Many concept cars never reach the production stage. That is nothing strange. It becomes more remarkable when a concept car is built, but never shown publicly. Not even the high lords of the brand and most of its designers. That happened with the Chrysler Norseman. It went on its way to the homeland of America to the seabed.
There are of course many concept cars with a special story that deserve a treatment in ‘De Vluchtstrook’. We now only give Chrysler Norseman priority. That is such an absurd story. The Norseman was built in Italy in 1956, but never ended up with Chrysler clients in the United States. The general public never saw the car and the only one appeared to be made entirely for nothing. On the way from builder Ghia in Italy to the US, the ship that the Norseman was carrying went down. The brand new concept car immediately got a sailor grave.
The Andrea Doria, a five-year-old Italian cruise ship, had the Norseman on board. Fifty Lancia’s Aurelia B27 Spider also took the ship from Italy to America. About 400 kilometers before the destination New York, it went wrong when the Andrea Doria crashed into the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm with a heavy blow in dense fog. The Andrea Doria did not survive the collision, just like 48 passengers. While the heavily damaged Stockholm could return to the harbor, the Andrea Doria disappeared to a depth of 60 meters.
The car
So in vain did Chrysler wait for the Norseman, the car that embodied a new era for the brand. The car was created by Chrysler designer Virgil Exner to visualize a new design direction. The specially designed fastback was absolutely futuristic. For example, the Norseman had recessed headlights and recessed door handles and the coach was erected from aluminum for weight-saving reasons. The panoramic windscreen was a small masterpiece, just like the roof construction. The protruding roof rested with almost the entire weight on the enormous C-pillars, to allow full visibility through the stylish windscreen.
The Norseman should have been shown to the general public in 1957. However, ‘just’ building a new one was not possible. At Ghia people worked no less than a year and a half on the construction of the car and it had cost Chrysler no less than 150,000 dollars, a huge amount for that time. Based on the photos taken in Italy for the fateful journey, Chrysler could still borrow style elements from the Norseman for new models. The special projecting roof has remained a unique Norseman characteristic and did not find its way into production models.
Never seen again
It is a rather special idea that the Norseman is still in the wreck of the Andrea Doria at the moment. Just like the Lancias mentioned earlier, the car was never salvaged. Various diving excursions to the shipwreck took place over the years, but the Chrysler was no longer seen, let alone photographed. In 1991 there was still a collector who wanted to dive to the wreck to possibly save something from the Norseman. He was then advised against by experts. Apart from the basis of the 5.4-liter V8 in the nose, there would probably hardly be anything left of the car due to the salt water.
How different could it have been? If the construction had just gone a little better, the Norseman would probably have reached his homeland. The original plan was to let the car go with a cargo ship. When that deadline was not met, it was decided to send the car along with the doomed passenger ship a little later. So it might not have mattered much if Norseman could have earned well-earned admiration. Now, however, that also happens, albeit mainly because of this special and tragic story.