Crystal for Chrysler

Ever since the end of February, spring has seemed just around the corner for Detroit's automakers. Last week, at the end of March, spring was still not here--and the industry was worried. With dealer stocks up to 729,040 cars as of March 1st and sales 8% fewer in the first 20 days of March than in 1956, the industry cut April-June production schedules 11.1% below the first quarter, 6.5% more than originally intended. About the only encouraging harbinger came from Ward's Reports, which noted that retail auto sales in the second ten days of March jumped 20% over the first ten days, leading automen to hope that April will bring the big upturn everyone has been waiting for.

Power & Push. Whatever happens to the rest of the industry, 1957 cannot help being a fine year for Chrysler, which has recaptured its 20% share of the market in the first quarter and looks for even bigger gains ahead. With output up 48%, the company fully expects to make more money in the first quarter of 1957 than in all of 1956. Chief reason for Chrysler's comeback: the styling, epitomized by flashy tail fins, which makes its 1957 line the most rakish on the road. At Chrysler nowadays, nothing is too good for the man responsible: handsome, silver-haired Virgil Max Exner, 47, the company's ace designer since 1949.

Michigan-born Virgil Exner sketched autos in school when he should have been studying Latin, went on to Notre Dame to study art and design. After stints as chief stylist for G.M.'s Pontiac division, and chief styling engineer for Studebaker (at the age of 29), he joined Chrysler at a time when President K. T. Keller, who once snorted at postwar advances as "the Jell-O school of design," was holding fast to Chrysler's ultraconservative styling. Under new President Lester Lum Colbert, Exner set about modernizing Chrysler's line, put the company back on the road with designs for 1957 models that are the most radical in the industry.

Gulps & Gambles. Exner had his own ideas of what an automobile should look like. "What I wanted," he says, "was a lean, taut look rather than a static look--a look of thrust. People are used to the dart or wedge-shaped theme. They see it on jet planes, racing cars, big racing boats. I thought people would like them, particularly young people, and the young people would sell their parents." Seeing the designs for the first time one chilly day in November 1954, Chrysler's brass gulped, fretted that they might be too strong for the U.S. public's taste, finally gave Exner the go-ahead and sank $300 million into putting out the new cars. Says Designer Exner: "It was a big, big gamble, but I felt that I was right."

When the time came for the unveiling last October, Virgil Exner was not there; he was down with a serious heart attack. Last week he was at work on Chrysler's 1960 models, which will contain the company's next basic styling change. What will they look like? Says Exner: shorter and lower. "We feel that cars have gotten just about as long as they need to be in the foreseeable future, and with cars lower they can become shorter without losing the low, long look." As for public acceptance of the swoops and darts, grins Exner, "The public doesn't really know what it likes until it sees the product. If you could figure out just what the public wanted ahead of time in this business, you might sleep a little easier--but it wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun."

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