(first posted 5/19/2017) For this third installment of our exploration into shockingly low volume production cars, let’s look at that third leg of the old “Low Priced Three”, Plymouth.
Like Ford, Plymouth reports their production in terms of body style, not engine. While reporting on engine, similar to Chevrolet, using body style production does help with quicker identification; really, which do you comprehend first – the body or an engine encapsulated in sheet metal? While this list isn’t meant to be all-inclusive, it definitely has some of the usual candidates combined with a few surprises.
As before, the time span of 1946 to 1995 is being examined with production volumes of less than 1,000 (or so) making the cut.
1954 Savoy Suburban two-door wagon
Production: 450
No, you won’t find a Savoy Suburban wagon on this roster of Plymouth models.
1954 saw sales drop at Plymouth, due in no-small part to their dowdy styling, with the Savoy being the mid-level trim. It would seem only natural Savoy would have a wagon as there was a wagon in base model Plaza and top trim Belvedere.
According to the Standard Catalog of American Cars:
A surprise was the fact that Suburbans were not normally provided with Savoy level trim, even though the name had been taken from the fancy all-steel station wagon model. However, the Chrysler Historical Archives indicate that a small number of Savoy Suburbans were manufactured.
In a sense, this isn’t unlike a few instances found with the Fords; a model was available but not publicized.
1959 Savoy business coupe
Production: 1,051
The business coupe was simply running out of a market by 1959. Using the lowest level trim, with Savoy being demoted to bottom rung for 1959, the business couple came from the factory with no back seat, allowing more room for business people to store their supplies.
By its very nature this wasn’t a car that would appeal to families and 1959 was the last year for a three-passenger Plymouth. All Savoy business couples for 1959 were powered by a flathead six cranking out 132 gross horsepower.
1969 GTX convertible
Production: 700
The GTX was never a high volume car for Plymouth. The two-door hardtop shown started at $3,416 whereas a similar bodied (but admittedly far less engined as the GTX had a 440 cubic inch V8 standard) Satellite had a price of $2,749 when equipped with the 318 cubic inch (5.2 liter) V8.
Stepping up to a GTX convertible was an additional $229 over the GTX; at $3,635 it was more expensive than any Fury – including the Sport Fury convertible – except for the high trimmed wagons.
Besides entry price, there was likely another factor at work…
1969 Sport Satellite convertible
Production: 818
Plymouth offered four mid-sized convertibles in 1969 so attention was rather divided. Perhaps oddly, the Road Runner convertible was the most popular of the bunch, selling 2,128 copies. The base Satellite convertible almost qualified for inclusion here with 1,137.
While available resources don’t provide for it, one could acquire a 225 cubic inch (3.7 liter) slant-six in a regular Satellite convertible. The number of those is likely even lower than what we’ve seen here. The Sport Satellite seen here had a 318 as standard equipment.
This was a peak time for mid-sized Plymouths.
1970 Barracuda Gran Coupe convertible
Production: 596
If one watches any of the classic car auctions on cable television, the show will seemingly always contain a 1970 ‘Cuda convertible and the audience gets to hear yet again how rare it is. Well, that bubble needs to be popped.
This Gran Coupe convertible was produced in fewer numbers than that ‘Cuda. It’s only problem is that it’s the bridesmaid of the Plymouth E-bodies. Plant an available slant-six under the hood and you have something truly unique and something that nobody will spend a dime to plagiarize via a “tribute”.
1971 Sport Fury GT hardtop coupe
Production: 375
The degrees of awesomeness this Plymouth possesses are almost impossible to count. Providing a distinct presence with a 375 gross horsepower 440 cubic inch (7.4 liter) V8 to back up the swagger, a 3.23:1 rear axle, heavy-duty suspension, dual exhaust, road wheels, power front disc brakes, and GT decals on the hood, this testosterone filled buggy is the ultimate in fuselage Furys. Sadly, it registered barely a blip on the radar of Fury sales.
Let’s admit it; this gets the pulse going much quicker than learning that 200 Fury IIIs were built with a slant six in 1971.
1985 shown
1987 Reliant two-door sedan (base)
Production: 204
After one of perhaps the ultimate full-sized Plymouths ever, lets visit the other end of the spectrum.
Maybe it seems there were a bajillion K-cars built, but not all of them were popular. The upper trim LE two-door sold over forty times as many with only 9,100. Sedans were the Reliant’s sugar stick and with over 66,000 LE’s sold for 1987, that’s what people would remember. That, and these didn’t change one iota from the front end refreshing of 1985 until the end in 1989.
