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The great thing about cars from seventies is that they make the cars from the fifties look…better. Here’s a nifty concept car from Chrysler, the 1956 (not so) Plainsman. It was Virgil Exner’s take on the wagon, and gave a glimpse of the direction Chrysler’s radical 1957 models would take. And it can be yours! It’s coming to auction on Jan 22. More shots:
28 Comments on “Relive The Much More Tasteful Fifties; Price Unknown...”
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That roof looks like it was hacked off a Mercury with the breezeway back window. Other than the fins, the whole thing looks more Ford than Chryco to me.
Yes, and installed backwards.
And, I wonder what kind of outrageous whistling you get from the raised demi-roof at highway speed, too. Interesting styling execrcise, though.
It needs some cupholders!
Even at zero velocity, you’d slide right out of that seat.
Looks like a 56 Lincoln Premiere went head on into a 60 T-Bird
I like it actually. But you better make some seat-belts your first mod. It could be an interesting show piece if you put airbag suspension on it so at least you could “drop it in to the weeds” when you wanted to.
The bumperettes look like someone took the dagmars on a Chevy and turned them into something off a fembot.
I think even seat belts would be insufficient. I’m thinking…fuzziest seat cover you can find + velcro pants.
There’s simply not enough dagmars on the cars of today. Or perhaps there’s a conflict between pedestrian saftey and sharp pointed objects sticking out of the front of cars?
The slick vinyl seat covers are probably not original. They look like they were borrowed from a pickup truck or a Checker Cab. I would bet the car originally had color keyed two-tone upholstry – most likely beige/brown with white inserts.
Like everyone-else, my first impression is that this was a Ford show car. If it were black with red trim it would like something Batman would drive after he married and started a family.
Oh my eyes hurt!
While it may look bizarre by our standards, it was a 1956 show car. It could have been a competitor to the Nomad and Safari. Heck, even Ford had Gordon Burhing designing the Parkwood. Two door hardtops were all the rage in the mid-fifties., even in the wagon series. It probably paved the way for the 59-64 hardtop wagons that Chrysler produced.
Nobody mentions that the instrument panel looks as though it came out of a period Lincoln or Mercury, aircraft inspired switch-gear, like the early fifties Lincolns and Mercurys.
I saw this on Hemming’s web page, but I thought it was the Norseman, which of course, it wasn’t. The fifties were an interesting point of manufacture, since the tooling was only recently introduced for such dramatic draws on sheet steel. Isn’t that the explanation of the 1957 Ford that I’ve read, the ability of deep draw stampings allowing such the stylish fins?
Most of the process was to display what was currently available, stamping wise. Even though that’s a 1957 instrument cluster, the switch gear was never offered by Chrysler. Even the push-button transmission selector is missing from this thing!
Is this thing a “Push-Mobile”, or does it actually run?
It has a more recent 440 in it, so yes, it runs.
Definitely not a pushmobile. After the show circuit it was shipped to Australia (import duty issue on the body, see, they coulda done that with the turbine cars), where it was a company car for a while and then sold, and it became someone’s daily driver — after being converted to RHD, as was required in Oz at the time (and until recently). Later on it was repatriated and reconverted to LHD. Somewhere along the way the 440 was dropped in. Unbelievable how good that dash looks after being taken apart, mirror imaged and then put back together.
I saw this car at the Peterson in the late 90’s I think, and it looked about the same. That’s patina from use. Kinda looks like it’s had a few coats of paint. On the one hand, I can understand the impulse to restore it to show-turntable condition, but on the other hand, that patina is irreplaceable, and how many concept cars have ever come down from heaven and taken the kids to school and suchlike.
How long have I been asleep? Is it April Fool’s day already?
Looks like Exner was thinking “Gee, I wonder what it would look like if I reversed the roof of a Mercury Breezeway and grafted it on top of a Packard Caribbean”.
Must have been a slow day at Chrysler design…
I’ve never seen so many shades of baby-shit brown. Was that considered nice for a concept?
Doesn’t Citroen incorporate that same safety feature where you have to reach through the steering wheel to access the various switches and levers required to operate your car?
Indeed. This makes the Bugazzi look even worse.
