THE
WONDERFUL
IMPERIAL OF
OZ

1959 Chrysler Royal AP1

The first generation Chrysler Royal was the AP1, which appears to have stood for "Australian Plymouth." This family of cars was the first offshore Chrysler line to have styling shared with nothing built anywhere else, and was originally meant to be badged as a Plymouth Belvedere, and accompanied by Dodge Kingsway (AD1) and DeSoto Diplomat (AS1) versions. Pictures of the styling treatments have survived and were included in Gavin Farmer's excellent Collectible Automobile article on these cars. Chrysler Australia (formerly Chrysler DeSoto Dodge Distributors Pty. Ltd.) was having trouble competing with GM's Holden line and Ford's competing English models, having nothing that small to offer at the time. As a result of high tooling costs and a lack of consumer interest in the small number of '55 Belvederes imported from Canada to test the waters, the '53-'54 Plymouth/Kingsway/Diplomat was continued fairly close to unchanged into early '57. At some point these P25-based cars were upgraded to 12 volt electrics and adopted Smiths gauges.

The AP1 and its stillborn derivatives were a heavy restyle of the P25, with either '56 Plymouth fenders or very good copies of them grafted on to the corners, and a new wraparound rear window to make the upper body appear more modern.

From the windows down, the AP1 looked very much like the '56 Plymouth with the exception of a simple bar grille which looked much like that used on the '57-'58 Plymouth. The AS1 DeSoto mock-up looked very much like the Plymouth-based '56 DeSoto Diplomat, with the exception of side chrome and 2-toning very much like that seen on the full-size '56 DeSoto. This side treatment survived on the production Chrysler Royal AP1.

Very late in the development stages, it was decided that the Australian market could not support three separate versions of the same car. In fact, tooling had already started on AS1 trim when this decision was made. The production AP1 Chrysler Royal took what would have been the AS1 side trim and affixed it to the sides of the proposed AP1 Belvedere.

Apparently all Chrysler Australia dealers sold the Royal. This left a brief period where new Plymouths and new Dodge and DeSoto passenger cars were not offered in Australia, although Dodge, Fargo and DeSoto trucks (which shared their cabs with International trucks in Australia) appear to have continued on. Small numbers of Canadian-sourced Plymouths, Dodges and Desoto’s reappeared in '58 and '59; more on these shortly.