1985 Salon shown
1988 Gran Fury sedan (base)
Production: 238
No, not all Gran Fury’s sold to the cops, but one has to wonder about this one. From 1981, the time the M-body Gran Fury appeared on the scene, to 1987, the Gran Fury came in Salon trim only. For 1988, the Gran Fury was split between base and Salon – and then it went back to Salon trim only for its farewell in 1989.
It would seem these were destined for fleets given the meager production volumes, but from what can be found the price of the Salon was $720 less than the base model. Odds are this is simply numbers being transposed.
Were there any surprises? Stay tuned as we move upscale to the mid-priced makes.
That 71 fury is fantastic
I know, that 71 brochure cover is a stunning example of the era…very cool!
+1. At the time I was smitten with the 71 LTD. But this brochure shot makes me crave this car!
Now we know why the Sport Fury GT brings such amazing prices these days, more I’d wager than any full size ’60s Chev/Ford/Plymouth high performance model, far more than a Marauder, XL or even SS427. So rare and desirable. I knew of a well-worn one, also in red, sitting in a field where my daughter rode horses back around 1987-88. I bet it went to the crusher. Another, a black one, that looked like it had been crushed and then set on fire was recently available with an asking price well into 5 figures! Yikes!
The 1971 Sport Fury GT is worth significantly less than a 60s Impala SS, even when the Chevy has a low performance drivetrain. By 1971, Chevrolet had created the Monte Carlo as an alternative to the Impala coupe. A Monte Carlo SS is worth double a Sport Fury GT.
Agreed, the ’71 Fury (as long as it doesn’t have a vinyl roof) was probably the best looking of the fuselage Mopars. And that Sport Fury GT hardtop coupe really rocks.
And that didn’t include some of these regionals models mentionned in another blog post like the Snapper and the 1969½ Diplomat offered by a Toledo dealer.
The Snapper ad is on page 9
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19690409&id=MQkkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rgEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7551,491339&hl=fr
The 1969½ is on page 23
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=8_tS2Vw13FcC&dat=19690701&printsec=frontpage&hl=fr
1971 Sport Fury GT hardtop coupe – sounds like a Chrysler 300 with Plymouth badges.
1988 Gran Fury sedan (base) – I would think that the break down of M-body Gran Fury sales for the entire model run would show far lower production than the Diplomat. I saw a 1987 Plymouth Gran Fury that was loaded on the website of a “classic” car dealer a few years ago and it occurred to me that I had NEVER seen one in real life.
Wow, I of the undying 59 Plymouth love had completely forgotten that a business coupe was among the choices.
For some reason Mopar’s convertibles never sold well. Perhaps it was because their customer base tended to be more practical and conservative. Convertible people love style, which was usually found at Ford and GM dealers.
Count me as another fan of that Sport Fury GT.
I happened to be going through some old pictures recently and found this street shot taken in front of a Chrysler-Plymouth dealer in 1986. The dealership’s cars are lined up on the right-hand side of the picture, which was directly in front of their showroom. The light blue car on the corner (sticking out the most) appears to be a base-model 2-door Reliant, judging by the unadorned steel wheels.
Since this was taken in 1986, it’s not one of the shockingly-low ’87 Reliant 2-doors, but still these weren’t exactly common in ’86 either. I think about 2,500 were made.
And for folks familiar with Northern Virginia, the dealership here was Fairfax Chrysler-Plymouth on Lee Highway in Fairfax City. It closed in 2010.
I lived on Railroad Ave., back in the neighborhood on the left at the traffic light. A hair salon, later a realtor occupied the tan house on the left (southwest) corner in your photo. Fairfax Chrysler Plymouth sold Peugeot until they left the US market. I bought my ‘05 T&C there in 2004. With Sto-n-Go seating, the Walter P. Chrysler editions with leather, sunroof, DVD consoles & 6-disc CD changers with free Sirius radio & 0% for 60 mos. were selling as soon as the hit the lot
Never knew about the 59 business coupes, I always liked the Forward Look Plymouth 2 door sedans, but the business coupe has a much cleaner look as it appears not to have the slim pillar that allows the rear window to roll down.
Great, another car to lust after that I will never own.
I owned a 54 Plymouth Savoy 2 door, and I agree that the styling was extremely dowdy. The car itself was quite rugged and reliable, and as a “total package” a better proposition than the equivalent Ford or Chevy….but UGGGLY.
Is the 59 Plymouth a coupe or a hardtop? I would have expected a business coupe to be a 2 door sedan.
BTW, according to The Encyclopedia of American Cars, Ford had a business SEDAN in 1960. No mention of how many doors business sedans had, though.
A 1970 Barracuda Gran Coupe was my dream car in the early 70s. Friends of my sister had one, bottle green with a black vinyl roof and a 383/automatic under the hood.
