(first posted 12/7/2017) Dodge was royally confused for 1962. Historically seen as a slightly upmarket brand, competing with the likes of Pontiac and Mercury, Dodge shifted focus starting in 1960 and competed most aggressively against low-priced sister division Plymouth. Therefore, like Plymouth, Dodge also centered its 1962 offerings on the new “downsized” full-sized cars. While the shrunken ’62 Plymouth hardly qualified as a beauty queen, the smaller Dodge was even more challenging style-wise. Even before launch, it was painfully obvious these new standard Dodge cars would be lost causes, so Chrysler’s Product Planning, Marketing and PR departments went into overdrive in a desperate attempt to make a favorable impression with buff book readers.
Motor Trend dryly noted that the new Dodge was smaller than the “senior” products had been in years, not a good sign for an all-new design targeting the semi-premium Medium-Priced bracket. Nor was it good that the technical benefits of the new design so closely mirrored those of low-priced Plymouth, with little differentiation to support Dodge’s more upmarket aspirations.
Note that at the outset of the 1962 model year, these downsized cars were the “big” Dodges: the traditionally full-sized Dodge Custom 880 (with the ’61 Dodge front clip grafted to a Chrysler Newport body) arrived after the start of the 1962 calendar year as a desperate Product Planning ploy to have at least something in the Medium-Priced full-sized class where Dodge had typically competed.
Right out of the gate, in the November 1961 “New Car Issue” of Motor Trend, Dodge’s Marketing Department kicked into overdrive with an in-depth 12-page advertisement touting the new “Lean Breed” of Dodge.
This huge insert, with heavier paper stock and color images, was unprecedented, at least in Motor Trend, up until that point in time. Virtually all other automakers ran single-page or double-page spreads, often in Black and White, and most typically featuring a glamourous beauty shot of the product. Dodge marketers understood that simply focusing on looks of the new full-sized cars wasn’t going to be enough to attract buyers (in fact, the ’62 styling actually repelled many people), so they essentially inserted a detailed sales brochure into a buff book. Not a cheap approach, but probably their best hope to appeal to car enthusiasts who might place more value on the engineering benefits of the new car than on its peculiar styling and smaller scale.
The Chrysler PR teams were also careful to serve-up convertibles for extended road tests. Though the open-top body-style was usually the least popular in the line-up, in the case of the downsized Mopars, it was probably the best looking. Hence, the PR fleet for Dodge and Plymouth was weighted toward drop-tops.
Dodge served-up a Dart 440 convertible with the 2V 318 V8 and Torqueflite for Motor Trend to test, and the buff book’s starter sentence summed up the enormous challenge of the new car: “our first glance suggested they’d sent us a Lancer by mistake.” No brand should ever have its style defined by its cheapest product, especially when the intended buyers have more upmarket aspirations.
Dodge was undoubtedly conducting all sorts of “motivational research” studies to figure out how to best recover from the debacle of the downsized Dodges.
The convertible tested by Motor Trend was a tame set-up (odd given the “dynamic” Dodge brand positioning), and MT’s editors also noted that the handling characteristics seemed worse than before…. hardly a ringing endorsement. At least the testers praised the nicely-finished interior trim and well-executed instrumentation.
But what the “Dodge Boys” really needed was some grunt, the kind of legendary power that would help cement Mopar’s performance image. Thus, late in the 1962 model year, Dodge (and Plymouth) got the “Max Wedge.”
Engines like these rightfully earned respect from the performance crowd, though they weren’t suitable for daily street use. And unfortunately nothing was fast enough to get away from the disastrous ’62 Dodge design.
Great series of articles on the fascinating story of the 1962 Mopars. I prefer the Dodge side and rear styling over the Plymouth, but like most, still can’t warm up to the bizarre front end.
I see Ford cribbing alot of the 1964.5 Mustang from the two, especially the Dodge. The inset headlights on the outside of the front w/ a prominent center thrusting grill. Later Ford would borrow more w/ two headlights in the center grill.
compare
You beat me to it! I was going to do another postscript on exactly that subject. I’ve been aware of it for a very long time, but for some reason forgot to include it in the article.
