Mercury Park Lane 1958-1960: Redesign and Facelifts Were Improvements

The Park Lane was the top of the Mercury line over the 1958-1960 model years.  I'm guessing that the name refers to the street in London that runs along the east side of Hyde Park.  That would seem to be obscure to many potential American car buyers, as massive jet air travel across the Atlantic was just getting underway then.  Maybe all the other ritzy continental names had been grabbed by then.  Or perhaps Mercury marketers figured that the old breed of ocean liner passengers along with 8th Air Force and pre- D-Day troops stationed in England in 1944 knew all about the Grosvenor House and such and would create a usable buyer pool.  Whatever ... Park Lane it was.  Sales were in the 8 -13 thousand per year range, so it wasn't a massive success.

The Park Lane Wikipedia entry is here, though I have quibbles with its remarks about styling.

What I find most interesting about the 1958-60 Park Lanes is that while the 1959 redesign was better looking than the previous design, the 1960 facelift created the best design of all.  Quite often, facelifting degrades designs over time.

Gallery

1958 Mercury Park Lane four-door hardtop.  It was a stretched, facelifted and upgraded 1957 Mercury Montclair: not a fresh design.  Questionable styling features include the grille openings in the massive front bumper ensemble, the awkward side and roof trim, plus the contorted back window that remained on the Mercury Monterey line through 1960.

This rear view of a Park Lane up for sale shows the rear bumper echoing the front bumper theme.  The ray-gun decoration on the tail light + side sculpting is a classic example of late 1950s silly styling.

The 1959 restyling most substantial on the greenhouse.  The windshield is now doubly curved, wrapping into the roof.  A big improvement is the new, cleaner backlight design.

The grille-bumper group has been simplified and made more conventional.  Side trim was also simplified and better integrated.  Losing the two-tone strip abaft of the headlights was a major factor here.

The rear bumper was restyled, but retained its two-element theme.  Ray-guns on the sculpting now look more like walking sticks.  The dogleg in the backlight echoes the windshield wrap-over, a nice, subtle touch.

Now for a set of photos of a 1960 Mercury Park Lane for sale in France.  The 1959 greenhouse design is retained, but most of the body sheetmetal has been reworked.  This is pretty expensive for the final year of a body design.  The entire front is redesigned, headlights being moved to the grille from the fender tops.

Side sculpting was totally restyled in a simplified, tasteful manner.  Those five vertical chromed bars designate that this is a Park Lane: lesser Mercury Montclairs only got three.

Rear styling is also pleasingly handled, though the tiny-tail-fin-plus-taillight grouping seem a little too cramped.

Read More

General Motors' C Body Cars: 1941 Facelifts

In my post dealing with General Motors' new C body designs for the 1940 model year, I stressed that styling was inadequately modernized.

To summarize: Most American closed-car designs in the period approximately 1934-1940 were awkward.  In part, this was because body and production engineering could not evolve rapidly enough to deliver sleek streamline-influenced designs stylists were capable of dreaming up.  For the 1940 model year, General Motors finally produced attractive closed cars in the form of its redesigned C platform.  But while these cars were attractive abaft of the front axle line, their front end styling seemed a little more dated.

This changed when GMs C body lines were facelifted for 1941.  An important factor was integration of headlights into front fenders, something GM was slow to do apparently because Engineering had objections.  The other improvement component was grille design.  Grilles for 1941 (with one possible exception) were much better matched to the rest of the styling.

Below are comparative images of 1940 and 1941 frontal designs.  Missing is a comparison for 1940 LaSalles because that brand was dropped at the end of the 1940 model year.

Gallery

Pontiac front end styling was greatly improved over the too-delicate 1940 design seen in the Mecum photo.  All fenders took on a squared-off "suitcase" motif with side ribbing.  Headlights are essentially blended into the fenders, though are still placed inboard of the fender sides.  The front of the hood has been flattened slightly to blend with the rest of the flattened face of the car.

Oldsmobile grilles retain all the 1940 element themes for '41 but are made bolder, as can be seen in this likely "for sale" photo.  Aside from the reworked headlights, Olds frontal styling is the least-changed of the lot.  A fussy design.  Unlike Pontiacs, sheet metal is almost unchanged.

