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MM Retro-Write-Up: Plymouth Prowler
..........and the Lexus Prototype Street-Rod.
IN A NUTSHELL: Perhaps the most outrageous-looking factory-production car to ever come out of Detroit.
I never actually test-drove one of these (in fact, not very many of them were actually built)…so I can’t really describe their road-manners in detail, but it was such an interesting product that I’d thought I’d do a write up on what I CAN say about it.
Many of you are probably not old enough to remember the classic street-rod scene, which got its start in (where else?) Southern California in the late 1940s, and went on through most of the 1950s….and, in some cases, into the early 60s, when American muscle-cars from the factory started to replace them.
Anyhow, the street-rod scene, like the Harley-motorcycle clubs and gangs, can (mostly) trace its earliest roots to Army, Navy, and Marine-Corps fighter-pilots in World War II. After the war was over in 1945, some of these fighter pilots stayed in the military and continued their flying careers there (the old Army Air Corps became the all-new U.S. Air Force), some got qualified/checked out in airliners and got jobs with the (then) rapidly-expanding airline business, some studied under the new G.I. Bill to further their education and job-opportunities,
But a not-insignificant number of them, after getting out of the service at the end of the war, found that, like it or not, they missed their planes, and the action that they went through. I’m not saying this, of course, to glamorize war and death, which IMO is something to be avoided except as an extreme last resort. But, once war IS declared or justified, the job of a fighter pilot, besides defending his own land base or aircraft carrier from enemy attack, is to aggressively seek out, attack, and shoot down enemy aircraft per the Rules of Engagement….it is often a kill-or-be-killed environment. In other words, to effectively use your airplane and its armament as a weapon. These pilots were used to flying and attacking aggressively, and, unfortunately, some of them just did not adjust well to civilian life and/or a life on the ground. Even if they had stayed in the service and not left, the fighter-wings, by this time, were starting to convert to jets, which required entirely different training than the radial and V/in-line piston-engined fighters they were used to. So, as civilians, they turned, instead, to aggressive cars and motorcycles to satisfy their testosterone-needs on the road, which, for them, turned out to be an effective substitute for the planes. I won’t say that all of them were super-or-hyper-aggressive, and some of the newly-formed clubs were legitimate and/or stayed within the boundaries of the law. Other groups, of course, turned out to be hooligans, and were the bane of peace-loving towns/communities and the police.
As for the motorcycles (mostly the Harley and Indian-brand bikes) and biker-groups, I’ll leave that out here, as this article is about the street-rods. Those who custom-built their street-rods (also called hot-rods) used a number of different bodies and engines/transmissions, but one of the favorite combinations was the “Deuce Coupe”…a 1932 Ford coupe body, often with a lowered/chopped roofline, and, before 1955, the famous Ford Flathead V8 with speed-modifications. After the also-famous Chevrolet 265-cubic-inch (4.3L) V8 was introduced in 1955, it became the new favorite power plant, just as in the popular mid-late-50s stock Chevys themselves. Floor-mounted 3 or 4-speed manual transmissions were the rule, as automatics were considered sissy in those days. To provide extra cooling for the engines (and for an aggressive look), partial-hoods (or no hoods at all) were often the case. The aggressive-look was further met by sometimes painting or decaling bright-colored flames on the side of the body (recall that, in World War II, the famous American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers), in China and Burma, in their campaigns against the Japanese, painted the noses of their Curtiss P-40 fighter-planes to look like shark’s teeth). Not surprisingly, speed-limits and conventional traffic-laws meant little to these road-warriors, and organized street-races (usually on straight-pipes, without mufflers) were often held on public streets when the police were not around to break it up. These cars were designed and built as basic-speed-machines, with few if any safety-features in them. Unlike the fighter-planes they had formerly flown, there were no seat belts or shoulder-harnesses in them, so even comparatively minor impacts could (and often did) result in serious injury or death.
