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George Pimentel / WireImage / Getty Images
Chances are you’ve never liked the Chrysler PT Cruiser, a retro-styled five-door hatchback sold from 2001 to 2010. In fact, you might even hate it. Most people do. Just ask Tom Gale, the former vice president of design at Chrysler Corporation.
“The PT Cruiser is hammered by a lot of people,” Gale said. “But he really hit a point. You know, we sold 1.3 million of these things.”
Today, it’s easy to forget how extremely popular this compact car was when it was launched. Credit the success of the PT Cruiser for its retro look, which was a relatively new automotive design trend that was growing in popularity at the time. The PT Cruiser would ultimately be just one of many retro-styled vehicles created by automakers. Others include the 1989 Nissan S-Cargo, 1991 Nissan Figaro, 1992 Dodge Viper, 1993 BMW Z8, 1994 Dodge Ram, 1994 Ford Mustang, 1997 Jaguar XK-8, 1998 Plymouth Prowler, Jaguar 1999 S-Type, 1999 Volkswagen New Beetle, 2001 Mini Cooper, 2002 Ford Thunderbird, 2002 Jaguar X-Type, 2004 Chevrolet SSR, 2004 Chrysler Crossfire, 2004 Ford GT, 2004 Jaguar XJ-8, 2006 Chevrolet HHR, 2008 Dodge Challenger , 2009 Chevrolet Camaro, 2011 Fiat 500, 2017 Fiat 124 Spider and, more recently, the upcoming Ford Bronco 2022.
What is retro design, you ask? Put simply, the retro design takes a famous car design and reintroduces it using as many styling cues from the original car, but updated with a contemporary surface coating and contemporary technology. The idea turned out to be crucial for Chrysler Corporation, where Gale and his colleagues used it to their great advantage to provide a slightly different look and feel than the competition in a particular market segment.
From the start, Gale understood retro design like few others did, and car designers are only beginning to understand what Gale knew then: retro design brings not only a recognizable look, but also an essential understanding of what a new model should be.
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The mid-1990s were an extremely fertile period for Chrysler concept cars. The Atlantic was inspired by Bugatti’s Type 57 Atlantic.
Chrysler
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The Atlantic, like the Bugatti before it, had an inline eight-cylinder engine, in this case created from two Neon engines, joined to the crank.
Chrysler
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A Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante, which won Best-in-Class for Matching Type 57s at Pebble Beach in 2019.
Jonathan gitlin
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“Call me crazy, but I love the Plymouth Prowler,” says Jonathan Gitlin of Cars Technica (vehicle seen here at the Cars & Coffee 2020 virtual event)
Jonathan gitlin
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The 2021 four-door Bronco will have removable modular roof sections available – left and right front panels, a full-width center panel and a rear section. The roof panels of the two and four door models can be easily removed by unlocking the latches from the inside.
Ford
How the past became the present
An early example of retro design dates back to 1988, when Bob Lutz, Chrysler’s president of operations, proposed to build a sports car similar to the original Shelby Cobra. The result was the Dodge Viper Concept, which debuted at the 1989 Detroit auto show and reached production three years later. “Some people call it retro, but I really don’t see it that way, although we didn’t hesitate to say it was inspired by the Shelby Cobra,” Gale told Ars. “We tried to do something that was a different approach, yet it was something that would instantly be recognized.”
While production numbers were never big, the Viper helped change consumers’ perceptions of Dodge and Chrysler Corporation. As such, Gale would continue to exploit retro design in a series of concept cars, some for production, some not.
“Some of them were quite literally what we thought or where we wanted to point and others were really quite far-fetched,” he said. “And part of it was just testing the waters to see how much was too much and how much was too little.”
What many competitors failed to realize is that Gale used the retro style for inspiration, not imitation. “We were obviously looking at our own heritage as a company and sometimes we were borrowing a legacy that maybe wasn’t ours,” Gale continued. “But if you’ve made a concept car, it soon becomes ours. You show it and now you own it. And so that was an important consideration and an important strategy with what we did with these 50 or 60 or so concepts.
Borrowing heritage from other companies was particularly successful on the 1994 Dodge Ram, which channeled the language of Kenworth and Peterbilt. “It was a giant step forward, but we had nothing to lose,” admits Gale. “The Ram’s market share at the time was six percent or something like that. And after doing the Ram, it wasn’t long before we were in the 1920s.
Or consider the 1995 Chrysler Atlantic concept car, a design study reminiscent of the 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic. Although Chrysler never built a production version, many of the Atlantic’s smaller Signals were used on the Chrysler Chronos and Citadel, allowing the upholstery to become more familiar. This led Gale to lift those classic elements, such as grille textures or fender ornaments, and incorporate them into aggressively modern production cars, giving them a timeless quality. The result can be seen on the C-pillar of the Chrysler LHS or on the grille of the Chrysler Concorde. This is something that designers who followed in the retro wake of Chrysler would miss.
Even Gale’s most decidedly retro design, the Plymouth Prowler, had an ulterior motive. “As a company, we didn’t have the resources for a lot of research,” Gale said. “We had no idea of forming, dressing, extruding, welding and gluing the aluminum itself. So Prowler was really all about it as a test bed.
As a hot rod enthusiast himself, Gale knew that most of the hot rod community would not accept the car. “Their whole purpose is to change something someone else has proposed. For me, it was always more about winning research from the suppliers with whom we work with us.
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