The Fury was also available with a Poly 318, a two-barrel 361, and the 426 Street Wedge, in addition to the base slant six. This Fury has a Carter AFB sitting atop its manifold, meaning it’s most likely propelled by the 330-horsepower 383, one of Chrysler’s workaday mills that provided plenteous power to the performance-minded proletariat. Of course, wide open starter relays, bulkhead connectors, ballast resistors, and ammeters may alternate (ha!) between endearing and enraging, depending on the “Mopar or No Car” level of the mechanic working on them however, few can deny that the B/RB engine was an outstanding design. Chrysler’s body colored engine bays may present more work to an intrepid modern restorer, but offer a stunning result when done correctly. Under the hood is where Chryslers often shine, and this engine compartment shines indeed. With no fins to speak of and a tasteful red stripe, the Fury seems far removed from the hastily revised 1962 models, as Engel chipped away all the awkwardness, revealing the basic goodness of Exner’s original body. With Max Wedge flair and fuselage-like elegance, this Fury is a menace that anyone who likes 1960s cars would like to own. Equal parts Exner and Engel, it just might be the most appealing of all. Some deride it for being too much like a Ford or a Lincoln or a Pontiac, but it is tasteful and conservative, and it set the tone for all of Engel’s tenure as Chrysler’s styling chief.Īnd that leaves us with our featured Fury, a 1964 model. The other side of the styling bridge between Exner and Engel is the 1965 Chrysler. Unfortunately for Exner, the early 1960s were not as kind as they were to Engel, so people sometimes forget his beautiful Ghia concepts and forward-thinking “Forward Look” cars and focus on the Valiant and 1962 models.Įngel, on the other hand, although he produced some mediocre designs throughout his career and leaned too heavily on his favored Continental and Thunderbird motifs, produced relatively few stinkers, leaving his reputation comparatively untarnished. A genius is often judged by his greatest masterpiece or his most spectacular failure. In the meantime at Ford, of course, Elwood Engel was simply designing one of the most timelessly beautiful luxury cars, the Lincoln Continental, whose basic shape was so perfect, it lasted the whole of the 1960s. The Plymouth emerged from the debacle as arguably the less heinous of the two, but time has shown that both the Dodge and Plymouth possess a “so ugly that I like it” vibe, a mantle carried for years by the otherwise dissonant Volkswagen Type 1.
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The plus side was that Chrysler got a lot of mileage out of the B-Body platform after a few aggressive tweaks however, Exner’s reputation has really never recovered from his perceived faux-pas regarding the, um, polarizing styling of the ’62s. A misunderstood conversation between Ed Cole and some other automotive fat cat was represented as fact, and a rushed restyle meant good things for drag racers, but bad things for Chrysler’s bottom line. The story of the 1962 models’ genesis is classic car-lovers’ folklore. Regardless of your take on the abilities of these two men and the machines they helped to create, the ’64 Plymouth is convincing evidence that an Exner/Engel collaboration would make a worthwhile piece of historical fiction.
In a desirable combination of white and red, this 1964 Fury convertible stands like an elegant stone arch between the outlandishness of Exner’s 1962 and ’63 Chryslers and the attractively pedestrian conformity of Engel’s ’65 and ’66 models.