This classic street-rod scene basically went on until the early-mid 1960s, when factory-designed muscle cars like the Pontiac GTO and Shelby Ford Mustang (and other muscle-cars to follow) essentially replaced them with faster, safer, and more conventional vehicles. Like the demise of the muscle-cars themselves, the fuel-crises of the early 1970s pretty much also spelled the end of what few street-rods were left by then. They both faded into history.
Until the late 1990s, that is, when some of the product-planners at Chrysler felt that it might be worth doing something that had never been tried before…..a factory-designed/produced RWD street-rod with up-to-date safety/emissions equipment, aerodynamics, suspension/steering, and modern fuel-injection instead of the cranky, hard-to-tune carburetors of yore. The thinking was that it would appeal to the aging Baby-Boomers and WWII-vets who had driven the originals some 40-50 years before.
The conception/thinking and basic idea was brilliant, but the actual execution and design was roundly-criticized by the auto press at the time (I agreed with some of the criticisms, not with others). Some reviewers considered it to be underpowered. Instead of a classic V8, a 3.5L (214 cubic-inch) V6 was used, that produced 214 HP and 217 ft-lbs. of torque….which doesn’t sound like much today except for the fact that this was generally a small light vehicle that didn’t need tons of power to have some spunk. But, what modest power (by today’s standards) the V6 produced was hampered by a four-speed Autostick Chrysler automatic ….the Autostick moniker came from the Chrysler design of the lever coming all the way back and bumped-sideways (left/right) to manually shift gears. Chrysler explained that the smaller V6 engine was chosen because the engineers felt the body wasn’t wide enough to accommodate a large V8, and that the cockpit was too narrow for a third manual clutch-pedal on the left. Remember, this car was being aimed, not necessarily at young people, but at what was left of the old street-rod scene, who, by then, were dealing with aging backs/legs and some left-knees that were just too stiff to be up and down on the clutch pedal constantly in heavy traffic.
Well, a brilliant idea conceptually, but, unfortunately, it simply was not successful as a design. Initially, it was offered in only one color….Prowler Purple, which was a deep park purple, and not the bright/distinctive Plum Crazy Violet that Chrysler has used on their classic muscle-cars. Other colors were gradually added, like yellow, black, red, and silver….but considering this car’s cost, was still not much of a choice. There was virtually no trunk-space in back….which is why the car came with an optional small streamlined trailer, in matching body-paint, that was towed around with it. Typical Chrysler build-quality, at the time, was not the best, so one could not expect a lot of trouble-free miles with it. Perhaps worst of all, greedy dealerships jacked the asking prices up to simply absurd levels…until they saw that the car was simply not selling. Low sales, of course, meant low production…only 11,700 were built during the car’s five-year production0run from 1997 to 2002. Even in this traffic-choked D.C. region, over the years, I’ve see very few on the road….enough to count on the fingers one hand. I suspect, but can’t prove, that the majority of them were sold either in Southern California (where the original street-rods were most popular) or in the Sun Belt/fair-weather states, as this was clearly not a winter-oriented vehicle. So, sadly, unlamented, this brilliantly-conceived but poorly-executed car faded into automotive history.
Chrysler, BTW, was not the only company to come up with a factory-designed street-rod…..although it was the only company I know of that actually put one into production. Lexus had a similar idea, and actually did a prototype street-rod with a real (but safety-modified) ’32-Deuce-Coupe body shell on it, painted a classic 1950s Candy-Apple-Red instead of the Chrysler dark purple. It also used a real Lexus-derived V8 instead of the Prowler’s V6. It looked a lot more like the classic street rods of a half-century before than Chrysler’s excessive-aero-look did. Build-quality would also probably have been better than with the Prowler. But, perhaps because of the Prowler’s low sales, Lexus only built one, displayed it at auto shows, and never put it into production.
Now, perhaps, with the latest battery/electric-motor technology, will we see an all-electric street-rod? I’d like to see the look on some Boomer faces on that one LOL.
And, as Always……Happy Car-Memories.
