This distinctive coupe at the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA may look oddly familiar, if you're the kind of person who goes to car shows. That's because even though the 1954 Plymouth Explorer is a unique specimen, it combines themes and details from other designs by Ghia's Luigi Segre, and by Chrysler's Virgil Exner...
There's the strong horizontal emphasis, for example, with the metal molding linking the wheels revealing a piece of ivory-colored trim that emerges from something like an air vent. This detail appeared on Ghia's "Supersonic" bodies on Fiat V8 chassis from the previous year. The glassy greenhouse also appeared on the Supersonics, and predicted Ghia's work on the VW Karmann Ghia the next year. The front fender shapes had appeared on the Ghia-bodied Dodge FIre Arrow I in 1953, and would be repeated on Fire Arrows II through IV, and on the Chrysler-powered Dual-Ghias* that would see limited production in 1957 and '58.
The rear view gives some idea of how Segre's ideas may have influenced Exner's Forward Look for the 1955 Chrysler line. It's clean and glassy, with flowing fender forms and subtle haunches over the rear wheels. No fins yet; restrained fins had already appeared on the Supersonics, but Exner would wait until '56 to graft bigger ones onto his Forward Look. The only impracticality here is that the exhaust pipes exit through the lower openings in those chrome tail light bezels.
The dash design, with its individual round bezels molded into the surface ahead of the wood-rimmed wheel, would find echoes in instrument panels of the Sixties and beyond. Bucket seats flank a console that predicted Sixties Detroit products as well. The column shift connects to a semi-automatic 3 speed, and power is provided by the larger of two inline sixes offered by Plymouth in '54, with 110 hp from 230 cubic inches...
Chrysler sent the Explorer back to Europe after 18 months of touring the US show circuit, and the car wound up in Holland eventually, painted gold and with a Jaguar engine transplant. Rescued in the Eighties by collector Joe Bortz, it was traded to another collector, restored to its original color scheme and drivetrain, and is now displayed at the Petersen near a color rendering from Exner's Big Fin Forward Look. The front end is perhaps Explorer's most unique element, with a blocky grille whose main shape hints at the later Dual-Ghia, while the big round headlight bezels have an English feel...
After this concept car, Chrysler would abandon the Explorer name, leaving Ford to use it on a wild, doomed, mid-engined show truck in 1973, and finally on their SUV for the 1991 model year.
Meanwhile, a Plymouth-powered car with Ghia design had gone into something approaching production. This Ghia-bodied Almost Plymouth was the Ghia 450SS from 1966-'67, with svelte 2-seater shell covering a 273 V8 and 4-speed gearbox from Plymouth's Barracuda mounted in a Fiat 2300 chassis. Unlike the lone Plymouth Explorer, nearly 5 dozen of the 450SS reached customers, but it turned out to be another story of how making sports cars can empty your bank account, and we told it in an earlier post.*
*Footnote: Ghia-bodied Chrysler show cars, and the Dual-Ghias, appear in "The Italian Line: Ghia Part 1—International Style", posted here on 10-22-20 and the "The Italian Line: Ghia Part 2---From Custom to Corporate", posted 10-31-20. Dual-Ghia history is reviewed in more detail in "What Defines a Production Car, and Why Would Anybody Pay $3 Million for One?", from 8-29-15. The unlikely saga of the Ghia 450SS was told in "Foreshadowing Fiat Chrysler: Ghia 450SS", on 3-14-16.
Photo Credits
Top: Gogo Heinrich
Bottom: The author
All other color photos: Art Heinrich
Monochrome photo:
Ford Overland Explorer: Ford Motor Company
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