There’s so much late 1950s styling in all its glory.
Watching the video below, you’re going to get a view of the 1958 Chrysler model lineup you’ve likely never seen before. Sure, you might know these Mopar classic cars like the Chrysler New Yorker, but you haven’t seen them in this vintage dealer promo film.
For 1958, many Chrysler cars received a facelift, with relatively few mechanical updates. Through an evolutionary process, Chrysler put design very much at the forefront of the car lineup. It’s entertaining to hear how Chrysler brags about each car either being big or having elements which portray “bigness.” That was what Americans wanted, even on the Chrysler Windsor, so automakers were obliged to deliver just that.
As you heard, even back then marketers were in love with fuzzy words like “dynamic.” Does anyone really understand what this word salad of terms means? Probably nobody is willing to admit they don’t for fear of looking like a fool, and so everyone either stays silent or shakes their head in silent agreement to the thing they don’t comprehend at all.
The late 1950s was a time for big cars, huge tailfins, lots of chrome, pastel colors, white upholstery, and other designs we still admire today. With the economy booming in the United States after WWII, car sales were way up. Business was so good it drew the attention of many European brands, which jumped into the market in a big way. Feeling the pinch, American automakers struck back in the late 1950s using designs the Europeans did not duplicate.
For those old enough, the video above might remind you of filmstrips shown during school with static images and the telltale beep when it was time to switch the slide. That and the classical music track are all part of the classic charm of this piece of car history, really taking you back to another time.
You might think the 1958 Chryslers were a huge hit, but sales actually fell slightly as a recession struck and GM rolled out an even more compelling 1958 model line. Still, this slice of Mopar history is something we can’t afford to forget. It helps contextualize the cars some people might only see every once in a while. Losing this history would be a huge shame.