MM
..........and the Lexus Prototype Street-Rod.
IN A NUTSHELL: Perhaps the most outrageous-looking factory-production car to ever come out of Detroit.
I never actually test-drove one of these (in fact, not very many of them were actually built)…so I can’t really describe their road-manners in detail, but it was such an interesting product that I’d thought I’d do a write up on what I CAN say about it.
Many of you are probably not old enough to remember the classic street-rod scene, which got its start in (where else?) Southern California in the late 1940s, and went on through most of the 1950s….and, in some cases, into the early 60s, when American muscle-cars from the factory started to replace them.
Anyhow, the street-rod scene, like the Harley-motorcycle clubs and gangs, can (mostly) trace its earliest roots to Army, Navy, and Marine-Corps fighter-pilots in World War II. After the war was over in 1945, some of these fighter pilots stayed in the military and continued their flying careers there (the old Army Air Corps became the all-new U.S. Air Force), some got qualified/checked out in airliners and got jobs with the (then) rapidly-expanding airline business, some studied under the new G.I. Bill to further their education and job-opportunities,
But a not-insignificant number of them, after getting out of the service at the end of the war, found that, like it or not, they missed their planes, and the action that they went through. I’m not saying this, of course, to glamorize war and death, which IMO is something to be avoided except as an extreme last resort. But, once war IS declared or justified, the job of a fighter pilot, besides defending his own land base or aircraft carrier from enemy attack, is to aggressively seek out, attack, and shoot down enemy aircraft per the Rules of Engagement….it is often a kill-or-be-killed environment. In other words, to effectively use your airplane and its armament as a weapon. These pilots were used to flying and attacking aggressively, and, unfortunately, some of them just did not adjust well to civilian life and/or a life on the ground. Even if they had stayed in the service and not left, the fighter-wings, by this time, were starting to convert to jets, which required entirely different training than the radial and V/in-line piston-engined fighters they were used to. So, as civilians, they turned, instead, to aggressive cars and motorcycles to satisfy their testosterone-needs on the road, which, for them, turned out to be an effective substitute for the planes. I won’t say that all of them were super-or-hyper-aggressive, and some of the newly-formed clubs were legitimate and/or stayed within the boundaries of the law. Other groups, of course, turned out to be hooligans, and were the bane of peace-loving towns/communities and the police.
As for the motorcycles (mostly the Harley and Indian-brand bikes) and biker-groups, I’ll leave that out here, as this article is about the street-rods. Those who custom-built their street-rods (also called hot-rods) used a number of different bodies and engines/transmissions, but one of the favorite combinations was the “Deuce Coupe”…a 1932 Ford coupe body, often with a lowered/chopped roofline, and, before 1955, the famous Ford Flathead V8 with speed-modifications. After the also-famous Chevrolet 265-cubic-inch (4.3L) V8 was introduced in 1955, it became the new favorite power plant, just as in the popular mid-late-50s stock Chevys themselves. Floor-mounted 3 or 4-speed manual transmissions were the rule, as automatics were considered sissy in those days. To provide extra cooling for the engines (and for an aggressive look), partial-hoods (or no hoods at all) were often the case. The aggressive-look was further met by sometimes painting or decaling bright-colored flames on the side of the body (recall that, in World War II, the famous American Volunteer Group (Flying Tigers), in China and Burma, in their campaigns against the Japanese, painted the noses of their Curtiss P-40 fighter-planes to look like shark’s teeth). Not surprisingly, speed-limits and conventional traffic-laws meant little to these road-warriors, and organized street-races (usually on straight-pipes, without mufflers) were often held on public streets when the police were not around to break it up. These cars were designed and built as basic-speed-machines, with few if any safety-features in them. Unlike the fighter-planes they had formerly flown, there were no seat belts or shoulder-harnesses in them, so even comparatively minor impacts could (and often did) result in serious injury or death.
