(first posted 8/1/2013) I may occasionally razz Virgil Exner for some of his foibles, but I’d sure like to have had dreams like this and actually see them executed into drivable form. The ultimate childhood fantasy come to life…
The 1955 Chrysler-Ghia Falcon, foreground in silver, came very close to going into production as Chrysler’s answer to the Corvette and Thunderbird. With hemi-power, it could have been a formidable competitor. Exner was deeply disappointed at that decision. The 1954 Dodge-Ghia Fire Arrow (yellow), and the 1957 Chrysler-Ghia Diablo (red) were two more concepts in the string of Exner-Ghia collaborations. I’ll take the Fire Arrow; I’m feeling a bit playful tonight. Which dream would you like to have tonight?
Diablo for me, please. Crimson and sleek. Nighty night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOiTrrEV0fA
Agreed, the Diablo. But with the caveat that if you’re filthy rich and wonder what to get me for Christmas the Fire Arrow and Falcon are absolutely fine second and third choices. 🙂
I think the silver one almost made it into production as the Chrysler/DeSoto Falcon for 1955, right? They made 3 of them. It was more Thunderbird in theme, think they had the DeSoto 291 V8 and Powerflite.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1950s-chrysler-concept-cars5.htm
I wish it actually did make it. I never was a big fan of the original Corvette (out of the C1s I only really like the 1961 for the wide white wall two-tone 1950s touches with the 1961 Duck Tail rear end) and I think all of the shoe melting heat from the engine and truck handling references about the original Thunderbird ruin it’s beauty for me (especially the ContiKit for 1956, and those Fairlane 500 tailights for 57).
Falcon me please!
The Falcon used the 331 ci Chrysler FirePower hemi. Some sources say Chrysler made three, others one. It was fully driveable as the suspension, steering, and brake systems were from the parts bin and it sat on a shortened Chrysler frame. The design work for it was done by Exner associate Maury Baldwin with fine tuning by Ghia.
Source: Road and Track, June 1991.
I’d take the Falcon. It seems most like a production ready car to me and would have done well. I wonder what badge it would have carried — the Corvette and Thunderbird were part of the entry level brand. Plymouth Falcon? What could have been!
There was a Chrysler Ghia for sale on trade me recently but it was hard to tell what it looked like some of these must have been in production for an example to end up in NZ
There were a few dozen limited-production cars sold in Europe. Exner had done another variation on the K-310/C-200 theme at the request of C.B. Thomas, who was the head of Chrysler Export. Thomas liked it and made a deal with Ghia to do a series-production version, which was sold through Chrysler’s French importer.
There were three variations on the design: the Chrysler Special, the GS-1 and the ST Special. All had a New Yorker chassis and Chrysler FirePower engine. The production cars were actually designed by Ghia, not Exner, although because Exner’s design was the starting point, they look very similar.
The Ghia cars were produced in very small numbers — maybe 35 to 40 cars total — and were very, very expensive, so they’re definitely rare. Most of them were originally sold in France, but have ended up in various places.
Separate from those, there was also the better-known Dual-Ghia, which was based on the Dodge Firearrow (Fire Arrow?) concept car. Those weren’t Chryslers per se (they had Dodge engines and chassis), but were also built by Ghia. I think there were maybe 120-odd of the first Dual-Ghia and maybe two dozen of the later L6.4 car, which looks quite different.
I’ll take the Ghia (I’m a sucker for sidepipes) and we can go cruising Hollywood Blvd for aspiring starlets..
The silver car is actually called the “Falcon”. Of those three, that would be my choice. I’m still not fond of the headlights sunken in big square boxes, but the rest of the body looks great.
Oops; I don’t keyboard well while I’m dreaming.
The remainder of the body makes up for it for me too, the Hemi helps too.
I find it disappointing (it that’s the right word) that Chrysler didn’t release any of these Ghias but did produce the 1960 Valiant.
Am I the only person that actually likes the 1960-62 Valiant styling. I just wish they had the toilet seat delete option for the 1960-61 models. The 1962 circular tailights look plain (kinda like when the Mercury Comet ditched the Edsel Lenses).
