Jim Kennedy’s Car Collection

1959 Plymouth Suburban Custom Wagon

A fellow car enthusiast once marveled at how Plymouth succeeded in the late 1950s by increasing the size of its station wagons when other brands were shrinking theirs. “I mean, what family needed a nine-passenger wagon in the ’50s?” he wondered. Then he looked at me and fell silent. “Oh, right,” he said, “Catholics.”

Although Catholics comprised less than two percent of the population of Arkansas in 1959, a least one such family sought the type of rolling cottage only Plymouth could provide.

Louis S. Miller, a native of Tampa, Florida, had married Rita Armbruster Miller, a teacher from New Orleans, in July 1944. The Great Depression and Louis' U.S. Army service in both World War II and the Korean conflict had deferred their professional plans, but the late 1950s found them in Camden, Arkansas: Louis a Tulane graduate commencing his career as a project engineer at International Paper Company; Rita a Loyola University graduate and teacher. With five children spanning ages two to thirteen, the Millers needed transportation with sufficient room to convey the family unit in comfort and minimize “don’t-make-me-stop-this-car” moments. Fortunately, their salvation lay just one minute’s drive along Van Buren Street from St. Louis Catholic Church, the Miller’s local parish.

Irving T. Urrey worked as a farmer, taxicab owner and operator, and Ford Motor car dealer in a place called Hope, Arkansas (birthplace of a future U.S. President), before moving his family to Camden in 1947 to establish a Nash Motors dealership. Seven years later, Chrysler awarded him a franchise to sell Dodge and Plymouth brands; over the next 30 years, he would at various times offer other Chrysler brands as well, including Chrysler, DeSoto, Valiant, and Simca. In March of 1959, Urrey Motor Company advertised the “Big Difference in Wagons” available from Plymouth and invited customers to “Come in for a ‘Two-Mile Try-Out Now!”

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Presumably, Louis Miller enjoyed his two-mile experience. He had originally visited the Urrey dealership to check out a used Cadillac. After his kids convinced him only Al Capone should be caught dead behind the wheel of that car, he was convinced to consider a Plymouth wagon. Mr. Miller ultimately special-ordered a new nine-passenger Suburban Custom, the mid-range model, painted Caribbean Blue (a color available in 1959 only on spring models) and Iceberg White with a blue interior. The two-toned color allowed for a white roof, which along with air conditioning and solex windows helped keep the car cooler in the Arkansas heat. In order to reduce costs—and perhaps as payback to his children for ridiculing the Cadillac—Mr. Miller opted against including a radio, a decision he later regretted (he resorted to placing a portable radio on the dashboard during long trips). Although Chrysler promoted its push-button automatic transmissions that year, the Miller’s chariot operated with a standard three-speed, “Three-on-the-tree,” manual gearbox and optional overdrive.  

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This Suburban originated from Chrysler’s Evansville, Indiana, assembly plant in early June, and was shipped by barge and commercial truck carrier. The Evansville facility had been constructed in 1919 by the Graham Brothers to build their truck line, and bought by Dodge Brothers in 1926. Chrysler inherited the plant with its purchase of Dodge in 1928. Temporarily shuttered during the depths of the Great Depression, the plant resumed operations in 1935, building Dodge and Plymouth cars. During World War II, with automobile manufacturing halted, it produced about 96 percent of all .45 automatic ammunition used by the U.S. military, and repaired Sherman tanks and other military vehicles; during the Korean Conflict, even as it resumed production of Plymouths, it built aluminum hulls for UF-1 Grumman Albatross air-sea rescue planes for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. Unfortunately, 1959—the 30th Anniversary of the Plymouth brand—was the last year of production at Evansville. Barely two months after the Miller’s wagon sailed down the Ohio River on its way to Camden, Chrysler shuttered the plant, in early August 1959, and relocated its assembly activities to a new, larger facility in Fenton, Missouri, just outside St. Louis. Reduced cost of train transport, and significantly greater access to rail lines in St. Louis, weighed heavily in Chrysler’s decision.

The Miller family wasted no time enjoying their new purchase, embarking on a vacation to Florida a few weeks after taking possession. Over the next 25 years, the station wagon served as the family workhorse, motoring around town and on trips to visit relatives in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Tampa, Florida. Four of the Millers' children learned to drive behind the station wagon's steering wheel. Around Thanksgiving 1984, the Millers offloaded the wagon to a neighbor, who added a hitch to pull a trailer and began restoration work; unfortunately, health issues compelled him to sell the car two years later. The new owner, a resident of a Chicago, Illinois, suburb, enjoyed the vehicle for 30 years before trading it to a classic car dealership in 2016. The next purchaser transported the wagon to South Carolina, where it underwent an extensive restoration. The new owner was drawn to the Suburban because it reminded him of his family’s car during his childhood; he had the car repainted in the lighter blue color of that former family wagon. After three years of restoration work, he offered the car for sale through a classic car dealer in Atlanta. I discovered the Suburban listed on an online classic car website in the summer of 2020, when the lack of interesting live sports on television during the pandemic relegated my attention to web surfing. Welcoming any opportunity to suspend my quasi self-imposed quarantine, I eagerly packed my mask and hand sanitizer and traveled to Atlanta for an inspection. Two weeks later, the Miller’s wagon motored west.

Louis and Rita Miller remained in Camden until the mid-1990s, when they moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to be closer to family. Louis passed in 1999, at the age of 85; Rita, in 2002, at age 87. Irving T. Urrey operated Urrey Motors in Camden for over 30 years, before retiring in the late 1970s. He died in Camden in May of 1983, just shy of his 81st birthday.