I've watched both parts of this and found it very interesting. Mark is clearly an expert and so I'm pleased that you were able to secure him for an interview. I have to say that after having had a road-toad ('62 Valiant Signet 200) I don't hate this car. We're I an adult in 1962 I can see myself taking advantage of a showroom floor deep discount on one of these with the Slant-6, and then smiling all the way to the bank. Also, because a well-maintained Chrysler product from that era would last a very long time.
Marc is extremely knowledgeable & enlightening. This Fury is absolutely beautiful in person. I see a bit of the Corvair decklid in this rear. I do understand why it failed, yet I find it a very pleasant vehicle. Thank you, Adam, for bringing Marc on.
These are some of the most INTELLIGENT, well produced auto critiques on the internet. Features, concepts, executions, and comparisons are quite thought provoking. Very much appreciated. Thank you
LOVE it! Thanks for part II. Love the 2yr. only swoop of the cowl from the hood to the windshield. AND the matching slope Dutchman's panel !!! (The pnl. between the rear glass & deck lid.) Also, the V'd front & rear windows on the Plyms. & Dodges. As well the V shaped bumpers on the Dodge version are so damn cool!!! I had 2 '62 Dodges and still have a '62 Belvedere 4dr. sdn.. A GREAT package. They drive so nice!
Fascinating stuff! I was around eight years old when these models were built, and seeing these videos rekindles the same feelings I experienced then. Which, I suppose, is why I love older cars. So while your styling analysis is fascinating, I still see these cars through a kid’s eyes. I get such a good feeling looking at them. Thanks! Love your channel!
Thank you for expanding the coverage of this pristine Plymouth and it's polarizing design. You and Mark have a wealth of knowledge and your collaboration provided us a fascinating deep dive into automotive styling. Great video!
I love the front of the Valient, it is Ferrari inspired, but the toilet seat on the trunk and the rear quarter is like the punch line to a bad joke. Virgil Exner was echoing the baroque styling themes of the 1920's when the rest of the country was moving into mid century Bauhaus form-follows-function so he was seriously out-of-step with the cultural shift or gestalt.
Helping that algorithm! Very nice to see more inside the car and how it was trimmed and styled, struck me as quite 50s looking, i.e. conservative on the inside compared to how avant garde it was on the outside. I'm not super surprised they fired the designer in the end, but I applaud his efforts. Very unique.
As soon as I see one of these early 60's Mopar B bodies, I associate it with a hotrod. But even all these years later, I like the unique style. Even with a slant six, they're eye grabbing in a good way.
One of my best friends drove a light blue 62 Fury in high school in the early 1970s. Being a GM guy I thought it was bizarre then and still bizarre today (and also I was not a fan of push button automatic transmissions). It would have been great in this show to have had a 60, 61 and 62 Fury side by side to see how drastic the changes were during just those three years. Sometimes cars are so strange that they end up looking kind of cool years later.
If you grew up with the TV show "Leave it to Beaver" father Ward drove the four door version of this car. It was featured on the opening credits of the last season as they all piled in for a family picnic. As Ward backs out of their driveway "Beaver" looks out the rear glass which had obviously been removed .
I appreciate you giving a second video with more commentary because that car has a lot of character and history behind it now can you find a 62 Dodge Dart or paledart or polara that's even harder challenge.
The 1962 Plymouth Fury front design has always fascinated me. That fine-mesh grille is really outstanding, especially with the "divorced" dual headlight treatment. The extremely long hood really sets off the sideview, complemented by the heavy trim feature of the front side spear. It took a whole series of missteps to kill Plymouth, sad ending to a great nameplate.
In 1968 I painted my buddies 62 Plymouth belvedere police interceptor with a teardrop hood scoop 1966 Bimini blue turned out real nice very cool. He drove her to high school in Remer Minnesota.
Great review, thank you both; I'm particularly fond of the Valiant wagon from this era. We had a '61 Windsor in our driveway, my favourite IP ever. Fabulous channel.
In the day, a pillarless (no window frame) car was called a "hardtop" while ones with door window frames were 'sedans'--2 or 4-door. Some think a sedan is a four-door while a coupe is a two door, but that's not how they were advertised in the 1960s. This car is thus a four-door hardtop, not a hardtop sedan.
