I know; I’m a broken record about the misguided lower, longer, wider mantra. But for anyone who’s ever sat in the back of a car like this 1947 Chrysler Newport posted by robadr, with its tall sofa of a set that is orthopedically correct, has massive leg room, and inevitably creates a sense of well-being, will wonder why ten years later they were threading themselves into the low and cramped back seat of a 1957 Chrysler.
And this isn’t just because it’s a Chrysler; a Dodge or Plymouth or any American car of the era were about the same, except for the trim.
A bit of extra width wouldn’t hurt here, but then buyers voted with their wallets against the Chrysler Airflow, which was wider back in 1934, but looked too odd to conservative Americans. But one can’t exactly argue with the visual appeal of the dashboard. It may not have a screen, but there’s plenty to look at.
This basic design was getting a wee bit old by 1947, having started life back in 1940. But it was still very serviceable, and would soldier along through the end of 1948, as a First series 1949 model before being replaced by the all-new Series 2 Chrysler Corp. cars. And they retained the qualities that I and Chrysler President K.T. Keller admired in cars: “These cars were made to sit in, not pee over”.
The front end is a bit Baroque, but you knew what it was coming down the street.
The relationships of the front end and rear ends was a bit out of proportion. Folks just didn’t have a lot of luggage back then.
And they were hood-proud. Even if it was just a venerable flathead six hiding deep in its bowels. And we wonder why pickups have become the sedan of the times/
Looking at that back seat brings back memories of the 1937 Buick Special. Although the small-trunked (to call it a fastback would be to overuse the term) two-door sedan version, the space in the back seat was just as large. People were into practical comfort back then.
Don’t be fooled. That trunk will hold lots of suitcases. That was the era of matching sets of luggage, usually tweed, that included an assortment of sizes including hat boxes and makeup kits. I still have some pieces that belonged to my folks.
K.T. Keller was known to be direct in his manner of speech. His famous quote is more blunt.
“When, in the immediate postwar era, someone at Chrysler had designed a smaller, low-slung car, K. T. Keller, the company’s top executive, had mocked it. “Chrysler builds cars to sit in,” he said, “not to piss over.”
― David Halberstam, The Reckoning
Keller also insisted that Chrysler cars be tall enough for the driver and passengers to wear hats.
Love these and the lower priced but similar Dodge and Plymouth variants. When I was a kid in the 50s, I’d draw these as my example of an old car.
Yes, lower, longer and wider was a mistake in hindsight, but at the time, carmakers were falling over themselves to offer the newest, most rakish look.
Cool detail on these sedans: Not only does the regular rear window roll down, but the rearmost window opens as a vent.
Fancy one or may be two as restoration projects?. Found them on the Portuguese site “Autouncle” . Fitted with the straight six. Perhaps they were taxis in their younger years?.
Shape of things to come? Maybe with a shorter hood. Backup camera would help on these.
How did people manage to back up these cars? I’d be with you on the camera for sure. And a modern touch screen looks like it would fit where the speaker grille is.
The Hudson and the Nash were not mistakes.
When they lowered the driving position, they ended up with a car that handled like little else before it. That Ambassador had a half foot added to the hood to give the Nash the right proportions. Both the Nash and the Hudson were wide, roomy and streamlined. It just got ridiculous by 1976.
Remember when my father got lucite fender guides that would illuminate when the headlights turned on. He bought them for my mom who was learning to drive on his ’47 Olds. Visibility wasn’t a strong point on cars like this. Mom finally got her driver’s license on Dad’s 3-box ’50 Buick Special with Dynaflow after he remounted those guides to the Buick.
I want one but will need someone to drive as I want to experience the back seat when the car is moving.
Fashion is usually uncomfortable. My preference has always been for vehicles that were properly designed to serve their intended purpose, ie a truck should be focused on truck usefulness, a people mover on comfort and ride, etc. The further from core functionality a vehicle is, the more quickly it becomes obsolete. American cars from the fifties and beyond are so bizarre (in general) because fashion was by far the biggest design mandate.
having owned a Checker Marathon, a paragon of purity of purpose, ease of service, and construction simplicity, I will take stodgy usefulness over glitz every time.
Another classis a short walk from where I live. Spring brings out cool cars in Vancouver, home of rust-free vehicles.
My dad’s 48 Dodge had the same wonderful back seat. Perfect comfort.
