1952 Chrysler Special (Ghia)

The 1952 Chrysler Special premiered in the 1952 Paris Auto Show sporting its Ghia “continental” design with a slightly more squared-off approach to its contours. The 1952, 1953 and 1954 Chrysler Special and D’Elegance remained as showroom models or very limited production cars and helped generate interest in the Chrysler brand during a difficult economic period.

Concept cars have always been great attention-getters, with sales- and profit-boosting potential, so it makes sense that Virgil Exner got the nod to do the 1952, 1953, 1954 Chrysler Special and D’Elegance concept cars in the midst of Chrysler’s cash-flow crisis of the early 1950s.

First up was the Chrysler Special, which was built in two versions. The original premiered at the 1952 Paris Salon as a three-place fastback built on a cut-down New Yorker chassis (119-inch wheelbase).

As a follow-up to the K-310/C-200, it sported similar "elements of Continental styling" – long-hood/short-deck profile, big wire wheels within full cutouts – but differed most everywhere else.

Fenderlines were squared-up knife-edge types holding slim vertical bumperettes; headlights lived in prominent thrusting pods – the grille was an inverted trapezoid with horizontal bars.

Also, bodysides curved less and combined with a low roofline for a husky "masculine" air. Though handsome, the first Chrysler Special would remain one-of-a-kind.

So, too, the second version built in 1953 for C. B. Thomas, the head of Chrysler’s Export Division, thus prompting the nickname "Thomas Special."

Though similar to the 1952 car, this mounted a stock 125.5-inch New Yorker chassis and measured 10 inches longer overall (214 total). Exner used the extra length to provide what we’d now term a notchback profile, with a normal trunk and external lid, plus four/five-passenger seating. There were also various detail changes, such as outside door handles instead of solenoid-activated pushbuttons.

In one sense, the Chrysler Specials were not dead-ends, for positive public reception prompted some 400 copies of a third version in 1954. This was dubbed GS-1, likely for "Ghia Special," though the styling was again Exner’s.

Overall appearance was somewhere between the two Specials. The main differences involved a larger and squarer grille, reshaped roof and fenderlines, and stock 1954 New Yorker bumpers.

All GS-1s carried the by-then familiar 331 Hemi V-8, linked to Chrysler’s new fully automatic two-speed PowerFlite transmission. Sales were handled by Société France Motors, Chrysler’s French distributor.