I like the styling on this " grammar school teacher's " car. I would have taken the thinner chrome strip that wraps the trunk and duplicated that at the front, in lieu of the thicker side piece trim.
Thanks again for a great video, loved seeing the inset of the originally planned full size Plymouth, I will say the down sized Plymouth did at least drive great and eventually made a nice midsize car
I’m glad the “plucked chicken” comment made it into this version. Presenting this car as the “the thing that got Virgil Exner fired” like in the previous version is removing some important context to how his tenure at Chrysler came to an end. His early 60’s designs were heavily meddled with after being given creative freedom in his first 5 years with the company and by the time these things were being built, he was a dead man walking and making bad designs on purpose just troll his supervisors (if said supervisors were to be believed)
What ever you do, don't let Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford take the Camelback Cutoff shortcut when coming home from a track meet...apparently water can get in the distributor and you will need to push the car to a service station on the main highway and Ward will eventually find out. The 62 Plymouth Fury played a key role in that episode.
I learned a parenting technique from this episode...one of Ward's coworkers saw the boys pushing the car as he was riding by in a bus. When Ward was lecturing Wally and Beaver about following rules and using the car, they asked him how he found out..and Ward refused to say, believing that if they are making a bad decision, there is a chance he would find out about it. My son was in a similar situation and I found out about it...and I used Ward's approach which I think was successful.
Great video I love 62 to 65 mopars. Crazy stories about how they came to be. Then the wheel bases were different depending on the year. Then Virgil Exner was fired and Elwood Engel took over. These cars were awesome at the drag strip they put mopar on the map for high performance. Cool stuff.
I like the 62 savoy styling, I also think notchback barracudas shame darts. 68 charger is the best charger but the 71 coke bottle design grows on you. Any mopar in your garage is sweet
These were great videos. I disagree with the premise that Chrysler Corporation never recovered from this disaster. I commented awhile ago that the Lynn Townsend era was the pinnacle at Chrysler, with sales, market share and profits rolling in. Not long after these cars in the company's turnaround, he was named Time Magazine Man of the Year! By 1965, with the exception of the Corvette, Plymouth division matched Chevrolet car for car, and the whole of Chrysler Corporation matched GM car and truck, line by line from compact car to heavy duty truck. The people he put in place, like Elwood Engle, accomplished this. The 1964-66 Imperial is a timeless design, has stood the test of time better than either the Cadillac or Lincoln of the time. It also was the highest selling Imperial of all time! Your video on the 1972 Fury slightly contradicts the ultimate fatality caused by the 62 plucked chickens. Chrysler had some rough patches, 57-60 corruption and quality issues, 1977 on incompetence. Ricardo and Cafiero wrecked that company, and Iacocca made it an extension of Ford, with rebadged junk. I think Bob Lutz all but alluded to that in your series with him. As I commented to you before, with few exceptions, the only Chrysler Corporation products that are sought after are from the Lynn Townsend era. In the what if catagory: had Lynn Townsend gone after John Delorean when he left or was removed from GM, installed him as President, the turned over the Chairman to him in 1975, we could be possibly be looking at an entirely different US domestic auto industry!
I can't remember but do know from hard learned experience as a young auto tech, one side of the car has reverse threads on the rear wheel lug studs. I'm thinking it was the driver's side but not sure. I hammered on those with an impact wrench for a while before someone told me the deal. LOL
In NASCAR racing the Petty's won a lot of races in those B bodied cars. At the time all the teams back then were running full sized cars. With the Plymouths being lighter to begin with and then stuffing in the Hemi in 1964 Richard Petty won the Daytona 500 in essentially the same frame car and actually the same unibody used right up to the pull out of Chrysler in the early 1970's with the Charger
Fantastic guest, of course. As difficult as it is to be charitable about the outside of this car, I do find the dashboard to be quite smartly styled. And the inside of this example looks positively pristine. I don't remember if it was said there was some restoration, or if this was pretty much the surviving interior condition. Flawless, in any event.
Hi, this is Marc with the '62 Fury. Thanks for your comment. The paint and seat trim was redone by the seller I bought it from, with a fairly decent but not 100% original fabric reproduction. The door trim is original. The IP is missing a molded foam pad on the passenger side above the glovebox, very hard to come by today (even reproductions are rare and expensive) so it's often not replaced in a restoration. Ditto for NOS fabric or interior hardware, absolute silly money for those. The car is really nice as is so I am going to enjoy it for a while before I'll think about "correcting" these minor items.
