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12/10/2025 9:38 pm
A fantastic car show held on the grounds of the Edsel & Eleanor Estate in Grosse Pointe Shores, MI. An exhibition that celebrates automotive design Past, Present & Future.
For the 1962 model year, the Chrysler Corporation introduced a smaller full-size car in the Dodge and Plymouth brands. There were lots of reasons cited for their departure from the larger models in previous years. If one considered the '61 model year somewhat different or bizarre, the '62s took that concept to a whole new level. For whatever reason for the change, these two car brands were not well received by the buying public. The Chrysler Corporation had made a very large misstep. One that took them a couple of years to fully correct.
The NEW Dodge and Plymouth for 1962 were introduced in September 1961. This avid car nut was not quite a year old yet and these cars didn't hit my radar for a few years. I don't recall exactly when I saw my 1st of either car, but I do recall thinking, what in the world were they drinking at Chrysler to allow these car designs to actually be built.
OK, so here we are today, and now I can see some real benefits to this smaller car, it is still a bit odd looking, but in a good way these days. Now when I see one of these at a show, which is rare, I see unique features and design cues that really utilized their size for a purpose.
I came across these two at this show and, to be honest, was mesmerized by them. I took a whole bunch of photos of each, here's a few of them that I've finalized.
1962 Dodge Polara 500 Convertible
1962 Plymouth Fury Hardtop Coupe
John Merritt
South Lyon, Michigan - USA
12/10/2025 10:38 pm
Love the ugliness of the '62 Mopar design. Great pics of course.
John Bono
North Jersey
12/10/2025 10:44 pm
Certainly an extreme, but also eye catching. Amazing photography John.
12/10/2025 10:44 pm
For some reason, as the years go by I like these cars more and more; maybe it's simply because they are so very different and controversial.
13/10/2025 1:52 am
+1 to all above, bizarre but captivating
13/10/2025 2:02 am
To my eye there are two kinds of weird cars, weird very cool and weird butt ugly. These ain’t cool!
13/10/2025 2:17 am
...the inside story on these was that Chrysler mistakenly believed GM was tooling up smaller cars, so they downsized their designs. When Chrysler realized they were wrong, they had to quickly enlarge & "stretch" what was already in the pipeline. Love them or hate them, this was the result.
13/10/2025 6:48 am
Can't be said better than this!! +1!Love the ugliness of the '62 Mopar design. Great pics of course.
John Merritt and John Bono reacted
13/10/2025 6:53 am
I agree with all the replies above.
13/10/2025 7:41 am
Compared to the Polara, the Plymouth actually looks restrained however both at ugly to me.