The original Mustang concepts were very different, until the ’62 Dodge came out.
Wow, I never had thought of that and I was a car nut teenager when both of these came out. Now I will never be able to look at the front of my ’66 Mustang without thinking of the ’62 Dodge. Those lights in the grille of the Mustang are actually fog lights.
One of my guilty pleasures is that I actually like the ’62 Dodge and Plymouth.
I`ll always remember the `62 Polara as the black convertible beatnick Dick Shawn was driving in that epic comedy “It`s a Mad.Mad,Mad,Mad World’.
me2, but I remember red
Davis is right.
I stand corrected. It`s been a while since I`ve seen it, but it`s the perfect movie for a cold Saturday night.
the movie made me love those early 1960’s Chrysler products.
I saw a 1962 Dart about 10 miles east of Plaster City some time back
Spencer Tracy drove the black one.
And Sid Caesar and Edie Adams played the married couple whose car was the light blue 1962 Plymouth Fury station wagon.
Whereas in real life Edie Adams had been widowed from her marriage to Ernie Kovacs, (whose death in a Corvair Lakewood has been discussed multiple times in this forum).
To me 1962 seems almost like another century (though its only been 55 years) in terms of cars. For some reason I think of my Grandmother when I think of this car (she never learned to drive, but I think is representative of this time)…she thought the 1974 Datsun 710 I owned at one time was a sports car, probably because it was “small” compared to American cars, which she equated to being a sports car.
I think her mindset of many people at this time, when American cars were (arguably) at their peak, was that most people bought the “standard” size car, unless they couldn’t afford it, in which case a smaller (but still American) car could be substituted (if already you couldn’t afford the V8 version of the “standard” size car and the I6 was still too expensive for you,) So instead of the “standard” size car you could save money and buy the mid-size or even compact model. I think Detroit itself esposed this, thinking that eventually you would become more affluent and be able to afford the “standard” sized car.
So…when these Mopar models came out as the replacement for the “standard” sized car, with no larger (Dodge nor Plymouth) model, I think it really disturbed this mindset (despite as described that they were supposedly as roomy or roomier than the 1961 standard sized model they were replacing)….so much so that Dodge ended up doing something like appropriating the departed “standard sized” Desoto to become the mid-cycle Dodge 880 to mitigate the situation (but not for Plymouth for another 2 years). It didn’t matter to people that the cars were roomier (I like the description of the transmission tunnel shrinking since I guess the TorqueFlite case got smaller at this time)…the cars looked to be something “less” than “standard” size and that was a problem (and the odd styling itself, though described in the article as “european” probably just seemed “odd”.
My Father was working his way up this car “food chain” starting out with a 1956 Plymouth (which I think was a bit smaller than most standard sized cars at the time) followed by 2 Ramblers and an Oldsmobile F85. It wasn’t until 1969 that he finally bought a “standard” sized car (paralleling how he was progressing in his career as he could afford a larger car). Counter to this, however, he also bought a foreign car as his 2nd car (which I’m sure my grandmother never understood….why would you buy a “sports car” as a 2nd car for a family man?
I like the 1962 resized Mopars, but I think I’m looking at them a monday morning quarterback, with 2017 (or maybe 1977) eyes. If I was the same age I am now in 1962, I don’t think I’d like them nearly as much…on the other hand, 1962 me as well as 2017 me would love to have a “standard” sized Dodge 880.
‘Whereas in real life Edie Adams had been widowed from her marriage to Ernie Kovacs, (whose death in a Corvair Lakewood has been discussed multiple times in this forum).’
And Sid Caesar actually was a last minute stand-in for that part…the part was originally intended for Ernie Kovacs to play.
Milton Berle, Dorothy Provine, and Ethel Merman got an Imperial. Sheesh, you sure could tell which car company provided most of the cars.
I remember Ethel screaming “We’ve got the Imperial, and we’re LAST?”