It's not that it has "valiant" styling, it has Plymouth Styling. All of the makes had their own style and this was the direction Plymouth was taking. The fact that there is a resemblance was a plus. Even the Valiant has styling cues from the Imperal, this is all intentional from Virgil Exner and his forward look concept. This is not the worse car by any stretch of the imagination.
Some may say it’s a love or hate design. I like it. It has some very good basic shapes, and yet some odd details that don’t let the eye rest and find harmony. That rear door chrome kick up section is a good example. The design does not seem to be in harmony with itself.
I've never been a fan of Chrysler, for no particular reason. It just came out that way. A Chevy family, and, like most people, I tend to follow tradition in the family preferences. But I just love Chrysler cars of this period. Because I love the odd and offbeat in things, and, my goodness, Chrysler had some of that in the early '60's. This body is certainly not some objective triumph, universally loved, but it's still fascinating and daring.
Just a side note and my 2¢ worth. The Cadillac Cimarron could have been successful if GM had modified the design like they did creating the Seville from the Nova in the 70's. A unique front piece, roof, tail cap, dashboard and interior trim using Cadillac level of material. Instead they did it in the cheep, so it looked like a high line Chevrolet Cavalier at Cadillac price. Also at start using the 4 cylinder engine too.
As a child, I always thought of Chrysler Corporation cars as awkwardly styled. As an adult I find them interesting. That said the 1962 clay mock-up for Plymouth looked pretty good 👍
Very interesting discussion on marketing. It just seems self evident to go top down, not bottom up. Shows that these companies are run by fallible people.
Ward Cleaver approved. He even purchased a 63, which is my favorite. On a side note, wasn't the 1976-79 Cadillac Seville a "bottom up" design? And it was a hit despite its $13,000 + price tag being the more expensive than the Eldorado.
Little nudge at "finance guy" & "cost savings" on armrests- 4 doors with the larger front armrest would have been more per piece, but less overall cost since only 2 parts vs 4, less tooling, less parts inventory variation and effort.
This car was aimed at the over heard talk about a smaller Chevy. Which I tend to think is the 62 Chevy II a compact. I wonder if this overheard conversation was intentional?
I'm 75yo. Back in those days I detested the Chrysler company styling of all it's cars. I always thought their cars were outrageous and gaudy. My tastes have changed. I would love to own a 60 Valiant four door with a manual floor shifter now. This vehicle in the video looks nice to my eyes today. My father a total car nut who traded often owned only GM and Ford products, never a Chrysler product. I never thought to ask why, yet suspect that, at the time, we thought Chrysler products to have poor build quality.
I kept waiting for you guys to discuss the ugliest (to my eye, at least) feature of the car: its Face, i.e., the grille. It looks like it got kicked in the teeth. A beautiful face can overcome a lot of other shortcomings. That didn't happen here!
One cant help but feel that Virgil was first and foremost an artist who just happened to stumble and fall into the automotive design world.You can just see a hint of muscle car in this design.Typical Virgil a little too forward looking for his own good.At least he cant be accused of just targeting the emerging new middle class and the american housewife. His finest work was probably behind him by then but in his prime his designs sent many Gm and Ford designers back to their drawing boards. You must also give credit to the chrysler corporation for signing off on a car design that at Ford or Gm would have been filed away with all the other concept designs never to surface again.Do you think that in 60 years people will watching a video on the Hyundai i30 vs kia cerato.Virgil Max Exner i salute you.
Another example (possibly the biggest) of bottom up marketing failure, the VW Phaeton! When it came out everyone said a 100k VW!???? WTF ARE THEY THINKING!?
I think the title of "Worst Cars of the 60s" is a shame. This car is beautiful, regardless of whether it sold well. You can't measure whether a car was good just because it wasn't a volume seller.
My parents had a Cimarron when I was in high school. It was a great car except for the crappy sunroof, which leaked badly, other than that, I love it. I wish I had taken my date to junior prom in that car.
Would love to see this one go for a drive. It's certainly not as attractive as an Impala from this time, but it's not without its own appeal. I think this styling is less odd than the Valient it copied.
