1937 Plymouth Touring Sedan
Serial Number: 10225528
Engine No.: Replacement/P4-202593 (original) (6-cylinder)
Exterior Color: Silver (Originally, Plymouth Beige)
Interior Color: Gray (Original unknown)
Assembly Plant: Detroit, Michigan
Assembly Date: January 15, 1937
Dealership: Bud Johnson Plymouth-DeSoto, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Original Purchase Date: Unknown
Backstory
Plymouth maintained its third-place position among auto brands in 1937, although sales growth slowed along with economic recovery. Production was also hampered by worker strikes, which afflicted most of the industry. As the Great Depression persisted, Chrysler’s low-priced entry continued to keep the smallest of the industry’s “Big Three” automakers afloat.
The most popular Plymouth offering was the Deluxe 4-Door Sedan. On January 15, 1937, a beige Plymouth Deluxe 4-Door Touring Sedan rolled off the Detroit assembly line, destined for the Bud Johnson Plymouth and DeSoto distributorship in the Loring Park section of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Presumably, the car did spend some time in Minnesota: at one point, the engine was replaced (a not uncommon occurrence as the Depression and World War II limited both means and opportunities to purchase new cars, so cars that might otherwise be discarded were instead repaired and rehabilitated), and the stamp on the replacement engine begins with “MINN,” as then required
by state law. The historical trail runs cold until the Plymouth emerged from a barn in Kingman, Arizona, in October of 2000. At that time, the Touring Sedan was on blocks, its interior gutted, and it had been repainted an Army camouflage green. The car was offered for sale in an automobile magazine for $5,900 by an elderly gentleman who, according to the ultimate purchaser, professed neither knowledge of nor interest in the car. Arizona Department of Transportation records indicate the seller had owned the vehicle for about a year and had acquired it from someone who titled the car in 1988. This shell of a ’37 was transported to Parker, Arizona for restoration. After extensive work over almost five years—including rebuilding the power plant and mechanical elements, re-chroming the bumpers, reupholstering the interior, and painting the car a rough-textured silver—the mechanic sold the Plymouth to a couple from Lake Havasu City, Arizona, at the “Run to the Sun” Car Show in October of 2005. That couple in turn sold the vehicle at a local car show in 2006; the purchaser was described as a “wild man” who drove too fast on a test-drive and indicated he might turn the car into a “hot rod.”
Ownership of the car then apparently changed hands rapidly over the following few months. The next purchaser I could identify resided in Simi Valley, California. He purchased the car at the Pomona (California) Car Show in 2006, and drove the car the 45 miles home. After four years of using the car as a neighborhood “runner,” he sold it to a classic car dealer in Thousand Oaks, California. The Silver Beauty was on display at the front of the lot on a sunny February day in 2010 when I happened to be motoring down Thousand Oaks Boulevard on my way to an appointment. I missed the meeting and bought the car a few days later.
Lionel F. “Bud” Johnson began his auto sales career in 1919 selling first Hayes, then Hudson, automobiles. From 1929 to 1941, he was a DeSoto and Plymouth distributor in Minneapolis. In 1941, he switched to the Pontiac brand, offered by General Motors. In the mid-1950s, he established a Plymouth-Triumph dealership and later became a real estate developer. Actively involved in civic affairs, he was past president of the Zuhrah Temple of the Shriners, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Minnesota. He died in Tifton, Georgia, while on vacation, in 1973, at age 70.