John Forsythe cruised the streets of Beverly Hills in a succession of these boats in Bachelor Father, from '57 to '61.

Successful unmarried Beverly Hills attorney Bentley Gregg (John Forsythe) is living the bachelor high life. Then he becomes the guardian of 13 year old Kelly when her parents are killed in an auto accident. No doubt they were gored by the fins when John was backing out of his circular driveway.

Did you pace off the length of that finned beauty? I'll bet its a good twenty feet long.
And doesn't it have a push button torqueflite automatic trans? And Civil Defense markers on the radio dial to warn the driver when the commies dropped the big bomb?
In 1957, the entire world was in AWE of our longer, lower, wider cars. Premium gas was only .39 a gallon.
I want one of these for MY fantasy garage. Or at least its DeSoto clone.

@TinaChow: Or sliced by the eyebrows over the headlights!

Can you imagine those things passing modern European pedestrian impact testing? Although, the front is tall enough... :)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I've never really been a big fan of Detroit iron, but, dagnabit, Murilee, you're starting to change my mind!

Oh, hey, what are those two spikes on the back bumper for? Impaling you as you try to get that last sack of groceries that slid 14'3" forward in the trunk as you braked to a stop at the curb? I guess this was the late 50's, height of the baby boom, maybe this was Chrysler's attempt to help put a stop to it?

I'm pretty sure the spikes concealed the mini-klieg lights that illuminated your 1957 non-reflective license plate, framed by the ad from the dealer you swore you would never go back to.

This Chrysler epitomizes Chrysler's Forward Look styling. Virgil Exner designed this car. Over at Ford he was called Virgil Excess. Chrysler quality was at an all time low in 1957. Nice find Murilee.

Before i read that far, i was gonne say this thing looks really clean. Almost too clean to be a street queen. I love the style and I love the engine. there are actually more and more companies starting to offer performance stuff for old, old school Hemis like the 392, 354 etc.

That would be an awesome car to cruise in nowadays.

WOW, that's a lot of car.

Old Chryslers were always handsome beasts.

Now bring on the DeSoto's!

Gimme one a those, a good stogey and my porkpie hat and I'll be spendin' the afternoon down the races, sweetheart. Hey kid! Run downa street to Uncle Willie's and put 20 bucks on Battlegun to place at Saratoga, will ya?

It probably sits on the street because it won't fit in the garage. It wouldn't fit in my garage, anyway.

Once again, I'm amazed at the seemingly endless supply of great classic cars in this town. If you tried to do this in my neighborhood, you'd get: Camry, Accord, Civic, F150, Suburban, Altima, Civic, Camry, Jetta, Malibu (the new ugly one), Accord, Camry Camry Camry... etc.

Gorgeous, just gorgeous.

When I was a little rugrat, our family car was a '58 Chrysler Saratoga coupe. The trim levels were Windsor - Saratoga - New Yorker, with New Yorker on top.

Smooth, powerful, quiet -- even five-year-old me could tell this was a cool car.

"Get into my Chrysler, it's as big as a whale, and it's about to set sail!"

Beautiful, but you'd better like attention if you're going to drive this around town!

Gaudy. Ugly. Horrible.

This the dream neighborhood where the New Yorker always wanted to reside. Can you imagine trying to drive through Holland Tunnel in NYC in this thing, much less park it on the street?

This car is its own suburban sprawl.

That is a beautiful machine right 'thur

@TPSreports: APOLOGIZE.

As fabulous as the 392 Hemi is, that front clip looks more than long enough to accomodate a Viper crate motor. (Is Mopar still selling those things and, if so, will theybe upgrading to the 8.4L soon?) Bonus points for keeping a pushbutton Torqueflite in the mix.

I have memories of putting one of these boats in a ditch while making a left turn. This was my first experience with power steering and the first designs did not return to center when you released the steering wheel...boy was my rich uncle pissed!

My earliest auto memories are from the backseat of my parents' '58 Chrysler Windsor. Same fins! What my 3-year-old brain remembers being different about this car was the fact the mirror was mounted on the dashboard. I could hang from the back of the front seat and see my dad in the mirror.

If I could step back in time, I'd like to see a design competition between Harley Earl and Virgil Exner. As it stands, I'd give the nod to Exner. The Forward Look designs have worn very well, especially given the excesses of the late '50s. Which, really, had nothing on the excesses of the mid-70s.

So beautiful, so powerful, so very very new... "Suddenly it's 1960".

Who cares about leaks at the windows and vibration in the dash mounted rear view mirror when a car makes you feel like this?

Come on Chrysler, do it again. Put a soul in a car and just watch the world beat a path there.

It's beautiful.

Those fins are big enough to buttress a cathedral. The world envied the USA when they made cars like that.

@imoody:
I second that ... get a rope!

Cars like this have to be the reason we won the Cold War.

Also, can readers submit DOTS cars?

@Maymar: Sure, non-Alameda cars can be Down On The Street Bonus Edition entries; if you see something good and shoot some halfway-decent photos of it, send the shots to murilee (at) jalopnik (dot) com.

That is so much cooler than my mom's 86, despite the lack of 2.2 turbo muscle.

Such a pretty car, when these roamed the earth, no one would believe that Toyotas would outsell all of the Big 3 50 years later. This is what an American car should be.

My first car was a hand-me-down 1957 Plymouth Plaza, with a 2-speed (!) pushbutton Torqueflite transmission. It was literally the cheapest "Forward Look" model Chrysler made. Didn't even come with an AM radio. I loved that car. In 1969 I cruised all over the western US at 37 mph in that thing. Empty 2-lane roads, low burbling exhaust from the stock flat-head six, left elbow resting on the broad open window-sill. Good times.