Virgil Exner
For 1957, Chrysler launched all-new models again, introducing cars that were long, low, wide, and featured sweeping tailfins—designs that caused a sensation within the North American auto industry.
Exner was encouraged by Roy Cole, Studebaker's engineering vice president, to work on his own at home on backup designs in case the company's touchy relationship with Loewy blew up".
[4] Rivalry and bad feeling between the two resulted in Exner having to leave Studebaker, whose engineering chief Roy Cole provided personal introductions for him to Ford and Chrysler.
[2] In 1949, Exner started working in Chrysler's Advanced Styling Group, where he partnered with Cliff Voss and Maury Baldwin.
[citation needed] After seeing the Lockheed P-38 Lightning-inspired tailfins on the 1948 Cadillac, Exner adopted fins as a central element of his vehicle designs.
He believed in the aerodynamic benefits of the fins, and even used wind tunnel testing at the University of Michigan—but he also liked their visual effects on the car.
Exner with his associates had completed work on the second full-sized finless Plymouth since 1955, this one for 1962, described as a strikingly attractive automobile.
It turned out that the Chevrolet rumor was false and consumers disliked the smaller Plymouth and Dodge cars introduced for 1962, the styling of which was bizarre compared to more sedate Ford and GM products.
By the late 1950s, Cadillac and Chrysler–driven by the respective competing visions of GM's Earl and Chrysler's Exner–had escalated the size of fins till some thought they were stylistically questionable and they became a symbol of American excess in the early 1960s.
[5][7] Three entities came together in the history of the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia—a design that ultimately reflected strong influence from Virgil Exner.
As post-war standards of living increased, executives at Volkswagen were at least receptive to adding a halo model to its range, if not proactive.
The styling itself, however, integrated work by Segre as well as Mario Boano, Sergio Coggiola, and designer/engineer Giovanni Savonuzzi—and at various times they each took credit for the design.
[8] Furthermore, the design bore striking styling similarities to Virgil Exner's Chrysler D'Elegance and K-310 concepts, which Ghia had been tasked with prototyping, and which in turn reflected numerous cues and themes developed previously by Mario Boano.
[9] The precise styling responsibilities were never documented before the passing of the designers,[9] further complicated by the overlapping work of the key players.
Seeking to reenter the automotive field, Exner drafted a resume, describing himself as having "extensive, responsible and successful experience in all areas.
"[1] Exner died of heart failure on December 22, 1973, at the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.
