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Expert
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Location: DFW, TX | Does it qualify as Forward Look? Some say it was one of the last designs Exner worked with Ghia on, so you be the judge.
The wine color that was on it was just lifeless and dull. A little paint and some wire wheels (with Vogue tires!) will really wake it up.
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 ATT00019.jpg (43KB - 167 downloads)
ATT00025.jpg (38KB - 135 downloads)
ATT00034.jpg (45KB - 149 downloads)
ATT00040.jpg (42KB - 139 downloads)
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 387
Location: morehead, kentucky | Thats a nice looking car, i love the body lines on that thing. I would love to see some pics of it when its put back together. Excelent paint work by the way, looks very nice. |
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | You can't tell anything with cheesy cell phone pictures. The paint on it was just pathetic. The new color is a Chrysler color with some pearls added to accentuate the body lines. It is going to be incredible.
Not my favorite child of the Ghia/Chrysler partnership, but it is pretty neat. The 330hp 383 has a really nice burble to it. This car came from South Africa, and was originally gold. I'm not sure who all has owned this one, but Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin used to have a couple of these. They made 23 to 26 of these cars (depends on who you ask) so that makes it pretty rare! I'm not sure, but I think this is the same car... http://www.hamannclassiccars.com/listing/1963_Ghia_6.4L.html
If you're bored, you can read up on them here http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2005/09/01/hmn_feature3.html |
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | plymouth58 - 2007-11-25 7:51 PM
Thats a nice looking car, i love the body lines on that thing. I would love to see some pics of it when its put back together. Excelent paint work by the way, looks very nice.
It's kind of an odd looking car. 
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z10045/Ghia_L6.4/default.aspx |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7194
Location: Victoria, BC, on Vancouver Island, Canada | These are gorgeous... I had a Corgi-Toy of one as a kid but I remember another kid I knew had one before I got mine, and I was able to recognize it as some kind of a Chrysler Product - even before I had it in my hands to see the name stamped on the bottom..... by the shape and wrap-around of the front windshield....and the lift up door handles.
Edited by imopar380 2007-11-26 12:59 AM
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Exner Expert 19,174 posts. Neil passed away 18 Sep 2015. You will be missed, Neil!
Posts: 19171
Location: bishop, ca | These cars are gorgeous, and serve to define the height of the "****tail generation" of suave, debonair living (pre-Kennedy assassination, and pre-vietnam war, when the world was changed forever).
Back then, air-travel was still glamorous.
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Exner Expert 19,174 posts. Neil passed away 18 Sep 2015. You will be missed, Neil!
Posts: 19171
Location: bishop, ca | I can't believe that "our" stupid Big-brother bleeps the word, for a game-rooster, when used in the context of a mixed-ingredient alcoholic beverage!!!!!
Edited by d500neil 2007-11-26 1:49 AM
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Location: Parts Unknown | 57burb - 2007-11-26 5:46 PM
Does it qualify as Forward Look? Some say it was one of the last designs Exner worked with Ghia on, so you be the judge.
QUOTE]
Exner and the Forward Look are not inextricably linked. Otherwise we'd have to call some Studebakers "Forward Look" as well. We went over this a while back, regarding the first and last use of the term "Forward Look" by Chrysler Corporation. I think it fell out as 55 to 61 (?). Some argue that 62 Chyslers are FL too. Related by lingering styling cues, yes. But Virgil was decidedly fired by then and Engel was decidedly hired to erase the Exner legacy as rapidly as possible - hence the shaved fins. I am confident the corporation was no longer using the term "Forward Look" beyond 1961 model year advertising.
Cool car, all the same. As Neil pointed out, cars like this were the epitome of the suave, playboy elite at a time when being a "James Bond" type was the fantasy goal of pop culture.
Out of curiosity, is this car an automatic or stick ?
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Expert
Posts: 3574
Location: Blythewood, SC | After reading Exner's biography, it's clear that the Forward Look Chrylser cars are not the "end all be all" of his work. It seems that a lot of the cars I've always lusted for were Exner cars. I.E. Dual Ghia's and postwar Studebakers. |
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | Doc, it's an auto, they all were.
I'm not saying it's a legit FL car - I'm just saying it's one of the last cars produced with a body heavily influenced by Exner.  |
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Veteran
Posts: 291
Location: Enfield, CT | I see a lot of 61 Plymouth and 61 Dodge in the styling......  |
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Location: Parts Unknown | 57burb - 2007-11-27 8:21 AM
Doc, it's an auto, they all were.
OK, ..... I think I am having a senior moment ....
Dual Ghia, ..... Facel Vega
Kinda the same general idea of car, both using Mopar drivetrain.
The 300F cars ordered with manual trans delivered in early production came built with a Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed .... the same trans used in manual trans Facel Vegas .... or so the story goes.
The Dual Ghias were never built with manual trans ???? |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7288
Location: northern germany | why 6.4? a 383 would be a 6.3 or 6.2 |
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | 1960fury - 2007-11-28 8:03 AM
why 6.4? a 383 would be a 6.3 or 6.2
Italians are lovers, not mathematicians. 
Doc, I don't know for certain on Dual Ghias (he has two of them) but the Ghia 6.4 came later, used wedge engines, and was auto only. |
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Expert
Posts: 1819
Location: Vancouver, BC | The Dual- Ghia was an American car and the first generation model was based upon an Exner design. It was not actually designed by Exner. The second generation model, shown in the photos, was designed in the U.S. by Paul Farago, although Exner did clean up the design.
