stories
Tales of My Auto Adventures
For fans of 1960s and 1970s automobiles, the death of a classic make or model cuts deep. In my lifetime, I’ve watched many automotive marques swept to the automotive dustbin. While the disappearance of Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Mercury may have stung, the strongest blow hit on Wednesday, November 3, 1999—a day that will live in Infamy—the day Daimler-Chrysler announced the demise of the Plymouth brand. That news hit me like the loss of an old family friend, because my Dad was a Plymouth man.
My dad, The Plymouth Man, at home with his 1973 Fury III
For 40 years, a succession of pre-owned Detroit Iron bearing the Plymouth name-plate docked in my parents’ driveway. We endured land yachts with hideously tall tailfins, Lee Iacocca’s econo-boxes, and, most recently, the “cab-forward” runabouts.
Dad particularly favored the Plymouth Fury, a lumbering passenger barge that presumably fit some humorless design engineer’s idea of “sporty.”
In response to our incessant pleading during the late-1960s, Dad occasionally pretended to consider other, more stylish choices. But Chevys never looked quite right, Fords never drove quite right, nothing else ever felt quite right. Each vehicle search inevitably ended with Dad proudly beaming behind the wheel of a shiny “New-to-You” used Plymouth.
“They’ve got a stout heart,” he’d say to explain his loyalty. “They never quit.”
It was hard to argue that point. Our Plymouths might stall at the sight of puddles near home, but they never left Dad stranded on his interminable daily commutes, and they never failed us on long family journeys. Over decades of punishing New England travel, through torrential rain, bitter cold, and blinding snow, the old plow-horse Plymouths dependably motored on.
Our neighbors drove flashier cars. But only Dad’s Plymouth would brave unplowed roads in the worst New England winters, often on a grocery store run for the neighborhood. We’d push the car down the side street to the main road, then watch its taillights bob through knee-high snow. “That car,” one neighbor would remark in admiration, “is a real pig.”
Plymouths weren’t perfect; they could often be temperamental, or worse. Owning one meant tolerating doors that didn’t shut tight and windows that rattled, learning to repair cracked hoses and belts with electrical tape, and coaxing flooded engines back to life. Stopped traffic sent the temperature-gauge needle teetering on red.
Too many mornings began with a game of “Name that Fluid Leak.” During my teenage years, my most memorable conversations with Dad occurred on Saturday afternoons—I stretched out under the car, he peering down from the opened hood, as we struggled to fix some minor calamity before nightfall.
Still, Plymouths remained a trusted member of the family. Every Sunday after church, the three of us—Dad, I, and the Plymouth—would head for the long, wide roadway behind the high school stadium. There, Dad coached me on parallel parking and three-point turns, and how to drive without endangering human life.
On the way home, we’d stop at the deserted local dealership and browse, spending most of our time with the used cars—“cars with character,” Dad would say. These were vehicles Dad might actually buy, and more importantly, the dealership left them unlocked, so we could sit in the front seats and pretend to drive.
We’d compare one with another and with our own, and try to remember which ones had been added to the lot and which had disappeared since our last visit. With Dad’s help, I learned to distinguish the model years by changes in fenders and grille designs, and we wouldn’t leave until I had identified them all correctly.
Here in Marin County, a climate much kinder to aging sheet metal, I occasionally see a Plymouth Fury proudly displaying old California plates, the yellow-on-black badge of longevity.
Watching that ancient warhorse majestically navigate the roadway, I’m transported back to countless family adventures—summer rides to the beach, impromptu trips for ice cream, holiday hops to visit relatives. And I can’t help but feel that this noble nameplate somehow deserved a happier fate.
Some may remember Plymouth only for the testosterone-affirming muscle cars of the ’60s, or the more recent and inexplicable Prowler hot rod. For me, Plymouth will always mean solid family sedans: never flashy, sometimes cranky, always strong and stout-hearted—a lot like a guy I knew, who drove them all his life.
*An earlier version of this essay was originally published in the Marin Independent Journal (Marin County, California) on November 10, 1999.
Watch this space. More My Stories to come.