Buick headlights were completely integrated, unlike those on Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles.  Better yet, they were placed near the sides of the reshaped fenders as seen in the for sale image.  The grille is now horizontal, not the equivocating '40 outline.  Grille bars are larger, adding strength to the design.

Cadillac faces for 1940 were strongly old-school, whereas the '41s received a classic design that set the theme for many decades of future Cadillacs.    The upper photo is from RM Sotheby's, the lower is a for sale photo.  Front fenders and the hood were less curved, headlights were integrated and placed outboard.  Note the fender crease that notionally passes through the headlight center and whose line becomes the upper edge of the grille.  I rank the 1941 Cadillac design as the best ever for that marque.

Read More

Complete Re-Designs ... or Major Facelifts?

Sharp-eyed reader "emjayjay" questioned in a comment to this post my assertion that 2011 Chrysler 300s were a facelift of the 300 series introduced for the 2005 model year.  I responded that I hadn't noticed that the 2011 model was a new design at the time, though a current Wikipedia entry notes that it was.  Troubled, I thought it worthwhile to delve further into the matter of 2011 Chryslers as well as another facelift controversy -- the 1955 Ford (and by extension, Mercury, that I won't deal with here because both brands had similar basic bodies that were updated in a similar way for 1955).  This post is my present take on the matter of facelifts that are so major that they seem to be complete redesigns.

Chrysler line 1939:

A couple of years ago I posted about the 1939 Chrysler Corporation models that (aside from Plymouth) appeared to be a redesign but seemed to me to probably be a major facelift.  I haven't changed my position on that, so you might link to that post, treating it as an introduction or companion piece to the present one.

Ford 1955:

For many years I thought that 1955 Fords were new designs: they certainly looked different from 1954 models.  But in recent years I've noticed some claims that the '55s were actually major facelifts.  For example, the current Wikipedia entry states (as of when the current post was drafted) that "The American Ford line of cars gained a new body for 1955 to keep up with surging Chevrolet, although it remained similar to the 1952 Ford underneath."  But the How Stuff Works site states: "Retaining the 1952-54 shell, the 1955 Ford was completely reskinned, emerging colorful if chromey, with a rakish look of motion and a modestly wrapped windshield."

Sort of a toss-up here, so I present images and an analysis below.

Chrysler 300 2011:

Now for the 2011 Chrysler controversy.

Motor Trend magazine published this "First Test" of the 2011 300 that reads more like a Chrysler press release than a critical evaluation.  It implies that the car is a new design.

Car and Driver magazine, on the other hand, held that the 300 was actually a facelifted 2005 model.  Here it stated: "Chrysler had to deal with that whole bankruptcy thing, and so the 2011 300 received more of a thorough face lift than the total overhaul for which it was due."  And here it added: "And as much as the 300 might have looked like Chrysler’s chef-d’oeuvre in 2004, the company couldn’t just sit back and let it be. For 2011, the 300 receives a refresh rather than the redesign for which it is due, but the update addresses the most important things."

In addition, Consumer Reports asserts here that "Chrysler's flagship, the 300C, is muscular and luxurious. An extensive freshening has made this cruiser a lot more competitive than before."

And finally, Popular Mechanics' review mentioned: "With ambitious refinement targets (the Lexus LS460 among them), the new Chrysler 300 required all-new sheet metal and suspension components."

These items tend to confirm my memory that 2011 300s were facelifed 2005s.  Certainly their appearance suggested that.

Let's look at some photos.

Gallery

First is a "for sale" photo of a 1954 4-door Ford followed by a Barrett-Jackson photo of a 1956 Ford 4-door that has post-market wheels ('56 Fords were lightly facelifted '55s).  The window shapes aside from the wraparound windshield on the '55 are the same, as are the door cut lines, door handle locations, and the beltline.  The front door forward cut line distance from the wheel hub confirms that the cowling is in the same position -- a key indicator of continuity.  Also, the 1955's wheelbase is essentially the same as the '54's (0.5 inches longer, a little more than one centimeter).