One thing though, even if you lengthen this car, it still would have that (sorry to write it) "tinny" look that Chrysler and even Ford, often had. I don't see the "tinny" problem on the prototype. This opinion exempts the luxury marques (Imperial, Lincoln etc.). GM had a knack for a tighter, higher quality look that the other two could not seem to fully emulate. Early 60's Mercs are an exception. I will generously admit that AM didn't either. The prize goes to GM: 51% of market share. lol
Those 1962 Dodge /Plymouth Valiant inspired car body , engine and running gear were Very Well engineered machines !!!...The styling was better appreciated only on the high end Hard top models....Too say they were the WORST cars of the sixty's is outlandish....
Looks weird or even ugly for early 60s design standards but this is the best looking Mopar of the early 60s because even the Imperial's of the early 60s, those were plain ugly.
@@jeffreysproul9110 Must have been somebody from the Police Department that drove a Savoy, there was a scene where Three cars "A Dart & two Savoy" were all side by side. It was on PCH and the California incline below Palisades Park, it was just before the final chase started. The Dart was black and the two Savoy's were light tan. What a classic movie.
@@61rampy65 Yes the taxis were 59 Plymouth Savoys and Peter Falk (Colombo) was one of the taxi drivers. Spencer Tracy drove the 62 Dodge Dart. I haven't seen It's A Mad Mad Mad World in a number of years but I first saw it on the wide screen when I was 10. One of my favorite scenes was when Jonathan Winters tore apart the gas station.
I can't say I like the Valiant, but this Fury is an interesting looking car and not in a bad way to my eye. Not GREAT looking, but interesting/cool. But not the Valiant, to my eye.
Funny, they marketed the Valiant as "Nobody's kid brother", then they turned around and gave it a big brother!
I guess the Plymouth Fury is that Nobody lol.
I've watched both parts of this and found it very interesting. Mark is clearly an expert and so I'm pleased that you were able to secure him for an interview. I have to say that after having had a road-toad ('62 Valiant Signet 200) I don't hate this car. We're I an adult in 1962 I can see myself taking advantage of a showroom floor deep discount on one of these with the Slant-6, and then smiling all the way to the bank. Also, because a well-maintained Chrysler product from that era would last a very long time.
How come I'm digging every "Worst Car" video. Perhaps they do grow on you.
Marc is extremely knowledgeable & enlightening. This Fury is absolutely beautiful in person. I see a bit of the Corvair decklid in this rear. I do understand why it failed, yet I find it a very pleasant vehicle. Thank you, Adam, for bringing Marc on.
These are some of the most INTELLIGENT, well produced auto critiques on the internet. Features, concepts, executions, and comparisons are quite thought provoking. Very much appreciated. Thank you
I'd love to see a video explaining the finer points of the original Valiant's styling.
1st Gen. Valiants looks reminded me of a 'old maid librarian wearing cat's eye reading glasses on a chain around their necks styling.' =D
Virgil Exner was a genius. Don't care what anyone says.
@Chuck Haugan in the 1950's, yes, not after his heart attack.
LOVE it! Thanks for part II. Love the 2yr. only swoop of the cowl from the hood to the windshield.
AND the matching slope Dutchman's panel !!! (The pnl. between the rear glass & deck lid.)
Also, the V'd front & rear windows on the Plyms. & Dodges.
As well the V shaped bumpers on the Dodge version are so damn cool!!!
I had 2 '62 Dodges and still have a '62 Belvedere 4dr. sdn.. A GREAT package. They drive so nice!
Fascinating stuff! I was around eight years old when these models were built, and seeing these videos rekindles the same feelings I experienced then. Which, I suppose, is why I love older cars. So while your styling analysis is fascinating, I still see these cars through a kid’s eyes. I get such a good feeling looking at them. Thanks! Love your channel!
Thank you for expanding the coverage of this pristine Plymouth and it's polarizing design. You and Mark have a wealth of knowledge and your collaboration provided us a fascinating deep dive into automotive styling. Great video!
I love the front of the Valient, it is Ferrari inspired, but the toilet seat on the trunk and the rear quarter is like the punch line to a bad joke. Virgil Exner was echoing the baroque styling themes of the 1920's when the rest of the country was moving into mid century Bauhaus form-follows-function so he was seriously out-of-step with the cultural shift or gestalt.
My friends mom had a ‘60 Valiant. What a dog.
Helping that algorithm! Very nice to see more inside the car and how it was trimmed and styled, struck me as quite 50s looking, i.e. conservative on the inside compared to how avant garde it was on the outside. I'm not super surprised they fired the designer in the end, but I applaud his efforts. Very unique.
