In the New York Times, Winnie Hu looks back at the history of the ticker-tape parade car which made a brief appearance in How to Marry a Millionaire.
“It is not built for speed. It burns through gas. And it is too big to park on any street. But none of that matters when it is a 1952 Chrysler Imperial Parade Phaeton.
The open-air car in glossy black with red leather seats is New York City’s official parade car and the grande dame of the 30,000 vehicles in the nation’s largest municipal fleet. It stretches 20 feet from front to back to seat up to eight passengers, and it comes with its very own red-carpet floor. It has only one job: ushering V.I.P.s through blizzards of ticker tape on Broadway.
For more than six decades, its back seat has been filled with a who’s who of world leaders and celebrities … The 1952 Phaeton was one of only three that Chrysler made — part of a tradition of custom-made parade cars that once carried the newsmakers of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s in grand style, all while showing off Chrysler’s latest design in the ultimate bit of product placement. No need to advertise with Queen Elizabeth II, John F. Kennedy, Neil Armstrong and Joe DiMaggio in the car.
The three Phaetons — each in a different color — were owned by the Chrysler Corporation, which based them in New York, Los Angeles and Detroit, and lent them out for processions around the country … The New York car made a cameo in the 1953 film How to Marry a Millionaire, starring Marilyn Monroe.”