Among American car designers , the name Virgil Exner stay on salient almost two decades since his death in 1973 . More than most hairdresser , likely more than any of his generation , Exner produce show car support his personal stamp . Between 1951 and 1962 , when he left the fellowship , he successfully spun - off their ideas on legion production models . It is generally conceded that by 1957 – largely with design ideas evolved from his earlier show auto – Exner ’s blending of extroverted innovation and classical - era hallmarks had the peg of everybody else in the industry , include Harley Earl ’s vaunted General Motors .
Classic Cars Image Gallery
Ex ’s expression was simple : conventional passenger car human body , occasionally shortened but otherwise mostly stock , coalesce with urbane body and Interior handcrafted by Ghia coachworks in Torino , Italy , for a fraction of what they would have be to build in Detroit .
Asked about his show gondola by writer Michael Lamm in the early Seventies , Exner explain : " There was really only a single purpose in all of them , and that was to lease the world be intimate that Chrysler was think onwards as far as styling was concerned . " But in contrast to the modern-day special from General Motors , for example , Exner ’s cars were always built with production requirements in mind . " As a resolution , " Exner continued , " they had to be compromise to a certain degree from what you ordinarily would do with a rigorous ' dreaming car . ' But two or three of them get along very faithful to being build . "
In my own conversations with Exner , he was almost wistful about this last point ; he really did need Chrysler to build a sporting challenger to the Corvette and Thunderbird . On at least three social occasion he created show car which could easy have been translate into production car . One of these was his 1953 - 1954 series of Dodge Firearrows .
Virgil Exner and Chrysler Corporation built three and one - one-half Firearrow show cars . Though it never saw production , it influenced the low - volume 1956 Dual - Ghia .
The Firearrows followed a logical progress from dream car to producible fomite . The first one - which we ought only to count as one - half - was a " buck " on a Dodge frame . It did n’t run and was really only one step up from a full - size of it clay model . demonstrate a proportion Exner reach for , this 1953 Firearrow I was more than doubly as wide as its body height at the cowl . " The consistence itself is flavourless and spacious with only a slight pennant , or slope , in its top and side surface , " say a contemporary description . " Stylists have a word for this . . . they call it ' tautness ' : the metallic element between any two points seems stretched to fill the space smoothly , with no bony contour , rather than appearing full - pursy or to a fault curvaceous . " It was the polar opposite of distinctive mid - Fifties design .
For more information on the 1953 - 1954 Firearrow , continue on to the next page .
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Design of the 1953-1954 Firearrow
sure themes showed cross - pollenation – everyone in Detroit bonk each other and ideas got around . For example , the concept of a massive bumper / grille , run around at the face , may have originated at the Kaiser - Frazer studios in the late forties , while the Firearrow ’s chrome exterior tailpipe were seen in almost the same place on Frank Spring ’s Hudson Italia , the first of which was build in mid-1953 . On the latter they merely housed taillights ; on the Firearrow they were fully functional .
The full - perimeter bumper was painted metal gray rather than chromium-plate ; the elevator car itself was violent metallic , with a yellow - raw sienna leather interior pipe in maroon . This model also had quadriceps headlight , possibly their first show on a show car . ( They first appear in production on the 1957 Nash and Cadillac Eldorado Brougham . )
Next in origin was the 1954 Firearrow II , another buggy , but modified in detail . mount up on a stock 119 - column inch Dodge Royal wheelbase , it was powered by a 250 - HP majestic V-8 with Gyro - Torque Drive ( Chrysler ’s notable M-6 Fluid Drive with torsion convertor ) . While its introductory shape was unaltered from the Firearrow I , the quadruplet headlamp had disappeared , put back by individual lamps fair into pod at the front remnant , fracture up the full - margin bumper . The grille and taillights were restyled and there were two rear deck hatch : one to have luggage , another for the spare tire and fuel makeweight . Each was antagonistic - balanced and bound - lade to protrude open when lever were pull inside the driver ’s door . Other features attested to the Firearrow II ’s virtuous observational nature : There were no door handles , no rearview mirrors , no side windows , no top . door were opened by pressing a flat metal release taproom at the top internal molding or , from the interior , by pulling a knob that extended into the paint armrest support .
The Firearrow II was paint pale yellow with a black primal prevention through the grille ( interchangeable to the 1953 Plymouth grille bar ) and black bodyside molding ; pitch-black leather adorned the DoI . The threshold were similarly upholstered , and because of their deep curvature they allow for generous armrest , which gave " a enounce recessed outcome to the cockpit side , " harmonize to Chrysler . The dash contained full instrumentation , including tachometer , plus on/off switch lever tumbler ascendance and an aluminium - spoked steering wheel with a wooden lip .
One novel characteristic of the dummy buggy was carried over to Firearrow II : a Brobdingnagian , one - small-arm , glass windshield . But whereas the mock - up ’s windshield had a tenuous frame of reference and was impart in a grooved metal base affixed to the cowl , Firearrow II ’s was sunk into a abstruse " slot . " The glassful you see was only the tip of this polar peck : There were 14 inches showing above the cowl and 24 in slump into the slot ! Unlike the mock - up , the Mark II ’s Methedrine was temper , but owner Joe Bortz is wary of taking chances with it : " It ’s crystal , and very fragile . We ’ve made a foam slipcover for it and a alloy cage to protect it when traveling . The restoration man wanted to make a plexiglas copy but I was afraid he ’d collapse the pilot in the process – and once gone , it would be drop dead for good . "
For more information on the discovery of the 1953 - 1954 Firearrow , read on to the next Thomas Nelson Page .
