A lesson in conformity

A LESSON IN CONFORMITY

Mopar (which encompasses Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth) was known for outlandish styling and totally unique designs both in the beginning and the end of the '60s. However the first go-round was a massive flop that almost sunk the ship. Time to reel it back a bit!

Here is the still very pleasing yet somewhat conservative result. This is a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere II in Black. This ride looks exactly how I imagine mid-'60s Mopars to look: shabby yet eager to drive.

Little ripples and dents pepper this ride but nothing seems devastating. Decades of parking bumps add up.

This grill looks great to me. It is delicate though as you can see the gauge of metal in this pic. Those tiny bumper guards were *added at some point to help keep the grill but surely they can't do much. Those are the Donald Trump Hands of bumper guards!
*I was surprised to find out that these are original 1965 Mopar items. I stand corrected.

Everything about this car is straightforward and clean.
The upmarket Fury had stacked quad headlights as opposed to these duals.

1965 was all about straight lines and flat body panels. The accent line that starts on top of each headlight and continues back to form the window base helps keep it dynamic.

This awesomely '60s V8 emblem most likely means there is the 273 V8 under the hood. There were a full 4 other V8 engines available in those heady times: the 318, 361, 383, and mighty 426 Hemi.

This sweet Belvedere II emblem denoted the mid-tier trim level. Belvedere I was a stripped down model for fleet use and penny pinchers. The top of the line was named the Satellite; there was no III.

*That dog dish or poverty hubcap is indeed  from a Plymouth but a 1969-1974 model.

This is an intermediate size car, and was described as such in the sales literature of the day. Chrysler made a poor bet in 1962 by downsizing their largest cars so that there really wasn't a full size yacht in the lineup. Unfortunately their thinking was at least a decade early and sales took a mighty hit. America had spoken and they wanted enormous cars! In 1965 they restored order by making the flagship Fury huge again. Popularity followed suit.

The roofline is subtle but neat. There is a rake to the rooftop with the rear base and trunk just a bit higher than the front. To accentuate the look the rear window goes all the way up to the roof whereas the windshield is set an inch or so down.

This beast had a lot of stage presence in 2016 when I took these pics.

The rear is no nonsense. Reverse lights? Who needs 'em!

I didn't get too close as it seemed a particularly exposed location but there's no hiding that red interior. Even a 4 door sedan is bad ass with this color combo.
One thing I can tell you without looking inside is that this year marked the return of a traditional automatic transmission shifter on the column. From 1956 on they offered a push button transmission that worked very well. Supposedly the unit cost $1 more to manufacture than the column shift and so they moved away from it.
*The strangest push button transmission of all time was undoubtedly the 1958 Edsel which had the buttons in the center of the steering wheel! Imagine honking the horn and slamming your car into reverse instead.

If you look into the rear wheel well you can glimpse the old school leaf spring suspension. These work great when in good condition but if worn out make for a ridiculously bouncy ride.

We'll close this out with the proper 1965 dog dish hubcap. I love these simple caps which manage to have plenty of style in a very simple design. You could say that about this entire car actually.
As always with '60s and '70s Mopars the parts are available and the quality is fantastic. These are the cars that will not die. If you find one in drivable condition without too much rust buy it! You'll enjoy quirky styling in cars much less common than any Ford or Chevy.

Pennsylvania Plymouth in syndication

PENNSYLVANIA PLYMOUTH IN SYNDICATION

I was trolling the backwoods of Northeastern PA when I passed this sweet Mopar:

This is a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II in Black. Now let's get this outta the way:

Alright back to the matter at hand. The Belvedere was the mid-size offering from Plymouth in the mid to late '60s. You can identify a '66 by the smaller inboard lights on the grill; the '65 had only 1 light on each side of the grill while the '67 had 4 headlights of equal size.

There is an air of formality to the Belvedere that I like. The stand up hood ornament and clean lines make the black paint look executive.

This car hails from the era of straight lines and crisp edges in design. The body is about as square as can be and the roof was designed with a ruler. Being 1966 the trunk just continues on for days. If the car ended at that round emblem it would be almost perfectly balanced. Incidentally that round shape is a gas cap hiding in plain sight.

I was extremely excited to look in and see that this is a manual transmission car! You can just make out the extra pedal meaning that this is a 3 on the tree ride. That combined with roll down windows, no radio, and no air conditioning make for an understated muscle car.

This thing is in fantastic condition throughout. The 2 dark rectangles on the edges of that center aluminum rear facade are the reverse lights. The wheels are original from the factory called Magnum 500.

That trunk is tabletop flat. The taillights are subtly different with the right side having three chrome rectangles and the left having two. The left side might be from a Belvedere I which is the lower trim level. The right is correct for both the Belvedere II and the top trim level Satellite.

The following year would bring the GTX version of this ride which was an unabashed muscle car.

Very formal wording befitting such a straight-laced ride.