As soon as I see one of these early 60's Mopar B bodies, I associate it with a hotrod. But even all these years later, I like the unique style. Even with a slant six, they're eye grabbing in a good way.
You're not alone!
One of my best friends drove a light blue 62 Fury in high school in the early 1970s. Being a GM guy I thought it was bizarre then and still bizarre today (and also I was not a fan of push button automatic transmissions). It would have been great in this show to have had a 60, 61 and 62 Fury side by side to see how drastic the changes were during just those three years. Sometimes cars are so strange that they end up looking kind of cool years later.
Wonderful discussion...really enjoyable!
If you grew up with the TV show "Leave it to Beaver" father Ward drove the four door version of this car. It was featured on the opening credits of the last season as they all piled in for a family picnic. As Ward backs out of their driveway "Beaver" looks out the rear glass which had obviously been removed .
I really love these discussions!👊🏼
I appreciate you giving a second video with more commentary because that car has a lot of character and history behind it now can you find a 62 Dodge Dart or paledart or polara that's even harder challenge.
A small town police department had some of those, but post models. They gave new meaning to the term ‘rattle trap’.
Please keep Mark as your sidekick!!! I could listen to him all day! 👍👍👍
The 1962 Plymouth Fury front design has always fascinated me. That fine-mesh grille is really outstanding, especially with the "divorced" dual headlight treatment. The extremely long hood really sets off the sideview, complemented by the heavy trim feature of the front side spear. It took a whole series of missteps to kill Plymouth, sad ending to a great nameplate.
In 1968 I painted my buddies 62 Plymouth belvedere police interceptor with a teardrop hood scoop 1966 Bimini blue turned out real nice very cool. He drove her to high school in Remer Minnesota.
Great review, thank you both; I'm particularly fond of the Valiant wagon from this era. We had a '61 Windsor in our driveway, my favourite IP ever. Fabulous channel.
Very informative. And valuable information that's needed to better understand the design language. And america as a whole.
Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing Marc's expertise and information.
In the day, a pillarless (no window frame) car was called a "hardtop" while ones with door window frames were 'sedans'--2 or 4-door. Some think a sedan is a four-door while a coupe is a two door, but that's not how they were advertised in the 1960s. This car is thus a four-door hardtop, not a hardtop sedan.
I like the styling on this " grammar school teacher's " car. I would have taken the thinner chrome strip that wraps the trunk and duplicated that at the front, in lieu of the thicker side piece trim.
I've never seen one of those in such pristine condition. Even when I was a little kind in the late 60s I remember them as used up and rusted out.
Great guess, love listening to him
Thanks again for a great video, loved seeing the inset of the originally planned full size Plymouth, I will say the down sized Plymouth did at least drive great and eventually made a nice midsize car
Exner did not approve of the downsize. The full-sized was Exner's approved design.
Love the bottom-up, too-down analogy!
I’m glad the “plucked chicken” comment made it into this version. Presenting this car as the “the thing that got Virgil Exner fired” like in the previous version is removing some important context to how his tenure at Chrysler came to an end. His early 60’s designs were heavily meddled with after being given creative freedom in his first 5 years with the company and by the time these things were being built, he was a dead man walking and making bad designs on purpose just troll his supervisors (if said supervisors were to be believed)
I had a 62 Sport Fury. It was a great car. With a 383 it was a very powerful and fast car. Loved that car
My great aunt had a 1962 Dodge Dart in Coral finish (or Pepto Bismol pink). Very cool car to ride in when I was a kid in the early 70's.
Should have designed an advertising campaign emphasizing that "it's light and lively"
I suspect it would keep up with a '62 Oldsmobile rather easily
What ever you do, don't let Clarence "Lumpy" Rutherford take the Camelback Cutoff shortcut when coming home from a track meet...apparently water can get in the distributor and you will need to push the car to a service station on the main highway and Ward will eventually find out. The 62 Plymouth Fury played a key role in that episode.
I learned a parenting technique from this episode...one of Ward's coworkers saw the boys pushing the car as he was riding by in a bus. When Ward was lecturing Wally and Beaver about following rules and using the car, they asked him how he found out..and Ward refused to say, believing that if they are making a bad decision, there is a chance he would find out about it.