I’ve always been crazy about the first-gen Valiant, especially that ’62. It’s got interesting curved lines everywhere and a nice shape. Wide open greenhouse. Same Space Age look as the ’62 Fury I like so much. The ’63 Valiant looks like the box the ’62 came in. Sad. Here’s a ’60 from TTAC:
You might like this picture from the August 2004 of Collectible Automobile showing earlier mock-ups clays models of proposed Valiant designs.
And check on the Forwarklook.net forums, some old scans from a old Motor Trend issue of 1960 posted by 57burb showing proposed Valiant versions for Dodge and DeSoto then some illustrator expected. http://www.forwardlook.net/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=29648&start=51
I like their uniqueness, and the company’s courage in making them. I’m just surprised they diidn’t make the Ghias. I guess this is the bias of hindsight.
That two-seater Falcon coulda been bigger than the T-Bird if they’d built it. It saddens me to think that no one in the company at the time saw fit to build it.
The car I saw for sale didnt have a pic of a complete car but yeah it was a big car and big $ .The ad I think said 5 were made no idea if it sold or not its the best looking one so Ghia must have gone ahead They were built in Italy on shipped chassis.
Another one to mention are the DeSoto Adventurer I and II. We mention so often the Chrysler Falcon then the 2 Adventurer show cars are overshadowed. 😉
http://www.carlustblog.com/2012/05/the-desoto-adventurer-1-my-favorite-show-car-of-all-time.html
http://www.conceptcarz.com/events/eventVehicle.aspx?carID=18779&eventID=682&catID=2445
I prefer the look of the 1954 Plymouth Belmont to the two DeSoto Adventurer concepts.
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z10073/Plymouth-Belmont-Concept.aspx
I assume that Chrysler displayed good judgment by not building the Falcon. How could there have been a business case for it? GM had the deep pockets to subsidize the Corvette all those years, but Chrysler was too small and unstable. The Falcon would have ended up like the Studebaker Loewy coupe, where there was never enough money to keep it up to date.
I want the Diablo but with the fins when it was called the Chrysler Dart.
I don’t know what you’re taking before bed (eat ice cream too late? Ambien? A couple of shots of wisky) but I wish you’d share some. My dreams are never this nice, well almost never. 🙂
I’m not built for 2 seaters but I could make do with the silver Falcon,it looks like some Italian exotic creation a 4 wheeled work of art
Today I prefer the Falcon. The dreamiest dream is to have all three to choose from every night.
If Chrysler had put this dreamboat into production, what would Ford have called their compact?
I guess Ford could had call it Comet or using nameplates used for British cars during that era (Zephyr, Consul, Zodiac, Cortina) or German car (Taunus) or toying with nameplates they studied before finally chosing the name on the car we knew today as the 1st-gen Mustang: Colt, Cougar, Bronco, Puma, Cheeta, Torino,….
Ford Finch?
never saw the falcon before, gorgeous !
For some people a dream comes true. This 1954 Chrysler Ghia ST Special (one-of-four) was sold in Paris last february for 288,000 USD.
The front:
And the back: (no toilet seat !)
This is one of the Ghia-designed derivatives I mentioned above. Exactly how many were built is mostly a matter of speculation at this point, although it wasn’t many. I talked to one owner who had done a lot of rather painstaking research of chassis numbers in Chrysler’s archives and believes there were six ST Specials in all. Chassis numbers aren’t necessarily 100 percent accurate, since some chassis might conceivably be unused, used for testing or other purposes, rebodied more than once or destroyed by accident, but at this late date, they’re pretty much the only way to estimate production. Chrysler’s French distributor of the time, which sold most of the cars originally, is long defunct.
It’s obvious that this car was on the brain when the VW Karmann Ghia was styled.
Chrysler could have gone sporty in a simpler way with a slightly customized ’55 DeSoto roadster. Along the same lines as GM’s ’53 Eldo and Skylark. Dip the middle to emphasize those wonderful big-cat haunches.
I was gonna pick the 1954 Dodge-Ghia Fire Arrow until I saw her front teeth!
The 1954 Plymouth Belmont appears early on in the 1957 noir film The Tattered Dress:
https://www.imcdb.org/movie_51058-The-Tattered-Dress.html
Movie is on archive dot org.