Chrysler Personalities

With all the talk lately about the bankruptcy of the Chrysler Corporation, Jeanette and I decided to take our sketchbooks yesterday to the Rhinebeck Car Show to look at Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler.

We sat next to each other on folding chairs. Jeanette got out her ballpoint pen and watercolors and sketched the 1961 Dodge Lancer and the 1958 Plymouth Fury, slightly exaggerating to bring out their personalities.

I liked her idea, so I tried to graft the cars onto the bodies of people walking by. I jotted down fragments from conversations that I overheard.

In 1958 America seemed to be caught between memories of war, fears of nuclear devastation, and dreams of space, and that zeitgeist is written on the cars’ faces.

Maybe Chrysler will bounce back to life like a ‘toon car. Let’s hope so. Maybe the key to the success of the company is putting a little more personality into the car designs.

More on this blog about automotive zeitgeist and car names.