He was a passionate amateur carpenter, and the trunk always held lumber, furniture, rocks for building fences. Definitely bigger than it looks.
In all old film noir movies, from the ’40’s, and early 50’s, you saw Chrysler products, as taxi cabs. One reason, or THE reason, was the Fluid Drive transmission. It gave your left foot a “break,” in traffic.
I’m a big fan of Fluid Drive. In my opinion, it’s ideal for taxi use. It is simple, reliable and cheap. In city traffic, all the driver had to do is leave it in second gear.
I believe it to be a better unit than the early two speed automatics.
My dad had a 1949 Chrysler Windsor with Fluid Drive. I drove it many times. Any time I had first date with a lady, I’d show up in the Chrysler. In most cases that meant there would be no second date. If there was, I’d arrive on my Yamaha RZ350.
The third date happened exactly one time. I was just too weird for most people. Still am, too.
In a way, I think it’s this sort of thing that attracts people to SUVs now. By ‘thing’ I mean spaciousness, higher seating position, easier ingress/egress. SUVs are in fact a terrible way to achieve this in that they don’t deliver very well on these aims and are awful for the planet, pedestrians (the list goes on), but I suspect it’s part of people’s purchase/leasing of them.
Trucks and big SUVs are pretty spacious but the step up can be a bit much. Minivans are a bit better. I chose a Ford Flex because it was spacious and easy to enter, plus the mileage is better than a real SUV. Ford had a couple of high roofed models,the 500 and the Freestyle. They weren’t too popular with buyers who seem to prefer truck like styling, I suppose.
The Freestyle/Taurus X continued on as the Explorer CUV, but the Five Hundred/Taurus’s 2010 replacement took away its tall roof and great visibility.
I immediately thought of the Ford Five Hundred, having owned a couple of them. High roof, one can sit up straight in them, lots of room all around. But the looks are “meh” and they were quickly branded as “old people” cars. Style and going with the crowd do matter, still.
I’m riveted by these cars whenever I see them. Probably because I remember them from my childhood, by which point they were already ‘old’ but still common enough on the road to be a stark contrast with newer, lower, flashier models. On the odd occasion you got to ride in one it seemed, even then, like an alternate universe.
The scale of them, and the sense of mass, integrity, identity, etc. is still impressive to my eye. Almost an ‘objet d’art’. Or maybe it’s just a childhood imprint? (Mama! 🙂
I imagine the prevailing wisdom consumers had in getting away from this into the longer/lower/wider mantra was “I’m not buying this car with my hard earned money to ride in the back seat, my kids and inlaws can get their own car if they don’t like it back there!”. Couple decades of whining finally made the head of the family relent and get back to this shape, albeit with far less style and a lot more plastic.
I see Marty Mcfly took his truck out to trade in his 2015 hoverboard for a new rad power bike.
The biggest litte surprise I got is how this Chrysler weighs under 3400 lbs, which is in line with a mid 2010s Camry. (And just at random, 3800 lbs would get you a 1990 5.8l Ford F150.)
I was surprised too. It certainly looks like it weighs more and with the manual steering you will swear it does but according to more than one source here is the truth…
1947 Windsor with 6 cylinder engine and 3 speed manual transmission weighs 3380lbs.
With 6 cylinder and Fluid Drive it weighs 3460lbs.
Nothing “baroque” about the front end – I find it stunningly modern. Move the headlights down into the grille and it would look more 1977 than 1947.
I have to agree, baroque in this period to me would be the 46-48 Lincoln’s, the low horizontal grille on the Chrysler was a pretty good hint towards the future. I’ll see your move of the headlights to the grille though and raise you the factory 42 DeSoto nose with its proto-Dodge Charger hidden headlights!
There was a maroon ’42 DeSoto that lived in a usually-open garage on my way to school in my little hometown. Never saw it on the road, and out only when the owner was washing it. I actually saw it first before my school days, as we were in that neighborhood during WW2, and I was nuts for cars already. Those covered headlights were what really made the car stand out to me; I loved stuff that was different, and so few cars then really had much of that.
Anyone know if there is one of those 1942 DeSotos in a museum somewhere? I was at Hershey when a Desoto club was displaying some models, but they only had a few. The guy at the desk said they switched them a few times through the display period. I thought they could have easily fit more cars in the place, but they did still have a Studebaker Sceptre left over from the previous show.