This is completely unrelated to the cars, but in some South American countries, when the film was redubbed in the local language, the relationship between those three characters was changed.
The local censors apparently felt that it was shady that Milton Berle (born in 1908) would be married to Dorothy Provine (born in 1935).
So the redubbed versions had Berle married to Ethel Merman (born in 1908), and Provine was their daughter!
It was probably no coincidence that some of Detroit’s all-time wackiest cars played starring roles with some of the wackiest characters in one of the wackiest movies of all time.
Dick Shawn’s 62 Dodge was red. Beautiful car. It got beat up while ramming it self against a 61 Impala.
I don’t know why, but I do like the styling. I guess that I am a contrarian, but this design worked for me. You have to admit, 55 years later, we are still talking about the design, and debating the merits or lack thereof. The 61 Plymouth reminds me of a preying mantis somehow, and the 62 Dodge reminds me of a whale shark’s open mouth. The juxtaposition of organic with jet age was, and still is, jarring, but that was the point. They wanted different and got it.
I agree!
My grandfather bought a new car about every year and after his 1958 Edsel Citation, he switched to Chrysler products.
I remember his 1962 and 1963 Furys – they were the bomb.
I would have been all over the ’62 with the 413 if I had been of a car buying age then. This is what the little old lady from Pasadena drove in the Jan & Dean song.
It’s also one of the cars in the Beach Boys’ “Shut Down.”
I was just on the cusp of reading the “buff” magazines at the library then–these make for fascinating reading today. Thanks!
Here’s a 1962 Dart commercial produced by Filmways–which also filmed the Beverly Hillbillies—which had all those Chrysler cars, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r36gc1G69s
BTW: I hadn’t realized that racing cars = loose piston clearances = high oil consumption. Is that how it (still) works?
I had not known that Chrysler softened the front and rear springs a bit for the 1962 line, but it was mentioned in both this test and in the one for the Plymouth the other day.
This may be the ultimate ugly frog of a car. I would never have wanted one new but would sure love one now. The only problem is finding one that hasn’t been modded in some way.
Given that these cars weighed between 200-400 lbs less than the ’61s, some reduction in spring rates was essentially necessary. And there’s no doubt that Chrysler cars had a rep for being decidedly firmer than the competition, something that they ended up changing in the big cars too in the mid 60s.
It’s intrinsically a bit more challenging to get the big-car ride with a lighter car.
And subjective impressions compared to earlier cars are just that. They still said it was “the most roadable in its class…handles like it was on rails…near perfect neutral steering”.
Starting with Paul’s excellent article on these ’62 Mopars, this week has been a fascinating read here at CC. I was only just over a year old when these hit the showrooms in the fall of 1961, so needless to say, I was not yet car aware. My Dad had a 1960 Dodge Dart Seneca that I barely remember. That car had some bizarre styling, that’s for sure. To me the ’61 Dodge was the hideous one. It was just plain weird. To bring that back in late ’62 as the 880 to placate the complainers would seem to be the more bizarre move than that the actual downsized ’62 Dart and Polara.
Strange as it may be, and perhaps with a face only mother would love, I really like the looks of the 1962 Dodge. Sure it was Polara-izing ?, but it was stylish nonetheless. I think I like it better than the Plymouth of that year, although the Plymouth with the Impala looking taillights was kind of cool. I also like the Plymouth’s Googie (a word I learned here, BTW – God I love this site!) style instrument panel we discussed yesterday.
Yet another Mopar aping the Impala look…
Just horrible cars all around. And John Q. Public proved that. With his wallet. And to answer Paul’s question from the other day, yes, Chrysler was just a big independent. Never looked at them from that angle, but certainly correct, given that Ford and General Motors were well established by the time Walter P. turned Maxwell into his own brand.
Wrong.. they were the best full-size-ish cars you could buy in 1962. Ever driven one? I thought not.
