If you want to go back, all the way back, to the true beginnings of the 1955 and '56 DeSotos, then you have to start sometime in 1949. That's when Roy Cole, vice president of engineering for Stude-baker, introduced Virgil M. Exner, Sr., to K. T. Keller, the president of Chrysler Corporation. It was a fortuitous meeting. Keller had cars in need of a designer. Exner was a designer in need of cars. Keller knew how to build and sell automobiles. He had been with Walter Chrys- ler since the two worked for General Motors. During Keller's watch, Chrysler Corporation became the second-largest carmaker in America. Keller was also an art collector and a hands-on board member at the Detroit Institute of Arts. He must have known that his new 1949 models wouldn't be popular for long, and that automotive fashion was changing.
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