My son was in a similar situation and I found out about it...and I used Ward's approach which I think was successful.
Great video I love 62 to 65 mopars. Crazy stories about how they came to be. Then the wheel bases were different depending on the year. Then Virgil Exner was fired and Elwood Engel took over. These cars were awesome at the drag strip they put mopar on the map for high performance. Cool stuff.
I like the 62 savoy styling, I also think notchback barracudas shame darts. 68 charger is the best charger but the 71 coke bottle design grows on you. Any mopar in your garage is sweet
That is a beautiful ‘62 regardless of the reaction at the time it was released. A bit quirky, but this is a great example!
The back of this car has an almost Italian Ghia look to it.
Love these videos with Mark
These were great videos. I disagree with the premise that Chrysler Corporation never recovered from this disaster. I commented awhile ago that the Lynn Townsend era was the pinnacle at Chrysler, with sales, market share and profits rolling in. Not long after these cars in the company's turnaround, he was named Time Magazine Man of the Year! By 1965, with the exception of the Corvette, Plymouth division matched Chevrolet car for car, and the whole of Chrysler Corporation matched GM car and truck, line by line from compact car to heavy duty truck. The people he put in place, like Elwood Engle, accomplished this. The 1964-66 Imperial is a timeless design, has stood the test of time better than either the Cadillac or Lincoln of the time. It also was the highest selling Imperial of all time! Your video on the 1972 Fury slightly contradicts the ultimate fatality caused by the 62 plucked chickens. Chrysler had some rough patches, 57-60 corruption and quality issues, 1977 on incompetence. Ricardo and Cafiero wrecked that company, and Iacocca made it an extension of Ford, with rebadged junk. I think Bob Lutz all but alluded to that in your series with him. As I commented to you before, with few exceptions, the only Chrysler Corporation products that are sought after are from the Lynn Townsend era. In the what if catagory: had Lynn Townsend gone after John Delorean when he left or was removed from GM, installed him as President, the turned over the Chairman to him in 1975, we could be possibly be looking at an entirely different US domestic auto industry!
Still no look under the hood?
I can't remember but do know from hard learned experience as a young auto tech, one side of the car has reverse threads on the rear wheel lug studs. I'm thinking it was the driver's side but not sure. I hammered on those with an impact wrench for a while before someone told me the deal. LOL
Yup drivers side both wheels. I snapped off 2 spindles, drove it to a shop, and the mechanic snapped off a 3rd one.
In NASCAR racing the Petty's won a lot of races in those B bodied cars. At the time all the teams back then were running full sized cars. With the Plymouths being lighter to begin with and then stuffing in the Hemi in 1964 Richard Petty won the Daytona 500 in essentially the same frame car and actually the same unibody used right up to the pull out of Chrysler in the early 1970's with the Charger
Fantastic guest, of course. As difficult as it is to be charitable about the outside of this car, I do find the dashboard to be quite smartly styled. And the inside of this example looks positively pristine. I don't remember if it was said there was some restoration, or if this was pretty much the surviving interior condition. Flawless, in any event.
Hi, this is Marc with the '62 Fury. Thanks for your comment. The paint and seat trim was redone by the seller I bought it from, with a fairly decent but not 100% original fabric reproduction. The door trim is original. The IP is missing a molded foam pad on the passenger side above the glovebox, very hard to come by today (even reproductions are rare and expensive) so it's often not replaced in a restoration. Ditto for NOS fabric or interior hardware, absolute silly money for those. The car is really nice as is so I am going to enjoy it for a while before I'll think about "correcting" these minor items.
In a two door version, these things are actually pretty cool looking. They’re very weird looking. But cool because they are so odd looking.
It's not that it has "valiant" styling, it has Plymouth Styling. All of the makes had their own style and this was the direction Plymouth was taking. The fact that there is a resemblance was a plus. Even the Valiant has styling cues from the Imperal, this is all intentional from Virgil Exner and his forward look concept. This is not the worse car by any stretch of the imagination.
Imagine what it would have looked like if it actually had a 121” wheelbase and was 221” long and had a different grille.
Some may say it’s a love or hate design. I like it. It has some very good basic shapes, and yet some odd details that don’t let the eye rest and find harmony. That rear door chrome kick up section is a good example. The design does not seem to be in harmony with itself.
..I absolutely love this car....Marc is the man......