They were just the right size and so inherently good that the Mopar “B” platform survived for 20 years, basically unchanged though the R-body right until 1981. The engines and transmissions were some of the best of their time. The great uninformed public buys on looks, not function so flabby and corpulent GMs and Fords sold well on familiarity and appearance, not excellence, however a discriminating few are smart enough not to judge books by their cover… ugly is only skin deep.
Comparing Dodge to Pontiac, sure, the ’58 was a ‘fat cat’. But, the ’62 Catalina was lean enough for the market. And Mr and Mrs Suburbia were not looking to drag race.
Used ’62 B bodies then became a cult following with Hot Rodders, later in the 60’s. But have to sell new for a car company to make it.
Yes, mid size cars were a good idea, but not matching the other Big 3 large cars, which were still the “bread and butter” lost $$$.
And yes, GM/Ford big cars got too bloated and heavy later, but not in ’62.
With this series, particularly with its direct comparisons to the 1961 Plymouth and Dodge, it’s the 1962s with their smaller size and long hood/short deck proportions, that look more modern in retrospect. The 1961s look long and low, but bloated, with too much overhang, through modern eyes. With less strange eyeball/mouth (headlight/grill) treatments, the 1962s could have done a lot better in sales, an impression reinforced with the 1963 models on the same body shell.
Note that the Dodge stayed with the then-more-conventional instrument cluster layout instead of Plymouth’s round dials.
I grew up with a 62 Dart wagon, and learned to drive on it. The ride was firm – well controlled and not harsh. Handling was neutral. I could floor it from a stop sign into a left hand turn, and it would not break loose, or plow. Beautiful. And the lovely flat moan of that A-Series 318… As I remember, there were some rattles associated with the cover over the spare tire well, and the back seat fold-down mechanism. The rest of the car was extremely tight. I wonder how the handling would be with a set of modern radials.
Our neighbors had a 1962 Dart wagon as their “old” car in the 1970s. I was endlessly fascinated by the details, particularly the front end and the dashboard, which were about as far away from my family’s GM cars as one could get with an American car.
These people were Mopar loyalists – they also had a 1969 Coronet 440 sedan and a 1973 Plymouth Fury Sport Suburban wagon (loaded with all of the options). That was most likely who was buying these in 1962.
A bit of trivia, the 1962 Dart/Polara was sold as a DeSoto Diplomat in South Africa. https://imgur.com/hVvCkUq
As for the Dodge 880, as I mentionned in an earlier comment, http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1963-dodge-custom-880-sedan-the-one-that-got-away/ strange they didn’t named “Custom Royal” or Coronet.
…and as a Dodge Phoenix in Australia.
All this talk about the 62 Mopars got me looking around youtube. Unfortunately MyMopar.com doesn’t have any of the film strips converted to video for the 1962s. It would be interesting how Chrysler wanted the salesmen to spin those new Plymouths and Dodges.
What is interesting in the mid 60’s ones they do have is how much the Dodge ones focus on selling prospects that might be interested in Ford or Chevy and the fact that their car is cheaper, either in base price or in some particular combination. There seem to be fewer comparing it to the mid price GM brands and Mercury.
I recommend checking out some of the videos, even if you aren’t a mopar fan. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuZxcI-liXoutQHs9PeUSVA
eBay has this salesman’s selling-points guide; I’ll post a couple of images:
I like the “don’t bring up the competition unless [your customer] does.”
Very cool. I love seeing this kind of literature.
Some price data:
I’ve always thought that these were strange looking cars. After reading all this material I can see that there was a lot of thought put into the design. Unfortunately I think that the styling of the Ford and Chevy’s were more suitable for more buyers. I can imagine the potential buyers thinking that they would have to “explain” their purchase to their friends and coworkers, not to mention their spouse. As ugly as they are I kind of like them now.
When I was little and learning about car id’s, I liked the Dodge, but the Plymouth was “eww, what is that?”
My dad came home for lunch one day in an unmarked Chicago cop car, in summer ’64, and even after being out for 2 years, I had that reaction. “What is it?”
