The 1956 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer

A 1956 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer.

Richard Lentinello, head-honcho of Hemmings Classic Car magazine, goes on-and-on about how wonderful the Chrysler Corporation cars were in the ‘50s, for example the 1956 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer.

Photo by Richard Lentinello.

The feature-car.

The car pictured above is different than the magazine feature car.
(I’ve added the magazine feature-car [at left], prettier yet since the main color is “garnet” [deep red].)
Supposedly the ’56 Chevrolet and Fords by comparison were crude.
That may be the case, but the ’56 Chevy could have the fabulous new SmallBlock V8 introduced by Chevrolet in the 1955 model-year.
That engine was extremely desirable. It responded well to hot-rodding, so was wanted by hotrodders everywhere.
It was the engine that saved Chevrolet from the doldrums. It was Chevrolet’s first overhead-valve V8 engine, and far ahead in design than anyone else.
All-of-a-sudden Chevrolet was in the youth-market, no longer selling granny-cars.
Beyond that it had a light-weight valve-gear that allowed it to rev to the moon, almost sporting in character.
It was also cheap and available. So many were subsequently made they were easy to get.
Ford introduced an overhead-valve V8, the “Y-Block,” in the 1954 model-year, beating Chevrolet by a year. But the Ford Y-Block was a stone.
It was called the “Y-Block” because it looked like a “Y” from the front, with heavy vertical cast-iron skirting down around the crankshaft.
Ford gave up on the Y-Block, and introduced a SmallBlock of its own in the early ‘60s.
In fact, engine-design in the ‘60s followed the lead of Chevrolet’s SmallBlock V8, thin-wall casting and light-weight valve-gear.
Chrysler Corporation was the smallest of the Big-Three automakers, Ford and General Motors being the others.
All the manufacturers were beholden to postwar excess.
It was the time of U.S. triumph and Eisenhower.
General Motors seemed to be leading the way, although its first postwar models didn’t debut until the 1949 model-year.
Ford and Chrysler also debuted in the 1949 model-year, Ford the famous Shoebox, the Ford that saved the company.
It was mainly a product of Henry Ford II (“the Deuce”), Old Henry’s grandson, a revolution in Ford products.
The Deuce determined Ford had to break away from its stodgy old product-lines, if it was to remain viable.
It was called “the Shoebox” because of its squarishness, and it was far beyond earlier Fords with their transverse buggy-springs.
The Shoebox was a modern car, comparable to anything General Motors was making, except its V8 engine, the hoary old Flat-head introduced in 1932.
It was called a “Flat-head” because it had flat cylinder-head castings, a side-valve, like a lawnmower engine, though water-cooled.
The Chryslers were like the Fords. Even the ’55 and ’56 Fords are essentially the Shoebox, heavy restyled of course, with an upgrade to ball-joint suspension.
As I see it, Chrysler went through two basic redesigns in the early ‘50s.
The cars introduced in 1949 lasted through 1952, restyled each year for the annual model change.
Chrysler redesigned its cars for 1953, still conservative, but not the postwar cars.
By 1955 the tailfin was taking hold, so the ’55 and ’56 Chryslers were more heavily styled than the ’53 and ’54 bread-loaves.
This ’56 Dodge might be the apogee of that look.
Heavily finned, but still conservative.
With 1957 Chrysler went all-out; the “Forward-Look” (dread).
Sweeping sculpting and gigantic tailfins.
The ’57 Chrysler products were much larger — too big for the average garage. Large cars were a standard set by Cadillac.
I remember the finned back end of a 1955 Coupe Deville sticking out of a partially-closed garage.
One of the engineering superlatives Lentinello mentions is that the 1956 Dodge still had the hemi head (“hem-eeee;” not “he-meee”)
To have engineering superiority, Chrysler debuted its postwar V8s with a hemispherical combustion-chamber.
In a hemi the valves are at 90 degrees to the crankshaft, with the intakes aimed at the intake manifold, and the exhausts aimed at the exhaust header on the opposite side of the cylinder.
Such an arrangement requires a hemispherical combustion-chamber. It also requires two rocker-shafts per head.
It has the advantage of aiming the valves toward the appropriate manifold, allowing better engine breathing.
A typical Detroit V8 had the valves in a row parallel to the crankshaft.
The intake-valves might be aimed at the intake-manifold, but so were the exhaust valves. They weren’t aimed at the exhaust-header, since they were in the same row as the intake-valves.
Exhaust gases had to negotiate a contorted path out of the head.
There was a sharp bend in the exhaust port.
The hemi negated that. It could breathe better at high revs than the typical overhead-valve Detroit V8.
But the massive cast-iron cylinder-heads required by the hemi design were heavy.
Plus a hemi was costly to manufacture.
Chrysler’s original hemi lasted through the 1957 model-year, It debuted in 1951.
It was replaced by the “wedge” design, a wedge-shaped combustion-chamber, not a hemi, more like a typical Detroit V8 with its valves in a row parallel to the crankshaft.
The early hemi reached its peak in the early 300-series Chryslers.
They had immense power at high speed.
A 300-series Chrysler could flatten an expressway.
It was the first musclecar.
Hemi design filtered throughout the Chrysler product-line, although I don’t think the Plymouth V8 was a hemi.
But Dodge was (the “Red-Ram”).
Compare this to Ford and its lowly Y-Block.
Or Chevrolet’s SmallBlock with its valves in a row.
Although the SmallBlock was a fabulous motor. It was more responsive than Dodge’s hemi.
Lentinello also mentions the all-coil suspension on the Dodge.
I think you had to go to Buick to get all-coil suspension in a GM car.
Lentinello claims the Dodge rode better than its competition, and also accelerated faster.
A pity since ‘50s Dodges seem to fall behind Chevrolets and Fords in the classic-car pecking order.

• The Chevrolet “SmallBlock” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches displacement in the 1955 model-year. It continued production for years, first to 283 cubic inches, then 327, then 350. Other displacements were also manufactured. The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches, and was unrelated to the Small-Block. It was made in various larger displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation. The “Big-Block” could be immensely powerful, and the “Small-Block” was revolutionary in its time. (The name “SmallBlock” came into use after the “Big-Block.”)
• “Old Henry” is Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company.