Selling Dodges, Part 2

As we saw last month, marketing a car successfully is integral to its sales success and no one pioneered this art more successfully in the 20th century than Dodge, Chrysler’s middle-market brand. Ben Klemenzson explores the archives and uncovers some real jewels…

Dodge had successfully navigated the middle-section of the US car market for much of the early 20th century, alternately espousing its low running costs but high tech design (everything from 12 volt electrics and all-steel body construction).

Marketing concentrated on Dodges being for the ‘great outdoorsman’ to settling, in the early Forties, on the cars being ersatz ‘Luxury Liners’. During the war Dodge made the public aware of its part in the war effort, the most famous of which was its Dodge Power Wagon, probably the most famous commercial vehicle of the Second World War.

The big question for Dodge after the war was how was it going to market its cars going forward? The Power Wagon’s legendary prowess meant the Dodge name had become inseparable in the minds of many Second World War veterans with dependable, powerful trucks, but how did that square with the increasingly glitzy cars of the Fifties? Somehow Dodge pulled it off and to this day we still think of Dodge as being the purveyor of splendid, desirable pick-ups (the Dodge Ram) and also worldbeating sports cars such as the Viper.

The Fifties were Dodge’s heyday, the brief worry of Ford’s mid-market challenger the Edsel fizzled out like a dud firework and towards the end of the decade Chrysler’s Botticelli of fins, Virgil Exner, pushed the cars into ever more extravagant designs which were longer, lower and decked out in ever-more outrageous fins and chrome.