Jim Kennedy’s Car Collection

Harold Vernon Wilson, a World War II Army veteran and assistant sales manager for Western-Southern Insurance Company in his hometown of Franklin, Ohio, purchased this 1977 Fury Sport hardtop sedan in the spring of 1977. At this time, the Fury was Plymouth’s mid-sized model, slotted between the Volare as the compact offering and the Gran Fury in its final year as the full-size option. Nineteen-seventy-seven brought a significant cosmetic restyle to the Fury Sport, with a changed front grill pattern and badging, redesigned side marker lenses, and repositioned park/signal lamps. Mr. Wilson’s version included the optional white vinyl roof and single-unit “opera windows” on the “C” pillars.

The Plymouth had been produced at the Lynch Road assembly plant in Detroit and shipped to Preble County Chrysler-Plymouth in West Alexandria, Ohio, a proud “golf cart friendly community” 20 miles northwest of Franklin. The dealership anchored the corner of East Dayton Road and DeSoto Way, the latter a vestige of the business’s beginnings. In February 1941, Harry and John Shipley had opened a DeSoto dealership in the Gus Naudasher Building on West Dayton Road Unfortunately, the advent of World War II halted new car sales less than a year later, forcing the business into hibernation until 1946. Once operations resumed, the Shipley’s younger brother Charles joined, and, in 1951, the business moved to a new location at the east end of town.

The Shipleys sold the dealership in 1973 to Fred Hurst and John Bunn of Dayton, Ohio, who renamed it Preble County Chrysler-Plymouth. Two years later, Hurst, whose grandfather had previously been a DeSoto-Plymouth dealer in Franklin, sold his interest in Preble County Chrysler-Plymouth to Bunn, and purchased the South Side Chrysler-Plymouth dealership in the Dayton suburb of Centerville; at 27, he was reportedly the youngest franchise dealership owner in the country. Neither Hurst nor Bunn thrived without the other: by early January 1977, South Side had been acquired by Salem Chrysler-Plymouth (“Where Mel Zappia Cares!”); Preble County appears to have ceased operations in late 1977 or early 1978, less than a year after Harold Wilson first drove his Fury Sport off the lot. Another Chrysler brand franchise, Westbrook Dodge of Brookville, subsequently operated from the same location for a short period. No Chrysler outlet has located in West Alexandria since that time; the Ohio village is apparently more golf-cart friendly than automotive amiable.

Sadly, Harold Wilson enjoyed little time with his purchase. He died at his home of an apparent heart attack on Christmas Eve 1978, his 55th birthday. His wife, Sarah, kept the car in the family’s two car garage in tribute to her late husband, but seldom drove it. Upon her passing, in 2012, title passed to her former son-in-law, who eventually offered it for sale. I purchased the Fury Sport in 2015. A culling of the horsepower herd caused by a lack of storage space set the sedan on to its next adventure in 2018.