A web search for photos of the ’61 DeSoto yielded this:
http://www.roadkillontheweb.com/images/62dip3.jpg
It’s interesting to me that the DeSoto name survived past 1961, even if not in the States. I can’t make out the letters on the hood, but it’s the right number of letters (6) to spell DeSoto.
I would have thought the text was in Dutch, but the reference to South Africa leads me to think it’s Afrikaans.
Anyone in ZA care to put in their .02 rand?
Yes, that was the South African DeSoto Diplomat. Chrysler South Africa imported cars from Detroit (I believe CKD units) and assembled them in South Africa. You won’t find any production info on these DeSoto models in Fiat Chrysler Historical as they were produced and shipped from Detroit as Dodge Darts. The only thing DeSoto about them was their nameplates.
Chrysler South Africa also had a DeSoto compact – took a Dodge Lancer and changed the namplates from Dodge Lancer to DeSoto Rebel.
The 1962 Dodge Custom 880 got rid of the worst feature on the 1961 Polara – the rear quarter panels with their tube taillights on the side of the car.
The 1962 Chrysler was designed by taking a 1961 Polara, replacing the front clip and instrument panel with Chrysler units and coming up with finless rear quarter panels. The Polara was chosen as the base as the doors were finless, unlike the 1961 Chrysler.
Dodge made the 1962 Chrysler into the Dodge Custom 880 by replacing the Chrysler front clip and instrument panel with slightly modified 1961 Dodge Polara units. It worked. Dodge sold more 1962 Custom 880 models than 1961 Polaras even though the Custom 880 was produced for 7 months as opposed to the Polara’s 12 months.
What I find interesting is how the car’s styling isn’t really discussed. The sales materials I found for Dodge sales personnel doesn’t mention it. These reviews don’t bring it up and I’ve read through a lot of stuff this week about these Dodge and Plymouth cars for 1962. Perhaps no one wanted to mention the elephant in the room? I know that the dealers definately did because more than one quit when they saw these. No only were dealers over the past two years trying to sell ugly cars to the public, By the end of 1957, dealers had to service cars that weren’t built for quality. These dealers had to explain why trunks on new cars were filling with water after a rain, why the torsion bars broke due to rust, and why the rust was already appearing on their space-ship designed Chrysler finned beasts.
It is like Chrysler was expecting their buyers to just plunk down their money while it sorts out the management issues, dealer issues, styling issues, and plummeting resale issues over a period of years.
The 1962 sales material I have gone through keeps telling buyers that the cars are “new lean breed”, best built, more efficient, faster and cutting edge – while ignoring that these cars looked like they haven’t a clue what looks good. Different, just to be different.
Look at the ad – if you are explaining, you are not selling!
It’s not like Chrysler brought up the 1960 Valiant’s styling in its ads either. But then that’s not really commonly done; styling is supposed to sell itself.
It’s funny how the styling of the Custom 880 was just ‘bad’, compared to the regular downsized Dodge which was ‘really bad’.
But it was definitely better than doing nothing.
When I was a kid our local Dodge dealer had such an effective new vehicle unveiling promotion that my parents actually brought us to the dealership on that night. It was the 62 Dodge.
My mom took one look at them and expressed sypathy for the salesmen. ‘The cars are ugly and they aren’t going to be able to sell them.’
And she was right.
How often do you see a dashboard that combined the look of a traditional American horizontal speedometer, with a European-looking round gauge sub-panel?
Somehow, Chrysler somewhat pulled it off here. Though, it does look strange. Round gauges almost appear like aftermarket add-ins. I sometimes think, early ’60s Chrysler made design a lot more complex, than they really needed to. Credit, for giving us this endearing and odd legacy.
It’s too late to matter now, but I feel like any discussion of Dodge’s competition with Plymouth has to take into account the change in the dealer structure and the end of Plymouth’s role as companion make for each of the senior brands. Dodge’s 1958–1959 sales were mediocre (under 134K for 1958, under 152K for 1959), but dealers were sustained with Plymouth sales. The Dart series was intended to give those dealers something to make up for no longer having Plymouth to sell, and it more than doubled Dodge sales from 1959 to 1960.