These views of two-door Fords help confirm that 1955 Fords were heavily facelifted 1954s.

Here are side views of a 2008 Chrysler 300 (top) and a 2011 model, the '08 being essentially the same as the 2005 version.  Again, the cowling positions, door cut lines, aft window shapes, and gas filler doors are essentially the same.  Aside from all the new sheet metal, the main difference related to body structure has to do with the windshield.  The 2005-2010 Chrysler 300s had a fairly narrow windshield in the spirit of 1948 Hudsons.  A major problem was that this reduced visibility for the driver.  For example, sometimes stoplights would be obscured.  I know this because I owned a 2005 300.  So for 2011 the windshield was enlarged and its slope increased so as to improve visibility and aerodynamic efficiency.  Note that the windshields on both cars shown here are based on the same cowling position.  The differences are in the merger of the windshield and the roof and in the shape of the front window.

For the purposes of this blog, I consider continuity of body structural elements (cowlings, door posts, etc.) as the key factor dictating that any appearance changes from model year to model year can be considered facelifts, whether minor or major.  Therefore, until I learn otherwise from body engineers, the 1939 Dodges, DeSotos and Chryslers, and 1955 Fords and Mercurys, and 2011 Chryslers (and Dodges using the same body) -- represent major facelifts and not new designs.

Read More

Updating the 2005 Chrysler 300C

For some time now, I've been thinking that I ought to write about the 2011 facelift to the Chrysler 300 series introduced for the 2005 model year.  But I couldn't quite make up my mind what to say.  And for 2015 there came another, lesser, facelift.  Now that it's 2017, more delay is hard to excuse, so here I go.

I wrote about the 2005 Chrysler 300 here.  I mentioned that the initial photos I saw were not appealing, but after seeing the cars on the streets and roads, they interested me to the point that I actually bought one.

The 2011 facelift changed the character of the design, and not in a good way, in my opinion.  It seemed like changes were made for the sake of change.  Actually, there was a new design theme, but it was not strikingly clear to me.  I'll describe it in the photo captions below.

As for the latest facelift, it marks an improvement over the previous one.  In several respects, the 2011 facelift should have used the 2015's features.  That's because the '15 returns partway to the 2005 roots, correcting what I consider the mistakes of 2011 that never should have happened.

Gallery

The 2005 Chrysler 300C.

Here is the 2011 frontal facelift.  The grille's grid pattern of bars is replaced by sculpted horizontal bars.  This softens the car's face, making it look less aggressive, a big change from what was supposed to be a "performance" car.  Apparently product planners wanted 300s to be seen as upper-medium priced town sedans rather than rubber-burning street rods.  Headlight assemblies were restyled to conform to the new fad of LED pattern creation.  Hood stampings, the strike panel and the Chrysler emblem were also changed.

The main 20015 changes were a revised strike panel, a reshaped chin air intake and a different grille.  Gone was the bright grille frame with the Chrysler wings.  The wings moved onto the grille face where the horizontal bars were replaced by a mesh design.  The overall effect is increased boldness, a partial return to the 2005 version's character.

The 2005 Chrysler 300C as seen from the rear on its way into Palm Springs, California.

The front wheel opening lip on this 2011 model is linked to a more strongly defined upper-fender character line crease.  This stronger crease destroyed the unity of the side aspect of the original design by emphasizing the contrast between the rounded wheelhouse and the rising line to the rear.  The trunk lid is new, its bottom fold aligned with the side cut line of the strike panel which also was reshaped.  The extreme rear of the fender lines are now slightly peaked, the apexes aligned with with thin, vertical accents on the tail lights.  The overall effect is increased formality and less aggression, as was the case at the front.  I always disliked these tail lights because they seemed so unlike what I expected of a 300.

For 2015, the rear features a redesigned strike panel and exhaust pipe lips.  Better yet, the tail lights revert to something like the 2005 pattern on lesser (non-300C) 300s.  As with the front, the rear seems more like a road car than a town car.  The sculpting of the side character line seems to have been reduced, bringing it more in line with 2005.

Read More