This signifies that a V8 engine lurks under the hood but it could be anything from a 273 to the 383. The legendary 426 Hemi was available but if it were so equipped it would have the largest most ridiculous hood scoop you've ever seen. A mere 531 Belvedere IIs came with the Hemi.

Well that will do it for this sweet wolf in sheeps clothing. It's rare that a car gets nicer and nicer the more I stare at it but that's the case with this ride. Somebody definitely loves this car and parks it indoors for the colder months. I'm lucky I passed by it when I did!

Mopar Graveyard roundup!

MOPAR GRAVEYARD UP NORTH

Last year I was kicking around up north with an old friend when he mentioned that there was a gas station that sometimes had old cars laying around. It turned out to be the find of the year because they had the winged '70 Superbird roosting in the gravel lot (that post can be found here: http://nychoopties.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-holy-grail-of-nascar-vehicles-show.html). While the 'bird stole the show there were several other relics hidden about that I swore I'd get to eventually, so here's the Mopar treasure trove roundup!

This great burgundy behemoth greeted us when we first pulled in:

This is a 1976-1977 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham in Claret Red. Everything about this car screams excess.

This is basically the last dinosaur wandering the cooling Earth wondering where all its friends have gone, not realizing it was as good as extinct already. A full 4 years after the gas crisis that shocked the American public into mileage consciousness this beast lumbered off the assembly line. How Chrysler could feign surprise when on the brink of bankruptcy in '79 is beyond me.

Behold the sign of puffy leather sofa seating and leisure suit style!

Apparently this has a Hemi in it (which I seriously doubt). Most likely there is a wheezing and emissions-strangled 400 V8 lying dormant beneath its massive hood.
*It is a bit of irony that this car, while escorting its parent corporation to insolvency, was named New Yorker just a year after the famous "Ford to City: Drop Dead" headline regarding the presidents aversion to helping stave off NYCs own bankruptcy. 

This is a sad image indeed. We were told that this thing runs like a charm and was driven to this spot just so the owner could remove the front end. Here it sits beached with a perfect drivetrain, dead.

The New Yorker was the higher-end version of the Newport. However in this year the New Yorker inherited the front and rear treatment of the mighty Imperial which had just been discontinued. Somehow this registered with the general public, making the '76 model a minor hit. This probably added to Chryslers delusion that they ought to continue building 5,000 lb cars that got 8-12mpg.

Too bad the front end of this yacht was in demand as the body looks cherry.

With all the windows down cruising along in total cushy silence I bet this would be the ultimate cruiser. Fred from the B-52s probably had this ride when he was about to set sail in Love Shack.
Now let's do some exploring around the property . . .

Righteous! This is a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II 2 door hardtop in Dark Blue Poly. This is a wonderful car identical to one that a close friend of mine drove in high school.

Engine offerings in the brochure went from the 225 Slant 6 all the way up to a high performance 383 V8. However 24 were known to leave the factory with the mighty 426 Hemi under the hood. If you didn't mind special ordering such a thing, almost doubling the price of the car, and agreeing to forgo any warranty they would build one for you in those days.

Beneath the junk and dirt this car seems straight and restorable. The squared-off lines of the '66 model year always looked great to me, especially with this roofline and that circle of brushed metal on the rear edge of the side trim. Cool car but there's more to explore!

I know this is getting a bit ridiculous but that is a 1974 Dodge Charger peeking out from beneath a massive pile of parts (which includes that white grill bar to a '55 Ford Truck). This model year is identical to the 1973, but the Frosty Green Poly color choice identifies it. This was the final year for Charger which went from the General Lee in 1969 to a personal luxury coupe here. The Cordoba took over in '75.

It wasn't just Mopars in the yard; here lies a 1962 Mercury Comet in Jamaica Yellow. The '62 differs from the '60 and '61 by having a chrome spear running along the top of that concave body line. The chrome is missing but the holes where it was attached remain.

Another Chrysler from the "Fuselage Styling" era is on hand without its front clip. This one is a 1971 Newport in Honeydew (though if I ever saw a honeydew melon that color I'd probably pass it up).

Two more '71 Newports are lurking in the back, one in Evening Blue Poly and the other in April Green Poly.

Finally, another '71 Newport being reclaimed by nature, this one in Glacial Blue. *That piece of rusty cocoa on top just past that tire is actually a front fender for a 1971 Plymouth 'cuda with the front gills or louvers. This is a '71-only part for the high performance 'cuda, not available on the base Barracuda. Even in this condition it's worth more that the car it's resting on!

Finally this tragedy is a barely-discernible 1966 Dodge Coronet in Bright Red. Obviously the grill, hood, and drivers side fender are all missing but I'm 95% sure that's what this is. We're deep into automotive junkyard fetishism here but this sort of archeology is right up my alley. I used to clamber around the hills and woods near my house in high school taking pictures of junk cars in the woods so nothing's changed really.
Next post will include real, drivable finds I'm sure.

