bumper/taillight assembly could be kept and a hatch added above it. Cutting the hatch into the roof, a la the Dodge Magnum, would be fine for ease of loading.

1980 Thunderbird—Moving forward a decade and a half, this is my idea of what a 1980-82 Thunderbird could have looked like, the so-called "Fairmont 'Bird." Instead of completely throwing out the mega-successful "Torino 'Bird's" styling, and Ford sold more than half a million of the '77-'79 T-birds, this smaller, lighter 'Bird would have taken that styling and proportioned it to fit the Fox platform. I really like the way this car came out.

1959 Cadillac Eldorado Sport Coupe—I created a personal luxury coupe out of a regular Cadillac Series 62 coupe for this chop. I shortened the trunk, lowering the fins and moving them forward at the same time. I actually lengthened the hood a bit, perhaps for a revived V-12? I also opened up the rear wheelwells, giving the car more of a forward thrust. And of course, as with so many vintage cars before restoration, I had to duct tape some of the chrome trim on it. I also added the rust... I know exactly what that looks like from experience, lol.

1962 Plymouth Fury—Reimagining the great Virgil Exner isn't a task to be taken lightly. I like to think that in this chop I just removed the awkward production values forced upon him. Besides the new roofline, and a bit of trim removal, the most important thing I did in this chop was to restore the curved sideglass I know was on the prototypes, but changed at the last minute for cost reasons. By moving the bottom of the glass out flush to the bodysides like Mr. Exner originally wanted, the styling makes so much more sense. His early "fuselage" styling is revealed to be the genius it really was. My sloping roofline makes his emphasis on the individual fender shapes and long hood, classic-era touches, really stand out, too.

B O N U S   C H O P :

2008 Toyota Cressida—Not a vintage car, but one that stood out in my Photobucket account while I found the above chops, this is my take on an updated Toyota Cressida. The Cressida was a rear wheel drive "luxury" Toyota back in the 1980s. I began with the current front wheel drive Avalon, but gave it more classic rwd proportions and smoothed it out, removing much of Toyota's current lumpy-and-bumpy styling ethos. I say this a lot, lol, but I really like the way this large Toyota came out. I wish it was available at a dealer, today!

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Barracuda, Mustang, Wildcat—and Some Cars, Too

The Parade of Early Chops Continues

This first generation Plymouth Barracuda S has had it's C pillar swept back and rear window made slightly smaller in this vintage "reimagination." I also added some chrome trim to the rear fender bumper bulge to tie it in with the actual bumper, and changed a few other details here and there.

 

Utilizing the same "winding road" background as the Barracuda S above, I've illlustrated one way an image can be manipulated in Photoshop. This small Mercury Monterey would have been a compact hybrid sedan aimed at the Chinese Domestic Market.

Chevrolet's affordable alternative to BMW's X6 Sports Activity Vehicle, the Berlinetta would have used the Equinox's platform with a 4-place bucket seat interior and powered rear fastback hatch.

Out-of-this-world, Ford Futura  4-place mid-engined hybrid sports coupe would have been introduced at the hottest nightclub of the season.

One of my many Mustang notchback chops. I really wish Ford offered the Mustang in its original three bodystyles, notchback, fastback, and convertible.

I believe there is a market for 3-door crossovers, one that is not being filled at the moment. Two large side doors would make entering and exiting so much easier for many people. I see so a lot of these vehicles being driven with just one or two people aboard. I don't think the slightly more awkward entry to the backseats would be that much of a drawback. 

Rife with areas I would change if I chopped this today, this Wildcat would be Buick's entry into the luxury 2-seat market, an updated Reatta in a way, but with performance all wheel drive. Reprising the classic Wildcat moniker is a no-brainer—meow!

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