The Discovery of the 1953-1954 Firearrow
Joe Bortz is now a familiar name among elevator car collectors , a man who has make their admiration for his individual - minded dedication to finding , rescuing , bushel , and displaying show cars from the heroic historic period of styling , the Forties through the early Sixties . " I could name every car on the road by the metre I was five , " Joe call back . " By age 12 I was answering for sale ads in theChicago Tribune , prognosticate sellers just to talk about their cars and narrate them I was 17 . " My love has always been for the visual – I do n’t know anything about cams or crankshaft , and racing caliber me . "
But Joe ’s first gatherer car was a 1920 Chevy two - door Lev Davidovich Landau coupe , so how did he get from there to the finest aggregation of postwar dreaming cars in the commonwealth ? " I went from Chevys to classic , like the Cadillac V-8 , Cord 812 Sportsman , and ' 31 Duesenberg Rollston Victoria . Around 1971 , I began to get interested in limited - interest cars of the Fifties and Sixties . It was before their fourth dimension . mass would say , ' I can see why you ’d need one of those thing – but six ? ' Of of course , nobody enounce that anymore . "
When Joe found Pontiac ’s 1960 X-400 show railway car , he of a sudden realized that it was possible for one - offs to live on – " until then , like everyone else , I just take on they were all turn out up or junked . " So he expire hunting in a serious mode .
Today the Bortz Auto Collection under Joe ’s Word Marc owns two dozen one - offs symbolize the Big Three and several independents . Joe , who serves as conservator , is writing a book on American intriguer , in between showing his wonderful aggregation .
" We have a convention , " he continue . " Every car must be registered and driveable at a minute ’s poster at least 300 mile . This is a big responsibility for Marc , because although we have a self - bring down terminal point of 50 motorcar , that ’s a spate to worry about and something is always needing a pickle . " Joe likes to show dream automobile in group of three to six , which he believes lends necessary visual wallop . From August 12 to mid - September 1991 , however , the Auburn - Cord - Duesenberg Museum in Auburn , Indiana , showed a dozen Bortz dream cars , the Firearrow II among them .
" Chrysler ’s attitude toward one - offs was different from GM ’s or Ford ’s , " Joe articulate . " They tended to hive away or demolish their car , but Chrysler , being harder up , often sold them . This helped make up the overhead , but to keep off overweight import duty after all that expensive Italian bodywork , they often sold a car out of the continental United States , to place like South America , Europe , or the Middle East . "
For more information on the Firearrow II , continue on to the next page .
The Firearrow II and Firearrow III
The Firearrow II did manage to stay on U.S. territorial dominion . After terminate the 1955 round of car shows , it was sold in Hawaii , possibly to a extremity of the Hearst family . There it continue for about 20 years . " A California collector then get it , and offered it to me in the mid - Eighties , " Joe keep . " He had it apart , a basketful case . It would need big restoration , but he need it to join the kin . He have it away about the dream car collection and wanted it to be there . That ’s the chief reason why owners of these cars come to us . Our destination is to maintain a unique inheritance : to see that 200 years from now , the great unwashed will still be capable to experience these illustration of self-propelling sculpture . "
Another Firearrow now under restitution by Marc and Joe is the 1954 sportswoman coupe , Virgil Exner ’s further stone’s throw toward a production Dodge athletics cable car – as betoken by its threshold handles , roll - up windows , fully - frame windscreen , and rearview mirrors . Handsomely finish in metallic blue with gray side molding and a patrician and white interior , Firearrow III sported a immense , new grille cavity with concave vertical bars , flank by quadruplet headlamps . Though the chassis / drivetrain was initially stock Dodge , the coupe trunk aided streamlining . After engine modifications , Betty Skelton pack the Mark III around Chrysler ’s novel Chelsea , Michigan , banked trial cart track at 143.44 mph , set a new peeress ' closed - course world focal ratio record .
Last of the Firearrows was a recent 1954 convertible , another practical car with roll - up windows , tree trunk , and conventional doorway handles ; it also had a functional soft top . " I recall we could have build that , " Maury Baldwin , an Exner colleague who himself designed the 1955 Plymouth , told this author . " But management at that item was very stodgy . A lot of people assign it to the sometime Airflow disaster . They were afraid to make any new inroad . " Flashiest of the series , Firearrow IV had a sheer quilt bootleg and clean adamant - pattern leather DoI ; the front seat reclined , while the rears could be lifted out , revealing a mahogany luggage platform with chrome skid strips . Painted hopeful red , it was in all probability the most pregnant of the serial , because it regulate a special - production car , the 1956 - 1958 Dual - Ghia ( of which 177 were reportedly build ) . " There are no exchangeable panel [ between the two ] , " say Joe Bortz , " but it is long established that this car was the Dual - Ghia ’s inspiration . "
regrettably , Firearrow IV has thus far eluded the Bortz mesh .
Since Joe Bortz is now credibly more familiar than any someone alive with the unnumbered curve ball and contours of two dozen dream car , I was interested in his opinion : How do Exner ’s creations compare , say , with those of General Motors , which had 10 times the faculty and 50 times the money ? " Exner ’s automobile were more finely accomplish as ' sculpture , ' " Joe said after reflection . " As pure ' reflexion , ' GM had the edge . But Exner was choose sheetmetal , chrome , leather , and glass and combining it in different values to make a program line , an automotive sculpture . In his early years at Chrysler he was a one - humanity banding . "
What music Virgil made . . .