Plymouth built several low production Fury 2 door models in 1971. Can’t tell from my sources if they would qualify here, but the Sport Fury GT 2 door is just 1. There was the Gran Coupe and the S/23, too.
As for the Furys of the 80s, that Salon looks like a “typical” Plymouth, that is, lacking any details that tell passersby that it isn’t a retired taxicab, I can’t imagine what the “Base” model looked like? Blackwall tires and “dog dish” hubcaps? Both models also look identical to Dodge Diplomats.
Our family car in late 1954 was a Plymouth Savoy four-door with Hy-Drive semi-automatic transmission. Dad traded his 1941 Chrysler, itself a gift from Mom’s family.
The Plymouth was a retired Portland, OR taxi. Why the taxicab company didn’t buy low-line Plazas, I don’t know. The Plymouth was intended for the drive home to California, as the Chrysler was getting too old, after Dad was discharged from Government service…he had been drafted and assigned to the US Public Health Service because being of Chinese birth, he wasn’t trusted to go into the military during the Korean War (oh, it wasn’t a war…it was a police action…BALDERDASH!). But the Plymouth remained stalwart until it was traded in 1957 for a Chevrolet station wagon.
Gran Fury vs. Diplomat…not quite identical. Dodges had matte black grills with chrome accents. Plymouths had matte silver grills with chrome accents. The DODGE and PLYMOUTH lettering was part of the grill.
New York City Police bought both…in the same year…identically specified.
You got it right on the black steel wheels and dog dish hubcaps on the standard model Diplomat and Gran Fury. You could also get them dolled up on the inside but not quite to Chrysler Fifth Avenue level, through the Salon model.
The large picture of the ’59 Plymouth from the brochure cover is a hardtop, but based on the small photos on the brochure page shown right below that, the Business Coupe was a 2-door pillared sedan.
At the point when there ceased to be any distinction between a pillared coupe and a two-door pillared sedan, typically around the early ’50s, most manufacturers dropped their pillared coupes, moving the former Business Coupe to the two-door sedan body. It looks when like Plymouth did this, they kept the “Business Coupe” name. Without looking it up to see exactly what Ford did, I’d bet that their “Business Sedan” was the same type of (two-door) model, they just switched from calling it a “Business Coupe” to calling it a “Business Sedan”.
MCT: the Ford “Business Sedan” was a 2 door as pictured in the brochure. Chevy called their’s a “Utility Sedan”, also a two door.
Even as a child, I thought the ’53-’54 Plymouths were dowdy looking things. To me it was like “You passed up a Customline to buy this?”
The bubble is not popped, just defeated a little maybe.
I realize that there are more than a few sources for production numbers . . . but I think your Barracuda math is wrong. Barracuda Gran Coupe Convertible=566, ‘Cuda Convertible=548.
The rarest of the rare is, as you allude to, isn’t a Gran Coupe Convertible with a 225 slant 6+3spd (3 made) it’s a Gran Coupe Convertible with a 383-4bbl+3spd (2 made).
You didn’t do justice to this ultimate Unicorn (as a whole), the Plymouth ‘Cuda convertible. They made way less than 1000, combined, for the 2 years the car was offered, 1970-1971. For the Holy Grail version, HEMI ‘Cuda convertible they made less than 25.
Yes, sources do vary.
As for engine/body combinations, it’s obvious I didn’t go there, especially given the first sentence in the second paragraph. My point was anything with a slant six was going to have a production number less than what was quoted for that particular body style as a six in a convertible likely wasn’t a frequent thing.
My intent has been to focus on the larger picture. With this piece running around 900 words, breaking things down into detail for this many cars – over a series of article – would greatly lengthen the article and likely get tedious both for me and for those reading it! 🙂
I like these posts, and also the referral to trim levels vs. order combinations. Auctions will go on about “only x many lime green/big block/manual trans…etc”. But, I like know how many Bel Air 2 doors, LTD S or Fury 2’s, etc were sold.
The trim levels were listed usually like the pic of the 59 Plymouths. Pick the trim and then order the engines, options, etc.
Add also the Canadian oddities, there was a Fury II hardtop sold in Canada during the Fuselage era to compete against the Canadian Bel Air hardtop. http://oldcarbrochures.com/static/Canada/Plymouth/1973%20Plymouth%20Fury%20Specs%20Folder/image4.html
I’d sell a kidney for a 1971 Sport Fury GT hardtop… WOW O_o !!!
I owned a ’71 Gran Coupe exactly like the one pictured; black vinyl over whatever they called the green. 2-tone green pleather interior. Love the looks of these.
