Imperial Convertible, 300 Sport Wagon. Past Retro.

A mid 2000s 300 front clip, an extended wheelbase and a '69-'71 fuselage era-inspired Imperial body combine to make this very elegant 2008 Imperial Crown Convertible.

S H A M E L E S S   S E L F - P R O M O T I O N — My two little blogs clicked over 400,000 combined hits recently. Yeah, lol! To "celebrate" here are two more retro-inspired Chryslers I've created. These were done in my early days of rendering cars in Photoshop, 2005 or 2006, and the quality is a bit rough, but I love these two cars. Thanks to everyone that checks out my work and makes this blog-thing worthwhile!

An original '55 300/Imperial front clip is mated with a restyled 2005 Magnum sport wagon body. I also added typical Exner-period chrome rocket taillight tubes in the rear. I would love to see this car on the road, lol.

1964 Imperial Crown LWB 5-passenger Sedan

Inspired by the 5-passenger Mercedes Benz 600 of the mid 1960s, I've smoothed out Elwood Engel's '64-'66 Imperial's styling for this long wheelbase Crown sedan. I think it's the poster child for mid-century coolness and modernity.

C H O P S — And now for something completely different from my exuberantly elegant Exner Imperial redux, the dark blue '62, here...

... Elwood Engel's '64 clean-lined Imp elongated and smoothed out for this long wheelbase owner-driven Crown sedan. The cabin is enlarged and extended rearward for maximum second row accommodations. The color palette is "subtle Turbine car" with a much darker copperfire hue for the body and a lighter gunmetal gray for the vinyl roof and leather-and-broadcloth interior. Pulled up next to an appropriate mid-century house, this Imperial is ready for an early morning, high-speed run out to Palm Springs with four jet-setting friends and their perhaps, dubious, luggage.

B  O N U S   P I C :

I've also chopped this Imperial Crown Coupé 2-door limousine. This would be an ultra smooth, long wheelbase chopped roof luxury express.

1962 Imperial Lebaron Southampton: Facelifted

This chop of a 1962 Imperial LeBaron 4-door hardtop, or Southampton, is a facelift that might seem pretty minor unless you were to see them side-by-side. After Exner's classic 1957s came out with their sculpted-in-form lengthy rear fins, which put the emphasis on the rear of the car, he began thinking about his "next" look. This next look, as previewed by the 1960 Valiant, would have gone back to classic proportions with a long hood and short rear deck. There was an emphasis on fender forms, as evidenced by the Valiant and the '62 Fury and Polara. "Ex" suffered a major heart attack before these cars could be finalized, the so-called "S-cars," and his successor, Elwood Engel, took things in a different direction.

"My" Imperial, above, takes the '57'-63 chassis and body, but changes it in some ways to more closely replicate this new emphasis on the front. I lengthened the hood and wheelbase around six inches in front of the windshield, giving a more classic steering wheel:axle proportion. I shortened the rear deck by about the same amount, giving a forward rather than rearward "motion" to the car. I also gave this imposing sedan rear fender skirts. I'm not really positive Exner would have, he was very much moving into a classic look with full wheel cutouts, but I like skirted rear wheels. I like to think I might have been able to talk him into it, at least for one year, lol. I left the amazing separate chrome front- and rear lights, but I lowered the roof about three inches for a bit more of a custom look. I also "finished" the chrome rocker panel trim behind the now-skirted rear wheels, the entire bottom of the car now edged with chrome.

Needs Work! '80s Imperial Crown Coupe

1982 Imperial Crown Coupe—restoration needed! One of my tongue-in-cheek chops, this was a perfectly acceptable 1982 Imperial coupe when I started with it. I gave it a more "private" greenhouse with a stainless steel "crown" roof section, much wider C pillars, a 1960s Imperial nameplate on the trunk, and larger wheels on blackwall tires. Then I gave it rusty patches bubbling up in several places, chalky paint and a For Sale sign, placing the car in a typical stretch of car dealerships in Anytown, USA. I think this design could have worked, Chrysler certainly wasn't against retro styling, the Imperial often flaunted Classic-era touches. (I did this chop a while ago, but couldn't find it posted. Maybe I just didn't label it properly, but if that's the case, please enjoy it a second time!)

: )

Blasts from the Past

Although I haven't had a lot of time to create new chops, I have a back-catalog of more than 600 cars I've created since 2005. Here are just a few of them.

Porsche's smaller-than-Panamera 4-door would be powered by a turbocharged 4-cylinder front-mounted engine. Weight would be kept under 2700 lbs through the use of carbon fiber and aluminum.

Chrysler's now-classic Engel Imperial, 1964-'66, reimagined as a 2-door limousine Crown Coupe. Besides the roofline and rear window, I modified the rear bumper and bodysides to enhance the coachbuilt appearance. I placed the car in front of a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home. Classics deserve Classics!

"The Sky Belongs to You." My '66 Thunderbird Sky Coupe photoedited an advertisement of that year's Town Landau which ran in the National Geographic. I added fixed glass panels in the roof, on either side of the real roof console featured in that year's Town coupes. I also greatly enlarged the rear side windows to add a more light to the interior.

"Unique in the All the World" was a Thunderbird tagline for years. In this instance, I modifed a press photo of the brand-new for '67 Thunderbird four door Landau. The model was wearing what appears to be a Pucci dress, so I went with that mid-Sixties style, adding translucent Pucci fabric to the layout from one of my mother's scarves. I made the Tbird into an early 5-door Grand Touring vehicle, not quite a wagon, not quite a sedan. I surmised that perhaps Pucci reversible seat cushions could accompany this special edition. Working to make images appear "vintage" and somewhat worn, is an effect I especially like to create in Photoshop. By "practicing" on my car chops like this, I've been able to use these techniques in some of the books I've designed.

Although the Hyundai Genesis coupe is just about to be introduced in facelifted form, with a much more attractive and aggressive front end design, I created this "4-door sports car" version a few years ago. 4DSC was the advertising "gimmick" for Nissan's Maxima, and I appropriated it for this Hyundai which would compete with the Maxima. With this sloping roofline, this sedan would not be the most spacious, but today's 4-door coupes are all about style and not practicality. I kept the unique beltline "dip" and "hid" the rear door handle to preserve a bit more "coupiness."

This little Buick Special "Estate Wagon" was chopped so long ago, I can't remember the base photo. I'm guessing it might have been one of the Opels that Buick was about to introduce in the States, but it might have been an Audi A3. Or a Saturn, lol. I remember adding Buick's classic "sweepspear" downward sloping character line and then emphasizing it with a 1969-type Buick Sportswagon woodgrain treatment above it. The "wood" is bordered on the top with a brushed aluminum molding but is left borderless on the bottom, instead relying on the character line for its stopping point.

A quick chop when the new Taurus was introduced, to add a bit of visual "drama" to the SHO version, with a two-tone paint job. I  recontoured the rear bumper, adding the "cut-in" at the top near the taillights to visually diminish the size of the plastic bumper covering. I also added that wraparound chrome molding to emphasize the new bumper contour and to add some width to the very tall rear aspect of the Taurus.

Besides making a 4-door out of the Genesis coupe, I also chopped this 2-door Luxury Coupe from the Genesis 4-door. I've always wondered why the Genesis 4-door was so much larger and more luxurious than the coupe. They almost seem like they're not related at all, except for the fact they're both rear-wheel drive cars. For this Luxury Coupe, I targeted the Mercedes CLK in appearance and marketing.