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Virgil Max " Ex" Exner Sr. (September 24, 1909 – December 22, 1973) was an automobile for several United States automobile companies, most notably Chrysler and Studebaker.
Exner is widely known for the "Forward Look" he created for the 1955–1963 Chrysler products and his fondness of Car tailfin on cars for both aesthetics and aerodynamics.
Prior to the 1955 model year, Chrysler products were considered solid and well-engineered, but with dull styling. But for 1955 and 1956, Chrysler introduced the first set of cars with Exner's stylish and popular Forward Look. These models were very popular and greatly improved Chrysler's image. For 1957, Chrysler launched all-new models again, introducing cars that were long, low, wide, and featured sweeping Car tailfin—designs that caused a sensation within the North American auto industry.
When General Motors designer Chuck Jordan peered through a fence—thanks to a tip he received—and spied Chrysler's soon-to-be-launched 1957 Chrysler lineup, it prompted Bill Mitchell, Jordan's boss at General Motors styling, to convince GM top executives and styling chief Harley Earl to re-open the already-completed designs for the 1959 models and create "an alternate design for each car line, Chevrolet through Cadillac." Exner's work at Chrysler, "including the Forward Look models of the 1950s, would change the course of automotive design".
After seeing the Lockheed P-38 Lightning-inspired Car tailfin on the 1948 Cadillac, Exner adopted fins as a central element of his vehicle designs. He believed in the aerodynamic benefits of the fins, and even used wind tunnel testing at the University of Michigan—but he also liked their visual effects on the car. Exner lowered the roofline and made the cars sleeker, smoother, and more aggressive looking. In 1955, Chrysler introduced "The New 100-Million Dollar Look". With a long hood and short deck, the wedgelike designs of the Chrysler 300 letter series and revised 1957 models suddenly brought the company to the forefront of design, with Ford and General Motors quickly working to catch up. The 1957 Imperial also featured compound curved glass, the first to be used in a production car. The 1957 Plymouths were advertised with the slogan, "Suddenly, it's 1960!" In June of that year, Exner and his team were awarded a Gold Medal Award by the Industrial Designers Institute (IDI). In 1958, Chrysler's Forward Look was the sponsor of the groundbreaking An Evening with Fred Astaire TV special.
[[File:1956 DeSoto Adventurer.jpg|thumb|1956 DeSoto]] Adventurer
In 1956, during the design of the 1961 models, Exner suffered a heart attack. He resumed work in 1957, working on the designs for the 1962 cars. On July 25, 1957, Exner was elected the first vice president of styling at Chrysler. Unfortunately, a rumor that GM was reducing the size of their cars caused the president of Chrysler, Lester Lum ("Tex") Colbert, to order Exner to do the same to his 1962 design. This was a change that Exner disagreed with, thinking it would make his cars "ugly". Exner with his associates had completed work on the second full-sized finless Plymouth since 1955, this one for 1962, described as a strikingly attractive automobile. While he was still recovering from the heart attack, the 1962 models Exner took credit for were downsized by associates. This downsizing drastically changed the cars' appearance. This reduced the cars' appeal and caused a significant drop in sales. It turned out that the Chevrolet rumor was false, and consumers disliked the smaller Plymouth and Dodge cars introduced for 1962, the styling of which was bizarre compared to more sedate Ford and GM products. Needing a scapegoat, Chrysler fired Exner. He was allowed to retain a position as a consultant so he could retire with a pension at age 55. He was replaced by Elwood Engel, who had been lured from Ford. Engel was highly regarded for his design of the classic 1961 Lincoln Continental.
Tailfins soon lost popularity. By the late 1950s, Cadillac and Chrysler–driven by the respective competing visions of GM's Earl and Chrysler's Exner–had escalated the size of fins till some thought they were stylistically questionable and they became a symbol of American excess in the early 1960s. The 1961 models are considered the last of the "Forward Look" designs; Exner later referred to the finless 1962 downsized Plymouth and Dodge models as "plucked chickens". He believed Chrysler executives had "picked" away at the cars to make them lower in cost.
Although fins were out of favor by the early 1960s, fins could still give aerodynamic advantages. In the early 1970s, Porsche 917 racing automobiles sported fins reminiscent of Exner's designs.
As the head of Ghia, Segre singularly directed and incubated the project through conception and prototyping, delivering a feasible project that Willhelm Karmann both wanted to and could practically build—the project Willhelm Karmann would in turn present to Volkswagen. The styling itself, however, integrated work by Segre as well as Mario Boano, Sergio Coggiola, and designer/engineer Giovanni Savonuzzi—and at various times they each took credit for the design. Furthermore, the design bore striking styling similarities to Virgil Exner's Chrysler D'Elegance and K-310 concepts, which Ghia had been tasked with prototyping, and which in turn reflected numerous cues and themes developed previously by Mario Boano. The precise styling responsibilities were never documented before the passing of the designers, further complicated by the overlapping work of the key players. A definitive individual attribution on Karmann Ghia's was never made.
Segre and Virgil Exner had become close professionally and personally, eventually traveling Europe together. Peter Grist wrote in a 2007 Exner biography that when Exner in 1955 eventually saw the Karmann Ghia, which cribbed heavily from his Chrysler D'Elegance, "he was pleased with the outcome and glad that one of his designs had made it into large-scale production." Chris Voss, a stylist in Exner's office, reported in 1993, that Exner considered the Karmann Ghia the ultimate form of flattery. Segre in turn sent Exner the first production Karmann Ghia imported into the state of Michigan, in gratitude.
After Volkswagen approved the design in November 1953, the Karmann Ghia debuted at the 1955 Paris Auto show and went into production, first at Ghia and then in Osnabrück — ultimately to reach a production over 445,000, running 19 years virtually unchanged.
Seeking to reenter the automotive field, Exner drafted a resume, describing himself as having "extensive, responsible and successful experience in all areas." Exner died of heart failure on December 22, 1973, at the William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.
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