It would be cool if someone produced bodies like this one (and many others), and perfectly sized them to fit on a modern-day compact pickup truck frame.
Dear Christ, if eras like this do nothing else, they make me appreciate the eighties and early nineties for their utilitarianism.
That design looks pretty restrained for a mid-50s concept car — particularly the tailfins. I haven’t read much about the Plainsman, but from the picture it looks shorter and narrower than the 1957s (re: built on the 1956 chassis?). I take it that this was Chrysler’s response to the Nomad.
baroque
Every time I see this car the front looks like the back and the back looks like the front. I think it was about this time that LSD started leaking into the art and design community.
Oh, man… That, my friends, is a real wagon.
I’ll admit to having a weakness for the shooting brake… the way the sheetmetal comes around the top of those taillights… too, too cool. That 440 sounds like fun waiting to happen. And genuine unborn baby calf skin seat inserts!!! What’s not to like?
I’d take the Plainsman over the current crop of SUV/crossover/melted soapbar/bug-eyed-alien-headlamped monstrosities any day of the week. Gotta do something about that paint job, though.
Holy Schnikes – a two-door full-size wagon!
Does the tranny selector reside somewhere between the jet engine throttle controls and the afterburner switches?
From Wikipedia:
“The name Dagmar Bumpers (and Dagmars) was a direct reference to Dagmar (born Virginia Ruth Egnor) [1] the early 1950s television personality who was as well known for her pronounced cleavage as she was for her dumb blonde character on the program Broadway Open House. Dagmar’s physical attributes were further enhanced by low-cut gowns and the shape of her bra cups, which were somewhat conical. Egnor was amused by the tribute.”
Thanks TTAC’s B&B, I learned something on my day off!
I believe that this was badged the Plymouth Plainsman at the time. Plymouth had been the first with an all-steel passenger car station wagon after the war.
(The Willys Jeepster was actually the first all-steel wagon, but in those days it was considered a Jeep first and a car second, and suburbanites did not want to drive around in a Jeep. How times change…)
While Ford led in total wagon sales in the 1950s, by the late 1950s, Plymouth generally led in percentage of passenger cars sales that were wagons.
If I recall correctly, the Plainsman featured the spare tire stowed underneath the passenger-side fender on the OUTSIDE of the car. A metal panel was removed to gain access to the tire. This got the spare out of the car, and allowed for the installation of the rear-facing third seat – a feature offered on the 1957 Plymouth wagons.
I also believe that, for 1957, all Chrysler Corporation wagons shared the same basic wheelbase and body, with divisional distinctions maintained through different front clips and taillights. This saved money and allowed Plymouth to brag in its advertising that it offered the biggest wagon of the low-price three (a big selling point in the 1950s).
From an old Motor Trend article:
The January 1956 press release that accompanied the photos of this Chrysler Plainsman concept car hailed it as a “Bold New Experiment in Station Wagon Design.” Among its innovations were “an ‘observation-car’ third seat” and a powered tailgate and rear window. Another trick feature was the storage of the spare tire just aft of the rear axle, hidden behind a flip-up fender skirt.
The Western motif is highlighted by brown-and-white calf-hide interior, and who could live without the “Gold-colored Texas Longhorn medallions” on those audacious B-pillars? Chrysler styling director Virgil Exner said the car “reflects the colorful and casual way of life that typifies the nation’s westward movement
and is a bold expression of the suburban trend in American living.”Certainly not the most elegant of showcars (and, therefore, not as desirable), it’s a shame that the one-off Plainsman has fallen into such a state of disrepair. Frankly, as someone else mentioned, other than the roof, the styling of the Plainsman does show remarkable restraint considering the chrome excesses of most vehicles of the era.
Besides the unconventional styling of the roof, the most noteworthy feature is probably the externally-mounted spare tire hidden in the passenger side fender skirt behind the right-rear tire.
Speaking of which, unlike most other vehicles of the era that were so-equipped, those fender skirts seem to be quite nicely integrated into the body work. In practical use, however, I can see them being a bit of a headache in comparison to conventional skirts and, considering the production cost of such a design, can easily understand why they were rarely (if ever) done on production vehicles in such a manner.