Retro Stories by David Burrell
One of the US car industry’s biggest ever mistakes happened in 1962 when Chrysler shrank its large Plymouth and Dodge ranges based on the snippet of an overheard conversation.
It is automotive folklore that sometime in late 1959 William Newberg, Chrysler’s newly appointed boss, supposedly overheard Chevrolet’s general manager, Ed Cole, talking about downsizing his division’s full-sized cars for 1962.
Some versions of this event place it at a party. Ohers suggest it was on a golf course. Whatever the location, Newberg thought he had a hot inside tip.
With its 1962 models just 18 months away from production, Newberg ordered the Plymouth and Dodge cars to be restyled and downsized to match Chevrolet. Virgil Exner, the styling director at Chrysler, was one of the few who opposed the downsizing.
The design studios went onto a 24-hour shift rotation just to get the work done. Reportedly, it was almost total chaos. Naturally, the re-design was rushed and corners were cut. Basically, the planned cars were reduced in length and width. The wheelbase on the Plymouths and Dodges were cut from 119 to 116 inches (3023mm to 2946mm). There was no time or money to downsize the Chrysler branded cars, so they stayed the same size, with some sheet metal changes.
Trouble was, the conversation that Newberg eavesdropped was about the compact Chevy II/Nova, due for release for the 1962 model year, not the full-sized Chevrolets. The Chevrolets actually increased in size in 1962.
Newberg got it wrong, wrong, wrong!
The question that’s never been answered is why other Chrysler senior executives and board members never asked Newberg the obvious question “hold on a minute, can we check if this rumour is true before we make this big downsizing decision?” Apparently, they just stood by and let it happen.
The downsized cars created much consternation when Plymouth and Dodge dealers first saw them. They complained that the styling resembled the two-year-old Valiant, some of which were already in used car lots.
Chrysler’s advertising did not help matters either by showing the smaller Valiant with the Plymouth and Dodge. The supposedly bigger, more expensive new models did not appear that much bigger than the older Valiant. To make matters worse, 1962 was the year Ford unveiled its mid-sized Fairlane, which was about the same size as a Plymouth. That meant Chrysler’s full-sized cars were now perceived as mid-sized, but with a full-sized price.
The dealers instinctively knew what new car buyers would do. Indeed, buyer reaction was brutal. Plymouth sales dropped 20% and Dodge’s plummeted 33% compared to 1960.
To placate angry Dodge dealers and give them a big car to sell, a 1962 Chrysler Newport was given a 1961 Dodge Dart front end and called the Dodge Custom 880. It took 12 panic-filled weeks to create. Plymouth dealers just had make do.
So, what happened to Newberg? Well, he was not at Chrysler when the 1962 range was released. You see, back in mid-1960 an audit report revealed a conflict-of-interest issue involving Mr Newberg. He was fired.
Virgil Exner was also given his marching orders in November 1961. He was blamed for how the cars looked and replaced by Elwood Engel from Ford.
Meanwhile in Australia, Wheels magazine (from the AMHF collection) reacted positively to the downsizing, but still rated the local Dodge Phoenix as a big car. Sales of 652 units were recorded, which was in line with Chrysler Australia’s sales of the Dodge and Plymouth brands in 1959.
The Phoenix’s local situation was also helped by Ford having removed the larger Galaxie from its Australian line up and promoting the smaller Fairlane as its premium car. The Dodge and Fairlane were considered sensibly sized “yank tanks.”
It took until 1965 for Chrysler in the USA to up-size its Plymouths and Dodges and match the dimensions of Ford’s and GM’s full-sized ranges. For me, 1962, and the lost sales, is the year which began Chrysler’s long, slow slide into financial troubles in the 1970s.
