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SLIDER: 1955 Chrysler Windsor

The Chrysler Windsor name lasted many years – from 1939 to the end of US production in 1961 and in Canada in 1966. The Canadian 1961 to 1966 Windsor model was essentially the equivalent of the Chrysler Newport in the United States.

Our picture shows a the first new ‘Forward Look’ Chrysler Windsor, styled by Virgil Exner – a man credited with shaking up the whole of American car styling. Even before the 1955 Chryslers were launched, GM designer Chuck Jordan saw Exner’s hidden 1955 Chrysler range and convinced Bill Mitchell, head of General Motors styling, “to begin redesigning each car line, Chevrolet through Cadillac.”

The Windsor shown here shows the “spring special package” called Blue Heron; it cost $65 and could be ordered with a pale turquoise-blue-on-white colour scheme, or the reverse. There was another special paint job called Green Falcon – with the obvious colour scheme.

Following US tradition, the 1955 style lasted only one year. In 1956 the first Exner restyle of the whole Chrysler range emerged, introducing the first tail fins on a Chrysler car – and a new Highway Hi-Fi phonograph player option on the Windsor. In the Fifties, it seems that anything was possible in the confident US market.

Photo courtesy of The Richard Roberts Archive.


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