Heh. And I always thought those 1942 hidden headlights were a late response to the 810-812 Cord of five years earlier. Wait a minute: what about the ’38 Buick Y-job special ?
Once Again, Paul and I are in agreement.
My long-contemplated Dream Trip down the Natchez Trace Parkway and back, with a good companion or two, would be a PITA at the legal 50 after a hundred miles or so … which is why some big fat roomy postwar Chrysler product has been one of the few on my list, tied with maybe a ’41 Packard. Wire the trunk to accommodate a plug-in cooler, pack that with picnic food and beverages (hence the boot location, to stay legal), and the 50 mph limit would be not only bearable but fun, clear to Natchez and back. Got a white linen suit and straw fedora just waiting to go …
Today’s tall and boxy minivans are the true successors to this kind of comfort mobile.
More so when they had full second row seats like my cloth upholstery base model TransSport. I always thought that sitting in its back seat was about the same deal as being in a larger pre/postwar car. Flat floors too, and probably about the same height. The driving experience was a bit different though, as well as looking out from any location (particularly to the front). Also lacking the distinctive smell of the wool or whatever it was they used.
The new postwar body Chrysler products were the most conservative bodies in style and construction of any postwar designs, really an update of the old ways instead of a more clean sheet design like Fords. For example in the shorter wheelbase ones like Plymouths the arm rest in the back seat was still on the body, not the door.
The first car I remember is Dad’s ’47 Cadillac Fleetwood. I think he bought it in the mid-’50s. It was well worn even then, but the seats were high and supremely comfortable, and there was a huge amount of back seat legroom. When Dad had to finally retire the ’47, he bought a ’52 Cadillac Series 62. Nearly as tall as the ’47, and nearly as roomy in the back seat. One still sat tall and comfortably. Both of these cars were great for my dad to get my mother in and out of the car. (She was a victim of polio in the 1930s and developed multiple sclerosis on top of that, and was very disabled.) Both of the Cadillacs allowed Mom’s wheelchair to be folded and put in the back seat area, too. (The ’41 Chevy Master Deluxe Town Sedan I drove when I was in high school also had a hugely capacious back seat, with gobs of legroom.)
In 1966 Dad replaced the Cadillac with, of all things, a 1961 Mercedes 190Db. For whatever reason, he got it into his head that he wanted a diesel. He could still get my mother in and out without too much trouble, but the wheelchair had to go in the trunk.
These days, in my late 60s, I’m seeing the attraction of tall CUVs, and my in-laws made the switch a few years ago. But I’m still not seeing anything with the stretch-out room of those old Cadillacs.
The long and at times convoluted evolution of the motor car. We find ourselves driving vehicles of a similar package size to those of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s. It seems that changes come incrementally, and the point made about handling is a valid one. There is also the marketing and selling of cars, making a car look fast and powerful, Harley Earls’ impact on the industry and yearly design change, planned obsolescence. We have returned to this body style and ride height with increased safety and handling after years of gradual technical and mechanical improvement. The photos posted here comparing a motor car from the ‘30’s or ‘40’s with a current SUV/CUV attest to this. A final point, it seems that the more practical and pragmatic vehicles are purchased by females while men often times purchase a vehicle with more power and size than necessary, I know I have always done this, and my lack of demerit points can attest to this. Another great read thanks again.
Lovely, just lovely .
-Nate
Take the new 2021 Toyota Sienna with the “super long slide” 2nd row seats. Fold the 3rd row into the floor, slide the 2nd row all the way back, and back seat passengers are effectively sitting behind the sliding door opening, just like this old Chrysler, with even more legroom (because the Sienna is much more space efficient than the long-hood old Chrysler)
After a decades long detour in “longer lower wider” we are back to where we were, except even better in many ways.
Love this style and era of the post war sedans, which still carried the look of the late ’30s-early ’40s right up to the fifties.
A friend I went to college with in ’72-’75, drove a ’48 Chrysler with that infamous inline engine. He left northern ND with a slight rod knock, drove the 2200 miles to Los Angeles and back again several times. It never did get any worse. I rode with him down Harbor Freeway and up to Dodger Stadium listening to the softly muted knock coming from the engine under that looooong hood, surrounded by the trappings of 1940s comfort. You could have sat a couple of monkeys on our shoulders and they would’nt have touched the wool headliner.
Try that in a modern 6 cylinder and one wouldn’t reach the end of the block; besides the monkeys would complain sorely over the lack of comfort