I've never been a fan of Chrysler, for no particular reason. It just came out that way. A Chevy family, and, like most people, I tend to follow tradition in the family preferences.
But I just love Chrysler cars of this period. Because I love the odd and offbeat in things, and, my goodness, Chrysler had some of that in the early '60's.
This body is certainly not some objective triumph, universally loved, but it's still fascinating and daring.
I like it and would be proud and happy to have it instead of a Ford or Chevy of the same model year. This one in black and red is outstanding !
6:54 Across the roof of the Fury we see the current design cue of American vehicles. Two pickup trucks.
I didn't notice it in part 1 - the asymmetric front seatback, higher on the driver side... another cue from the concept car?
Chrysler cars used that style seat for quite a number of years.
Loved the rear armrest comment! 😂
Just a side note and my 2¢ worth. The Cadillac Cimarron could have been successful if GM had modified the design like they did creating the Seville from the Nova in the 70's. A unique front piece, roof, tail cap, dashboard and interior trim using Cadillac level of material. Instead they did it in the cheep, so it looked like a high line Chevrolet Cavalier at Cadillac price. Also at start using the 4 cylinder engine too.
I would submit that maybe the bottom up styling language worked with the tempo/topaz which bubbled up to the Taurus/Sable?
The thing is it was goody in the day but you can't say the engineering was bad. At least they got air time in It'a a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
As a child, I always thought of Chrysler Corporation cars as awkwardly styled.
As an adult I find them interesting.
That said the 1962 clay mock-up for Plymouth looked pretty good 👍
summarized , Love to have one this nice !
I can't see or hear "Belvedere" without being reminded of Bugs Bunny / Road Runner hour..
Some of the most detailed discussion on styles yet. Makes me sorry for the shit style we get Today.
What were they thinking? 🤔
Very interesting discussion on marketing. It just seems self evident to go top down, not bottom up. Shows that these companies are run by fallible people.
I had a neighbor that had a 62 belvedere slant 6 & it lasted them a long time
Ward Cleaver approved. He even purchased a 63, which is my favorite. On a side note, wasn't the 1976-79 Cadillac Seville a "bottom up" design? And it was a hit despite its $13,000 + price tag being the more expensive than the Eldorado.
June Cleaver said, "Ward, I think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night!!! ". 🙄
I thought I was the only one who thought the same thing. To me the Seville was a gussied up Nova.
Little nudge at "finance guy" & "cost savings" on armrests- 4 doors with the larger front armrest would have been more per piece, but less overall cost since only 2 parts vs 4, less tooling, less parts inventory variation and effort.
This car was aimed at the over heard talk about a smaller Chevy. Which I tend to think is the 62 Chevy II a compact. I wonder if this overheard conversation was intentional?
I'm 75yo. Back in those days I detested the Chrysler company styling of all it's cars. I always thought their cars were outrageous and gaudy. My tastes have changed. I would love to own a 60 Valiant four door with a manual floor shifter now. This vehicle in the video looks nice to my eyes today. My father a total car nut who traded often owned only GM and Ford products, never a Chrysler product. I never thought to ask why, yet suspect that, at the time, we thought Chrysler products to have poor build quality.
Wasn't this car in the film It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World? Spencer Tracey's car?
YUP!!! His was below the Savoy. A "Fleet Special" model with the police package.
And it was a 4dr. sedan, not a hdtp.
Sid Caesar had a wagon. Spencer Tracy had one also.
Don't forget Milton Berle & Ethel Merman s Imperial!!!
And the '62 Dodge Polara 500 convertible driven by Dick Shawn!
Spencer Tracy drove a 1962 Dodge Dart.
This year was much less ugly than the ‘61 model
I like the steering wheel, nice color contrast.
I can see why the car was welded it to the showroom floor though.
I like the styling. Then again, I drove a 62 Dodge Lancer untill 1977.
I kept waiting for you guys to discuss the ugliest (to my eye, at least) feature of the car: its Face, i.e., the grille. It looks like it got kicked in the teeth. A beautiful face can overcome a lot of other shortcomings. That didn't happen here!
Those were the best taxi in the Middle East with the slant 6 and 3 on the tree very popular
One cant help but feel that Virgil was first and foremost an artist who just happened to stumble and fall into the automotive design world.You can just see a hint of muscle car in this design.Typical Virgil a little too forward looking for his own good.At least he cant be accused of just targeting the emerging new middle class and the american housewife.
