Nice names sell better
Powerflow - despite a tired 85 hp - , Hy-Fire V8, Powerflite, All-New-Aerodynamic - although the cd value was hardly better than that of a VW bus - , Turbo-Torque Power - even if there was no turbo on board - and so on.
Terms like these characterized the sales brochures for the Plymouth passenger cars from 1954 to 1957. The American marketing people knew very well that their customers could be influenced by forward-looking terminology, otherwise why would they have called the suspension for the 57 model "Torsion Aire Ride", even though there was no air involved? However, there was a good reason for this, as the Plymouth people had heard early on that air suspension was in preparation at GM and other manufacturers, while they themselves had nothing to offer in this area.
But the visual language was also more than impressive, skillfully placing the essential design elements in the foreground.
The Plymouth sales brochures for 1954, 1955and 1956 can of course be found in the Zwischengas archive. And the background to the three years is published in a report.
