Cars from the Bortz Collection headed to the Petersen in 2023-2024
Two design-shaping era concepts, the 1955 Motorama LaSalle and the 1955 Ghia bodied Chrysler Falcon, of the Bortz Collection heading to the Petersen Automotive Museum for upcoming exhibit.
The Bortz Auto Collection has announced it is sending another two cars to be part of a very special themed display starting June 2023 at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
Since the middle 1990s, the Bortz Auto Collection has had some of their cars included in special displays at the Petersen Automotive Museum on a continuous basis and now is proud to announce that starting in June 2023, the Harley Earl 1955 Motorama LaSalle Roadster and the Virgil Exner 1955 Chrysler Ghia Falcon will be part of a new and very important display for one year.
In 1955, two seater sports automobiles were going to become part of the American automotive buyer’s scene. With this in mind Harley Earl had his favorite in house designer Carl Renner sketch up the first design for a 1955 LaSalle roadster.
This concept car body was produced in the new medium of the day, fiberglass with a V6, aluminum block, double overhead cam fuel injected engine; special rear independent suspension that was the first step to full independent rear suspension. A special braking system with cast aluminum exposed brake hubs, a unique way of attaching the wheels to the brake hubs. The tires were not only conceived with what was then an advanced idea of very thin side line tire white walls but another white walls line was put down the middle of the thread.
There was an unknown and unique feature for the LaSalle II Roadster. As the lore goes, Harley Earl’s dog died while the car was being built at the GM Tech Center and he instructed one of the designers to put a silhouette of his dog into the LaSalle hood emblem to commemorate his dog.
Chrysler used the services of the Ghia body company in Italy to produce the concept car body designs of their head designer Virgil Exner, cutting production costs significantly. The Chrysler 300 chassis were sent to Ghia along with a Virgil Exner design. Ghia produces fully executed running concept cars in metal for their auto show purposes from 1953 to the late 1960s. In all, there were approximately two dozen Virgil Exner Ghia designed Chrysler corporation concept cars produced. The finest design of all of these Ghia cars, as noted by Virgil Exner Sr. himself, is the 1955 Chrysler Ghia Falcon. An interesting historical note - The name Falcon belonged to Chrysler in 1955 and in 1956 Ford made a request for the name Falcon for one of their Ford products. Virgil Exner granted Ford the rights to the name allowing them to use the model name "Falcon" after 1955.
The automotive world critics had nothing but praise for the 1955 Chrysler Ghia Falcon. They noted that the Flacon didn't have a bad angle to it and were smitten with the egg crate grille. They were also impressed with the way Exner melded the bumper and taillight designs seamlessly.
Many magazines of the day had made note that had Chrysler built this Chrysler Falcon as a production car, they would have immediately put Ford Thunderbird and Chevrolet Corvette out of the business. Of the only two Falcon concepts made by Ghia, there is only one that is known to exist. The Falcon is part of the Bortz Auto Collection and will be one of the cars loan to the Petersen Automotive Museum.
Stay tuned for further information on the Bortz Auto Collection and the exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum, the theme of which is being kept a secret for the moment and will be announced very shortly by the Petersen Automotive Museum. Once opened, the exhibit will be open to the general public for the next twelve months.
UPDATE: June 2023
The cars from the Bortz Auto Collection will now be part of the Strother MacMinn “Sports Cars of the Future” exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum. The two cars from the Bortz Auto Collection in Highland Park Illinois are the General Motors Motorama 1955 LaSalle roadster designed by Harley Earl as one of his pet projects and the 1955 Chrysler Ghia Falcon that is considered to be the finest of all the great Ghia designs that Virgil Exner produced while he was Head of Design at Chrysler. These two cars are part of the Strother MacMinn display and a tribute to both Strother MacMinn and the book that he wrote in 1955 called, “Sports Cars of the Future.
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