This year marked Chrysler’s 25th anniversary and the first new post-war design. It was pretty conservative – taller and squarer than the preceding models, but had a full-width body and bolder egg-crate grille.

Chrysler would only built 141,122 of the new models in 1949, and wouldn’t start delivering them until December 1948, after tooling difficulties in the $90 million program. However, once those were sorted out, Chrysler would sell 1,267,470 of the new cars and trucks, the highest production in the corporation’s history.

The Chrysler Royal was still the entry-level model, sharing its platform with the fancier Windsor, which offered the Highlander plaid interior option. The Royal did offer a station wagon, however. Now with a steel body, it was still trimmed in ash. Chrysler initially tried a photo process to make the panels look like wood, but it wasn’t successful, so they were painted to match the rest of the body.

The four-door sedan was the big seller with 13,192 finding buyers, followed by 4,849 club coupes at the entry level price of $2,002 and 850 of the handsome station wagons, which had the spare mounted on the tailgate for this year only. There were also 185 eight-passenger sedans built. The Chrysler Royals continued to use the 116 bhp, 250 cid six engine with a three-speed manual transmission and optional fluid drive.

The year 1950 would be a banner year for Chrysler, with production up to 167,316 units, the first time the company had topped 160,000 in a calendar year since 1928. As expected, the four door Royal sedan was the biggest seller in the entry-level line, with 17,713 units sold. The two-door club coupe found 5,900 buyers. Also offered was the long wheelbase eight-passenger sedan of which 375 were built, and two station wagons. The woody wagon attracted 599 buyers, and cost $3,964, while a steel-bodied wagon, without the bolt on trim, cost $4,055 and sold only 100 units. Both moved the spare from the tail gate to inside the car this year.

The slightly upscale six-cylinder Windsor series didn’t offer a wagon for 1950, but had a Traveler model, in which the back seat would fold flat, to create a long bed. It was also fitted with a roof rack. A total of 4,182 were sold. The Royal series was discontinued in 1951 and the Windsor Series took over as the entry level Chrysler line.