And to clarify a few points -
Ghia built bodies for Chrysler. They did not design them for Chrysler. That was the done in Detroit under the guidance of Exner and then Engel.
The 1962 and 1963 Chrysler Corporation models were designed under Virgil Exner. Elwood Engel did not arrive at Chrysler until the fall of 1961, after the 1962 models were in production and after the 1963 models had been approved for production.
Engel did do some trim changes on the 1963 models, but that was all he could do. He did oversee 1964 facelifts. Back then, it took at least a year to get a car tooled and in production after finalizing the design, even longer if it was a new body.
As for the Dual-Ghia, the first model, originally called the Firebomb, was loosely based on the Dodge Firearrow, a show car designed under Virgil Exner with body by Ghia. The front and rear treatments were modified from the Exner original by Paul Farago, Ghia's U.S. rep, gaining fins and a wraparound Dodge windshield. The car shown in the photos is not this model.
The cars were built by Dual Motors Corp., 9760 Van Dyke, Detroit. The man behind the project was Gene Casaroll, owner of Auto Shippers, Inc.
The bodies were built by Ghia in Italy and mounted on a shortened Dodge chassis, complete with Dodge 315-cid poly engine with Mopar brakes, Powerflite transmission, etc. The Dodge D-500 engine was optional. The mating of the two, body and chassis, was done in Detroit. A total of about 104 were built between 1955 and 1958. The price in 1958 for a Dual-Ghia was $8,000.
The model in the photos, the L6.4, was designed by Farago with Exner cleaning up the details. Casaroll was suffering with cancer and had little time for the Dual-Ghia. Thus Farago designed a new model, the firm having used up its alotment of 1956 Dodge chassis frames. Acting Chrysler styling head, William Schmidt, saw a scale model of the new model in 1958 and noted how similar the rear fins were to an upcoming Chrysler model. Thus Farago asked Exner to redo the rear end, which he did in 1959. That theme would appear on the 1961 Plymouth and influenced the 1961 Dodge Polara.
The body was built around Chrysler front and rear body/floor sections, which again permitted the use of Chrysler windshields. The transmission was now the 3-speed Torqueflite.
When the L6.4 appeared in 1960, it known as the Ghia L6.4. The "Dual" was dropped as Casaroll had sold the rights to the car to Ghia. Dual Motors purchased the needed components from Chrysler plus imported and marketed the final product.
Total production of the L6.4 came to 27, with the last built in 1963.
The car now used a Chrysler 383 and was built on its own chassis. As a result, costs of production rose and the car when introduced in 1962 came to $15,000. Bodies were built by Ghia in Italy where the cars were assembled.
Paul Farago, by the way, would work with the Exners, father and son, on the aborted 1966 Duesenberg project.
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | Well, there you have it.
Also, the tail lights look conspicuously like modified '56-57 Corvette units. |
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Inactive by Request
Posts: 1292
Location: Lovely place | Triangle Motors in Finland is restoring a '61 Ghia http://www.trianglemotor.com/uk/ukentis.htm , you can see it in small picture on the left side when you scroll down. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1156
Location: somerville mass | these cars had class and were not cheap. big execs and celebrities owned them, inc. frank and dino, any maybe
even sammy!
btw i noticed dinos custom 67-68 eldo wagon on ebay!!!! |
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | Update-
Color is all rubbed out and it has its wire wheels on. I'll get some more when it's all back together, but enjoy for now.
Should I post pictures of some of the other FL cars inside the shop?
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ghia 006.JPG (60KB - 169 downloads)
ghia 007.JPG (56KB - 142 downloads)
ghia 008.JPG (61KB - 128 downloads)
ghia 010.JPG (62KB - 133 downloads)
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Board Moderator & Exner Expert 10K+
Location: .Norfolk..Mafia.. ,England UK | 57burb - 2007-12-31 11:30 PM
Should I post pictures of some of the other FL cars inside the shop? :bleh:
Hell YEAH..... if that is anything to go by, I want to see More......... |
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | Re-reading the thread, I didn't make it clear - this is my dad painting and polishing the car! He works with a restoration shop and does a lot of the cosmetic work on these restorations. |
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | Rebels-59 Coronet - 2007-12-31 5:46 PM
Hell YEAH..... if that is anything to go by, I want to see More.........
Okay, here's all that was in the little shop today.
I couldn't get back into the real display room where he has all the "good" stuff. I might be able to dig up some old pictures from back there, he has a Dual Ghia, a '61 Fury cvt, and a '57 300C cvt if I remember correctly.
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ghia 012.JPG (56KB - 122 downloads)
ghia 013.JPG (54KB - 132 downloads)
ghia 015.JPG (59KB - 127 downloads)
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Expert
Posts: 3962
Location: DFW, TX | Here are some pictures I found from a long while back.
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pregoodguys 024.jpg (44KB - 130 downloads)
pregoodguys 026.jpg (44KB - 127 downloads)
pregoodguys 027.jpg (44KB - 125 downloads)
pregoodguys 028.jpg (49KB - 133 downloads)
pregoodguys 030.jpg (51KB - 129 downloads)
pregoodguys 031.jpg (41KB - 120 downloads)
pregoodguys 041.jpg (69KB - 120 downloads)
pregoodguys 044.jpg (56KB - 130 downloads)
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Painted an unusual car today - '63 Ghia 6.4