His finest work was probably behind him by then but in his prime his designs sent many Gm and Ford designers back to their drawing boards. You must also give credit to the chrysler corporation for signing off on a car design that at Ford or Gm would have been filed away with all the other concept designs never to surface again.Do you think that in 60 years people will watching a video on the Hyundai i30 vs kia cerato.Virgil Max Exner i salute you.
Still would buy a good low mileage example if I found one.
One of my dream cars
What is whit the drivers side seatback being higher?
Another example (possibly the biggest) of bottom up marketing failure, the VW Phaeton! When it came out everyone said a 100k VW!???? WTF ARE THEY THINKING!?
I think the title of "Worst Cars of the 60s" is a shame. This car is beautiful, regardless of whether it sold well. You can't measure whether a car was good just because it wasn't a volume seller.
You look and think it is a valiant. Thats another reason it bombed im sure.
People wanted bigger cars. With 25 cent per gallon gas who cared.
@@dave1956 they still do. Its why soccer moms buy suburbans instead of minivans.
Ford UK screwed up with the Consul Classic Capri, the tooling caused panels to tear when pressed, and they lost money on every car sold
Thank you.
i find the back end has a corvair type look to it .
It appears to have only one headrest built-in on front seat
The Cadillac Cimarron. There was a laughable car. We had a neighbor who purchased one new. My dad called it a " wanna be Caddy ".
My parents had a Cimarron when I was in high school. It was a great car except for the crappy sunroof, which leaked badly, other than that, I love it. I wish I had taken my date to junior prom in that car.
He left our the back story of that particular one it's basically a brand new car
How did it survive?
Spencer Tracy it's a mad mad mad world
Not a bad looking car
His was a Dodge Dart from 1962.
If this car was produced today, it would sell millions.
Would love to see this one go for a drive. It's certainly not as attractive as an Impala from this time, but it's not without its own appeal. I think this styling is less odd than the Valient it copied.
To me the roof line, c pillar and rear glass resemble a 50s continental. Is it just me? Lol
One thing though, even if you lengthen this car, it still would have that (sorry to write it) "tinny" look that Chrysler and even Ford, often had. I don't see the "tinny" problem on the prototype. This opinion exempts the luxury marques (Imperial, Lincoln etc.).
GM had a knack for a tighter, higher quality look that the other two could not seem to fully emulate. Early 60's Mercs are an exception. I will generously admit that AM didn't either. The prize goes to GM: 51% of market share. lol
Didnt Ward Cleaver drive one of these? Leave it to Beaver?
Those 1962 Dodge /Plymouth Valiant inspired car body , engine and running gear were Very Well engineered machines !!!...The styling was better appreciated only on the high end Hard top models....Too say they were the WORST cars of the sixty's is outlandish....
When it came to acceptance by the public, i.e., sales, the word Worst does absolutely apply as was pointed out in the first video.
Looks weird or even ugly for early 60s design standards but this is the best looking Mopar of the early 60s because even the Imperial's of the early 60s, those were plain ugly.
Hi Adam, does anybody reproduce the speaker grills yet??? That looks just like the car that Captain Culpepper drove in "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World."
Culpepper (Spencer Tracy) drove a 62 Dodge Dart which is basically the same car as this Fury.
@@jeffreysproul9110 I agree- it was a 62. I think the two taxis were 59 Plymouths.
@@jeffreysproul9110 Must have been somebody from the Police Department that drove a Savoy, there was a scene where Three cars "A Dart & two Savoy" were all side by side. It was on PCH and the California incline below Palisades Park, it was just before the final chase started. The Dart was black and the two Savoy's were light tan. What a classic movie.
@@61rampy65 Yes the taxis were 59 Plymouth Savoys and Peter Falk (Colombo) was one of the taxi drivers. Spencer Tracy drove the 62 Dodge Dart. I haven't seen It's A Mad Mad Mad World in a number of years but I first saw it on the wide screen when I was 10. One of my favorite scenes was when Jonathan Winters tore apart the gas station.
Love it!
Not worst car! Wrong on this thumbnail title.
I can't say I like the Valiant, but this Fury is an interesting looking car and not in a bad way to my eye. Not GREAT looking, but interesting/cool. But not the Valiant, to my eye.