This classic street-rod scene basically went on until the early-mid 1960s, when factory-designed muscle cars like the Pontiac GTO and Shelby Ford Mustang (and other muscle-cars to follow) essentially replaced them with faster, safer, and more conventional vehicles. Like the demise of the muscle-cars themselves, the fuel-crises of the early 1970s pretty much also spelled the end of what few street-rods were left by then. They both faded into history.
Until the late 1990s, that is, when some of the product-planners at Chrysler felt that it might be worth doing something that had never been tried before…..a factory-designed/produced RWD street-rod with up-to-date safety/emissions equipment, aerodynamics, suspension/steering, and modern fuel-injection instead of the cranky, hard-to-tune carburetors of yore. The thinking was that it would appeal to the aging Baby-Boomers and WWII-vets who had driven the originals some 40-50 years before.
The conception/thinking and basic idea was brilliant, but the actual execution and design was roundly-criticized by the auto press at the time (I agreed with some of the criticisms, not with others). Some reviewers considered it to be underpowered. Instead of a classic V8, a 3.5L (214 cubic-inch) V6 was used, that produced 214 HP and 217 ft-lbs. of torque….which doesn’t sound like much today except for the fact that this was generally a small light vehicle that didn’t need tons of power to have some spunk. But, what modest power (by today’s standards) the V6 produced was hampered by a four-speed Autostick Chrysler automatic ….the Autostick moniker came from the Chrysler design of the lever coming all the way back and bumped-sideways (left/right) to manually shift gears. Chrysler explained that the smaller V6 engine was chosen because the engineers felt the body wasn’t wide enough to accommodate a large V8, and that the cockpit was too narrow for a third manual clutch-pedal on the left. Remember, this car was being aimed, not necessarily at young people, but at what was left of the old street-rod scene, who, by then, were dealing with aging backs/legs and some left-knees that were just too stiff to be up and down on the clutch pedal constantly in heavy traffic.
Well, a brilliant idea conceptually, but, unfortunately, it simply was not successful as a design. Initially, it was offered in only one color….Prowler Purple, which was a deep park purple, and not the bright/distinctive Plum Crazy Violet that Chrysler has used on their classic muscle-cars. Other colors were gradually added, like yellow, black, red, and silver….but considering this car’s cost, was still not much of a choice. There was virtually no trunk-space in back….which is why the car came with an optional small streamlined trailer, in matching body-paint, that was towed around with it. Typical Chrysler build-quality, at the time, was not the best, so one could not expect a lot of trouble-free miles with it. Perhaps worst of all, greedy dealerships jacked the asking prices up to simply absurd levels…until they saw that the car was simply not selling. Low sales, of course, meant low production…only 11,700 were built during the car’s five-year production0run from 1997 to 2002. Even in this traffic-choked D.C. region, over the years, I’ve see very few on the road….enough to count on the fingers one hand. I suspect, but can’t prove, that the majority of them were sold either in Southern California (where the original street-rods were most popular) or in the Sun Belt/fair-weather states, as this was clearly not a winter-oriented vehicle. So, sadly, unlamented, this brilliantly-conceived but poorly-executed car faded into automotive history.
Chrysler, BTW, was not the only company to come up with a factory-designed street-rod…..although it was the only company I know of that actually put one into production. Lexus had a similar idea, and actually did a prototype street-rod with a real (but safety-modified) ’32-Deuce-Coupe body shell on it, painted a classic 1950s Candy-Apple-Red instead of the Chrysler dark purple. It also used a real Lexus-derived V8 instead of the Prowler’s V6. It looked a lot more like the classic street rods of a half-century before than Chrysler’s excessive-aero-look did. Build-quality would also probably have been better than with the Prowler. But, perhaps because of the Prowler’s low sales, Lexus only built one, displayed it at auto shows, and never put it into production.
Now, perhaps, with the latest battery/electric-motor technology, will we see an all-electric street-rod? I’d like to see the look on some Boomer faces on that one LOL.
And, as Always……Happy Car-Memories.
MM
