1961 Plymouth Fury Design Tweak

Refining One of Virgil Exner's Last Masterpieces

For this week's design tweak, I chose a 1961 Plymouth Fury 2 door hardtop. While I find the original Exner design stunning, its contemporary buying public didn't agree. Many automotive hacks wracked their brains trying to colorfully describe this car—The Car that Ate Tokyo—a riff on the Japanese horror flicks of the day, comes to mind, and they still do to this day in classic car magazines. The "pinched" grille and dramatic headlight placement seems to be the car's main issues, although the suddenly finless body was referred to as a "plucked chicken" by Exner himself. My main issues are with the details. There are fussy chrome doodads, fussy side sculpturing and an abundance of shiny chrome slathered in the front. Ironically, Lexus is just now introducing its new "spindle" grille across its entire lineup, and it's almost exactly the same shape as this '61 Plymouth. See the BTW sidebar at the end of this post. Let me describe how I "fixed" it to my own tastes.

T H E   C H O P — First I "radiused" the rear wheel wells. This means I opened up the fenders to reveal the entire wheel and tire. The original had a very low wheel opening which didn't really relate to the front wheel well and made the rear end look like it was dragging. I think this change did the most for "lightening" the look of the car. I resculpted the sides, continuing the front fender shoulder all the way to the back of the car instead of ending it at the front door. I also eliminated the ornate trim behind the front doors, and lowered the entire car about 3 inches so it sat closer to the ground hugging the tires more. At the front, I blackened-out the grille, which simplified the look of it, and made the dramatic "swoosh" around the protruding headlights work better. I added a satin chrome "header" above the now-black grille, with P-L-Y-M-O-U-T-H letterspaced across it. This serves to "rationalize" the grille shape, giving more prominence to the horizontal aspects of it, rather than the angularity of the opening. The front bumper was simplified too, deleting the rather baroque center section with its five raised ridges, and I raised it a few inches so it wasn't so close to the ground.

The original photo of the '61 Fury. Note the odd way the front fender shoulder sculpturing stops at the front door cutline, though the chrome trim continues. Also, just behind the front door is a set of chrome hash marks that seem really out of place, though they do serve as a start for a small sliver of white paint, matching the two-toned roof. The rear of the car seems to drag, a combination of the now-finless rear fenders and very low wheel well opening.

BTW: 

Exner has the last laugh after all, as Lexus introduces its brand new "Spindle" grille on its entire lineup. I call it an updated '61 Plymouth grille!


U P D A T E :  For some reason my chop wasn't enlarging from the thumbnail. Now it should be.

Altima Coupe, Town Car, CLS Cote d'Azur & ES350C

Continuing the Parade of Early Chops

 

Revised Nissan Altima Hybrid Coupe would be lower, wider, pillarless, and lower in weight than the current version. Standard AWD and a V6 hybrid drivetrain, this elegant and rapid coupe would be priced evenly with the flagship Maxima.

 

Photoshopped several years ago, this Town Car Classic would have been the ultimate facelift of the Panther bodied Lincoln sedan. A return to "suicide" rear doors and a formal rear backlight are clues to this extended wheelbase luxury car's role at the top of the Lincoln lineup.

Color-shifting paint is just one aspect of the Mercedes Benz CLS Cote d'Azur. a true flagship 2-door coupe. Wraparound glass and an exclusive V8 hybrid AWD drivetrain would ensure exclusivity and elegance, even in the most rarified of Europe's playgrounds for their 1%.

Lexus's FWD mid sized range would be extended with this 2-door ES 350C. The sedan's flowing roofline works just as well with fewer doors and larger wheels and uprated suspension would guarantee that the twists and turns on the way to the jewelry store in town would be as fun as possible.

Lincoln MK/LS—Return to Rear Wheel Drive

Lincoln MK/LS hybrid sports sedan—Lincoln's long-awaited return to the rear wheel drive luxury sector, this is the second of my Lincoln chops to use my modified naming convention. While I'd love to see a return to full names, I think the shorter alpha and alphanumeric nomenclature is hear to stay for the foreseeable future. This sedan not only recalls the last LS midsize sedan, it's a full "Bells & Whistles" Luxury Sedan, hence the MK/LS name. Rear wheel drive (with optional all wheel drive), hybrid-assisted drivetrains, electronically-assisted suicide doors, 22 inch wheels and a rounded chrome license plate surround that evokes the sparetire "hump" of classic Lincoln Continentals, signify this car's top-shelf status. Hybrid and Twin-Turbo versions would be available from the start, identically priced, as is Lincoln's recent pricing strategy.

B T W :

The fine art of using Photoshop® to create images of new cars, "chopping" as it's called online, can't be any better illustrated than this Lincoln. I started out with the image of the Lexus LF/A sports coupe, above. I don't think there was much left unchanged besides the angle of the windshield from the donor image, lol.

Finally! Lexus to Offer RAV4-based CUV

According to a report at Autoblog today, Lexus is going to produce a smaller-than-RX crossover, based on the Toyota RAV4. It's about time! I chopped the hybrid cute-ute FIVE YEARS AGO. The date on this original was February 2006. I can't believe I've been creating my fake cars for so long, lol. I guess I began digitally manipulating car photos in 2005. Wow.