IML: Fuselage Era cars

[Mark McDonald <tomswift@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

First, that is spelled "fuselage" and refers to the rounded shape of the body of a 1969 Imperial when viewed in cross-section.  Chrysler stylists (or maybe the marketing department) coined the term to describe the resemblance between an aircraft fuselage and the body of all their cars that year, not just the Imperial.  This shape is characterized by a large amount of what stylists call "tumblehome" and "turnunder."  Tumblehome is an extreme curvature of the "B" pillar and side glass toward the top of the car (when viewed in cross-section), and turnunder is an extreme curvature of the sheetmetal from the middle of the body downwards to the bottom of the car (again, when viewed in cross-section).  

Most cars of the 1960's prior to the fuselage cars had very little tumblehome or turnunder, and were relatively flatsided or box like, with flat glass and little curvature of the body toward the rocker panels (i.e., the '68 Imperial, a near perfect box).  Of course, today, 36 years later, this kind of curvature is quite commonplace, but in 1969 it was years ahead of its time.

The term "fuselage era" came along later and was, I think, the creation of collectors who wanted a term to describe the cars of that period.  To my knowledge, this term was never officially used by Chrysler.

Second-- and there is disagreement about this-- in my opinion, the fuselage era only lasted for three model years, 1969, 1970, and 1971.  After that, the Imperial was redesigned and lost the curved cross-sectional look associated with the previous three years.  Some people like to think of this period as "2nd generation fuselage," but there really is no mention of this term in any Chrysler literature that I'm aware of.  If you look at a '73 next to a '69 there is very little resemblance between the two.  Yes, you can see that both start from the same basic underpinnings, but the '73's do not have the sleek, streamlined feel of the 69-71 years, and are much heavier and box like.

Other people seem to think that if stylists came up with a name for a particular design trend, well then by gosh every year of Imperial has to have a special term or an "era" associated with it.  This is not the case.  To my knowledge, there was no special design term associated with, or created for, the 67-68 model years, or the 64-66 years.  I think the "fuselage" term was a good idea that simply came about, took hold, and lasted about 3 years-- the normal cycle for design trends in Detroit at that time-- and after that they simply moved onto another look (maybe you would call it the Massive Slabsided Look?).

Okay, all owners of 72-73 Imperials may now attack me freely.  :)

Mark M