Why would Chrysler adopt such a strange door-glass arrangement on its 1956 hardtops? That’s an interesting story, to us anyway.
When both Buick and Oldsmobile (Olds Holiday above) added four-door hardtops to their product lines for 1955, it sent the Detroit carmakers into a tizzy. Turns out that yes, buyers did want the sleek look of a pillarless hardtop and the practicality of a four-door in a single package. Sales of the new body style soared at the two GM divisions. Naturally, the rest of the automakers rushed straight to the drawing board to develop their own four-door hardtops for 1956 so they could cash in as well.
There were a few technical challenges involved, among them getting the side glass to stow completely inside the rear door with the glass fully rolled down—a must to provide the desired wide-open, pillarless look. (Obstacles included the kickup at the rear wheelhouse.) Ford, the Chevrolet and Pontiac divisions, and American Motors all adopted their own creative approaches to the problem, with varying degrees of success (aesthetically and otherwise). But for us, perhaps the most imaginative solution came from the Chrysler Corporation.
The Chrysler engineers were given an additional handicap: They were ordered to use the same roof panels as the four-door pillared sedans. (One-piece roof stampings require large, expensive dies.) Hobbled by that restriction, Chrysler couldn’t modify the roofline or daylight opening to alter the size and shape of the rear side glass to fit inside the door.
So, reaching outside the box for a solution, the engineers divided the glass iinto two sections. The window regulator was then redesigned so the rear section would roll down in tandem with the front section, the rear inside the front, using a scissors-like motion. It may look crazy, but if it works, it’s not so crazy.
Above we see the scissors glass in the rolled-up position—the rear pane looks like a conventional vent window, more or less. For 1957, the Chrysler Corporation’s body shells were completely redesigned with proper accommodations for a four-door hardtop, and the two-piece glass arrangement was no longer necessary. The odd but clever scissor windows proved to be a one-year deal. But we’ve recorded it here for prosperity: Check out the video below, courtesy of historian and author Jeff Stork. Thanks, Jeff!
1956 DeSoto Firedome Hardtop Sedan 
The post Chrysler’s Crazy 1956 Scissor Windows appeared first on Mac’s Motor City Garage.
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