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Today we are reviewing the 1960 Plymouth Fury. For those hard of hearing (like me!), I've popped the walk around chat below:
Plymouth was launched in 1928 to compete in a specific automotive market sector: the low priced bracket. At the time, this was very much dominated by Ford and Chevrolet.
In fact at first, Plymouth was simply one car instead of a stand alone automotive brand - it was known as the Plymouth Model Q coupe.
Plymouth initially priced their cars higher than the competition but offered some of the standard features buyers wanted but Ford and Chevrolet didn’t provide, such as expanding hydraulic brakes.
Plymouth sold through the Chrysler dealerships and it filled a gap for the aspiring motorist who wanted a Chrsyler but couldn’t stretch to the price - a bit like British Leyland did with their brands - trying to offer alternatives and solutions for all budgets under one umbrella.
Plymouth cars were also available at Desoto and Dodge dealerships, which of course, all existed under the Chrysler division at the time.
Interestingly, Plymouth was actually the saving grace of Chrysler because by serving the lower end of the market, it meant both Plymouth and Chrysler survived the depression of the 1930s - which saw the collapse of many other automotive brands.
Plymouth continued to go from strength to strength and sold great quantities of cars and in 1957 the New Look forward design was advertised by Plymouth as ‘suddenly it’s 1960’ and this increased sales quantities by 200 thousand cars compared to sales figures from 1956.
However as the decade ended and the swinging 60s began, build quality started to become a bit ropey and the cars began to gain a reputation for iffy build quality and this coupled with a misjudged decision to downsize some of their cars from 1962 meant the brand saw a really knock to reputation and success throughout the 60s and 70s.
But this isn’t unusual, because you hear this about many car manufacturers of that era, especially British cars - which is why Japanese car manufacturers got a lull to catch up and compete with merit.
Although it would be lazy to write the company off during these decades because they still had many success stories and triumphs and the brand continued until 2001 whereby it was discontinued and any loose ends were tied up and neatly slotted back into the Chrysler family.
Going back to the car we are testing today, the Plymouth Fury was produced from 1955 to 1989, but the model we’re testing today was only made in 1960 - so when I refer to this car throughout the video as only being made for one year, it is the particular model I’m referring to and not the Fury overall.
The 1960 Plymouth fury, the second generation car as it’s sometimes known, was available as a 4 door sedan or saloon as we’d call it over here, 4 door hard top, 2 door hard top and 2 door convertible.
Whilst it was one of Plymouth’s best selling cars it was never sold in the UK, which might be because as a nation we were probably too conversative for something this spicy.
1960 was also a year of firsts and it was the first year for Unibody construction and the first year for the slant 6 engine.
The new Dura quiet body was said to be twice as strong as previous body shells and it was said to steady the car on longer drives and faster speeds and the gauge of the steel used was 75% heavier than rivals without the added weight.
The car also sported a new handle and locking mechanism which was tested for 4 years before launch and every seam and joint on the car was sealed.
Plymouth even went to the smallest minute detail and changed the window channel materials to try and combat rust and corrosion. They even tested this with a 2 minute high pressure water water akin to a tropical typhoon.
The suspension system was the Plymouth torsion-aire suspension and the torsion bar to front wide leaf spring to back combo coupled with the new unibody was said to give a better ride than any other Plymouth at time of launch.
It’s also worth noting the engine was mounted on it’s own suspension system too.
Interestingly as well, they wanted to create a silent cabin ride and when developing, they set up 12 channel tape recorders on test drives to find, eliminate and tackle all sources of needless noise.
engineers spent the equivalent of 20 years testing this car before launch.
It has a length of 209 inches, a width of 80 inches and a wheelbase of 118 inches. For reference on IDRIVEACLASSIC, that makes it bigger than the Bedford Bambi we tested last week by over 5 feet!
Transmission units on these were varied and you got a choice of the 2 speed Powerflite automatic, the 3 speed Torqueflite automatic as we’re testing today and interestingly, manual transmission options of a 3 speed sychro silent manual and 3 speed manual.