The Man Who Hated Little Cars

Luke, I wrote a story. You flipped me off and kicked my ass and I thank you.

And now, in honor of my friends' trip to Story, Indiana for their wedding anniversary, I'm going to post my story here.

It is a fictional piece about a real person: Virgil Exner, Chrysler's first vice-president of styling, the man regarded as the "Father of the Tailfin."

The background information came from a site I found called Mopar Style and was written and researched by Dave Schultz. I'll include an excerpt here as the preface.

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"In the summer of 1959, a Chrysler executive received a tip that Ford and GM were going to downsize their cars dramatically, and executives viewed “Spy Photos” of the downsized cars. There was panic because they were convinced that customers would buy the smaller cars instead of Chrysler’s. The designs for the 1962 Chryslers had already been set, but the directors immediately gave the head designer, Virgil Exner, the directive to shorten the wheelbase by three inches and to make it eight inches narrower. Exner told the directors that doing that to his designs would make the car look like Hell, but it fell on deaf ears.

When the 1962 models of Ford and GM roll out, Chrysler found out they had been a victim of a hoax by Chevrolet. The car-buying public agreed with Exner that just lopping inches off the car had made it ugly, and no one bought them. Chrysler needed a scapegoat, so they fired Ex."

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This is where my story picks up - a few months after Virgil's departure from Chrysler. Tomorrow, I'll post the beginning.