I know the Allpar crowd and Curtis Redgap spent years pushing the narrative that Dodge was a bunch of double-dealing scoundrels who stole bread from Plymouth dealers’ mouths, but as much as one may kibbitz about brand positioning, automakers do need to give their franchise holders something they can sell and that’ll keep the lights on, and looking at the trends in Dodge sales in the period when the first Dart was conceived, it didn’t look like the midprice cars were going to do that.
This entire era is chaos for Chrysler. It seems like the only place to be in all of that was in engineering – keeping your head down and creating ways to make ugly cars. There were Dodge devotees in top positions during that time and by 1960 it was obvious that the company had too many brands to support. So Chrysler and Dodge were sacrosanct, leaving the other three expendable. That is what ended up happening, right?
There were also a few US Federal government officials tired of how the auto industry operated too. Dealers were lobbying Washington for better protection, independent brands were going out of business, and the 1957-1958 Recession depressed the entire market 40%! By 1960 – there was a whole new era for Detroit to figure out.
So it is understandable that some conspiracy theories live on 60 years later. It isn’t difficult to imagine the plotting, panic, and whispers throughout the hallway at Highland Park, Lansing, Kenosha, Flint, South Bend, Detroit, and Dearborn.
Not really, no. Plymouth was doing very well throughout the recession, and because it was paired with DeSoto and Dodge as well as Chrysler, it was obviously sustaining a lot of dealerships. DeSoto was not, and its sales dropped off enough that I think most DeSoto franchisees were essentially just Plymouth dealers who sold an occasional Firesweep or Firedome; there wasn’t a lot to lose there. Dodge took a pretty bad hit from the recession, but it was doing better than DeSoto and had much greater volume than Chrysler. The Dart line improved its sales considerably for 1960, and the immediate impact on Plymouth was quite modest (they were down a little over 2 percent from 1959). Plymouth ended up suffering in the next couple of years, but I don’t think it was per se because of Dodge.
The dilemma Chrysler and Ford mid-price brands faced in this period was that their dealer base and dealer penetration were not especially strong. Each dealership can really only sell a finite number of cars a year, and the more expensive the cars, the lower that number is going to be. GM got away with all kinds of price and product overlap in the mid-price divisions because their Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac dealer base was stronger. (A central part of the rationale for the program that spawned the Edsel was to try to expand Ford’s total dealer base, which didn’t really work out.)
I believe that sales of the 1960 full-size Plymouth were down more than 2 percent from 1959.
Initially, the Valiant was promoted as a standalone brand (“Nobody’s Kid Brother) that was sold through Plymouth dealers. It was not badged as a Plymouth.
When it was obvious that sales of full-size Plymouths had fallen so much that the division would lose its coveted number-three spot, Chrysler included Valiant sales in the division’s total sales. (The Dodge Dart actually outsold the full-size Plymouth.) That boosted Plymouth sales sufficiently to (barely) keep the division in the number-three spot, just ahead of Rambler.
For 1961, Valiant was badged as a Plymouth, and Dodge was given the nearly identical Lancer.
Full size Plymouth sales plunged 45% in 1960, from 459k to 252k. The ’60 Dart outsold it by a leg margin (323k).
I didn’t say sales of the full-size Plymouth, I said Plymouth, which, as you note, ended up including the Valiant.
The purpose of Plymouth, since its inception, had been to give the senior brands something less expensive to sell to help keep the lights on. With maybe a couple of rare exceptions, it didn’t have any standalone dealerships. Since for 1960 Plymouth was no longer paired with Dodge, the number of dealerships selling Plymouths decreased significantly, which likely would have reduced total volume even if the Dart hadn’t existed. That the addition of the Valiant kept it within 3 percent of 1959 in total means that the compact was bringing in more customers to a smaller number of outlets.
I like that these reviews back in the day were so detailed. Specifications, photos, and driving experiences. Thanks for providing all of the pages.