Twofer Tuesday returns with back-to-back episodes of Mr. Belvedere!

BELVEDERE VS BELVEDERE

Finding just one of these cars was plenty exciting for me, but finding another was just crazy! Without further ado I present 2 1955 Plymouth Belvederes:

This first one is a bit of a beater, but it was sporting current plates and valid registration & inspection stickers so I suppose it's mobile. Unfortunately the hood looks to have been used as a surface for laying something down that needed to be spray painted black. That's just lazy! Wasn't there a piece of cardboard or newspaper around? You HAD to use the hood of a 60 year old car wearing its original paint? And what's with the drivers side headlight getting a blast of black paint too? Animals!

 Regardless this is a '55 wearing at least some of its original Miami Blue paint. I encountered this up in a quiet corner of Astoria that was fully stocked with parked classics. Sometimes you pass a rockabilly loft with several cool Kustoms, other times there are a couple of body shops near each other resulting in a bevy of old rides being scattered about. I think this was a combination of the two.

Belvedere in script makes for a quick identification on this ride. Plymouth had 3 trim levels in '55, with the Belvedere being the top of the heap. Below this was the mid-level Savoy and the truly spartan Plaza. The trim levels were all named after famous hotels while the color choices are all named after towns in both Florida and California (some color examples are Biscayne Blue, Glades Green, Palm Beach Gray, Mohave Brown, Santa Rosa Coral, and San Diego Gold). The forward-leaning front announces the fact that this is the first example of legendary designer Virgil Exners Forward Look. The spare tire from a modern car? At least it's keeping it off the ground.

Oh, ok, here is a perfect example of why Bondo should be practiced on a junkyard car first by the amateur. I don't know the level of rust that this is hiding but it looks like paper mache now! I do love the fuel filler door with the airplane motif.

This is pretty plain-as-day for a Belvedere. The fact that the chrome spear on the side is an unbroken horizontal line means that this is a one-tone car. If there was an optional PowerFlite automatic transmission in this car it would've been announced in chrome script on the right side of the trunk lid so I think this has the standard Syncro Silent trans. The gearshift for '55 was a one-year-only setup where a small chrome shifter came right out of the dash. The next year they would change that over to the fabled push button transmission.

Basic, but well proportioned is how I would describe the '55 Plymouths. They are notably restrained compared to the gaudiness of other domestic cars of the day.

One last detail to point out on this ride; that free-standing chrome emblem on the front of the hood between the ornament and the grill is horizontal. This means that this car was equipped with the PowerFlow 6 cylinder engine. If it was built with the Hy-Fire V-8 that emblem would be in a V shape (like the one below). The spelling for both of those engines is exactly how it was written in their brochure by the way. Now on to a nicer example!

Alright now we're talking! This, too, is a '55 Belvedere but this one has the aforementioned V8 as announced by the hood emblem. I encountered this sweet ride in the Kensington/Borough Park area of Brooklyn.

This thing is beautiful and I would have gladly used it for Show Car Sunday had I not run across the other one. Here we can see the difference in chrome side trim for cars ordered with the 2-tone paint.

These are the correct original hubcaps for this car which to me seem somewhat cheap and unfinished. They further support the understated overall design I suppose.

This is a curious little item. Listed as a "Distinguished Medallion" in the Plymouth literature, it is trumpeted as a hallmark of quality. It was supposed to be found on only the convertible and 2-door sport coupe, but I'm guessing it went along with any 2-tone cars that had this chrome treatment.

This is a damn fine looking ride in its 2-tone scheme. I think the blue color is Tampa Turquoise with the black being listed simply as Black.

This ride has the optional PowerFlite installed. This transmission only lasted from '54-'61 but has a reputation of durability to this day.

I have no doubt that you could jump in this thing and drive off immediately. Some cars look shiny and nice but there's a feeling about them where they probably don't get much use. This car sits level on properly inflated matching tires and all the minutia such as mirrors are adjusted for use.

2-tone cars were huge in the 1950s, with some automakers even producing tri-tone schemes as well. This setup with the roof and lower-rear body being different from the rest is about as standard as it gets. This is the first year for the wraparound windshield which Plymouth refers to as the New Horizon. Combine that name with the Forward Look and you can see how much they were selling the modern American optimism as much as their cars.

This has a set of chrome eyelids installed which cover the top half of the headlights. I'm usually not into them, but this poodle-skirt edition Plymouth is just the sort of ride that would have had them installed way back when so I'm alright with it. I doubt I'll have too many Twofer Tuesdays with cars this old or cool, but at least I was lucky this time.

*One detail to let you know you're way out on the outer boroughs; all those power lines in the background! There haven't been overhead wires allowed in Manhattan since 1884 (though it took a blizzard in 1888 that too down most power lines for the electrical companies to follow suit). Brooklyn was given the same law in 1885 ordering the borough to bury their lines but the telephone (and now cable) wires were allowed to remain.