I did also except Black Vinyl over Med. Blue with a 360. The Gran Coupe was introduced in 1970 as a mix match of a Sport Fury and Fury 3 parts. In 1970 it had a Paisley Vinyl Roof and interior trim and was built on the Fury 2 2 door Sedan Body. In 71 you could get it without the paisley and it was available in the 2 or 4 Door hardtop body. In 72 it replaced the Sport Fury as the Top Rung Fury.
Mine I kept through college and then sold it to my brother which raced a cousin of ours in it who had just had a new 350 installed in his Malibu. The Gran Fury won but broke a motor mount doing it. Would love to have that car back. Not as plush and quiet as the 73 Impala my folks had at that time but could definitely out perform it. Plymouth also produced a Sedan which was a mix match of Fury 1 2 and 3 trim items. Can not remember the name.
Gran Sedan. Not sure if first one was ’70 or ’71?
The Encyclopedia of American Cars has the Gran Coupe as a separate listing in 1970, I seem to remember that the Gran Sedan came at least 1 year after the GC arrived. Unfortunately, the Gran Coupe and Gran Sedan aren’t listed as models (perhaps they were an “option group”?) in 1971.
For 1971 through 1974 it was called the Gran Fury, and was available as a coupe, hardtop coupe, or a sedan.
Or wasn’t the 4 door version still called “Gran Coupe” for ’71?
Looked it up and the other edition was the Plymouth Fury Custom it to had paisley in the interior.
http://www.fuselage.de/ply71/custom.html
I looked at a base Reliant coupe in 1989 when I bought my COAL Omni. It was selling for about $1000 more than the Omni and was a lot less versatile. I went with the Omni.
I’m sure the base, manual transmission Reliant two-door that I test-drove was a very rare beast in 1989.
I did a magazine feature on a 71 Fury GT many years ago.
Painted in a pale yellow and well optioned, it was a stunning car. I spotted it around Edmonton just a couple of years ago and it looked good. I wonder if the owner knows how rare it is.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing. The 59 business coupe with the missing rear seat has me intrigued – was the rear seat commonly removed on business coupes? Is the passenger compartment open to the trunk? I always figured it was just a trim slightly above fleet models and not much different from the regular 2 doors.
From what I’ve read, the business coupe made it such due to the lack of a rear seat. It seems the added space from not having the seat allowed the traveling salesman (or whomever) better storage of whatever their stock was.
Ford and Chevrolet also ceased having a business coupe around the 1959 to 1960 era.
In the Business Coupes I’ve seen, the back seat area was replaced by wood or hardboard, effectively emulating the shape of the actual seat, i.e. a flat panel where the seat bottom would have been, and an angled panel against the rear bulkhead. Eliminating 6″ plus or minus of upholstery springs, padding, etc opened up quite a few cubic feet of storage space.
Here is the interior of a ’50 Ford Business Coupe, which hopefully explains it better:
Ugh, I can’t seem to include a photo, so here is the link:
http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Ford/1950_Ford_Business_Coupe-mar28c.jpg
Got it, thanks guys.
Here is a picture of the 1950 Ford Business Coupe, showing the rear parcel shelf area where the rear passenger seat would be.
Up until the 1930s, most coupes had a passenger compartment with only a single row of seating. Out back there could be either a trunk or a rumble seat. At some point, the trunked versions began to get a reputation as a car for traveling salesmen and the like, and came to be called “business coupes”. During the mid-to-late 1930s, manufacturers began using “Business Coupe” as the official name for this type of model.
Some history of the body style at Chevrolet:
The first year that Chevrolet used the term “Business Coupe” as an official model name was 1937. If you look at brochures from earlier years, though, it’s clear that Chevy was marketing this body style to this type of buyer even before that.
In 1939, Chevy made a clean break from coupes with a single row of seating in the passenger compartment (with one short-lived exception in the early 1930s, all Chevrolet coupes through 1938 were of this style) to coupes with enclosed rear seats. At that point, the business coupe began using this body, so it now had a passenger compartment large enough to accommodate a back seat. It still had no actual back seat, though, having a storage area in that space instead.
Before World War II, you could order this body style in any trim level of Chevrolet. After the war, it was restricted to the lowest trim level only. (Similarly, some of the other GM divisions offered business coupes before the war; from 1946 on, I believe that Chevrolet was the only one left.)
Up through 1948, there was a clear difference in roofline between a Chevrolet (pillared) coupe and two-door sedan, with the coupe’s roof being noticeably shorter. In the styling generation that appeared for 1949, the two were extremely similar. After 1953, the coupe was dropped, and what had been the Business Coupe was now built off of the two-door sedan body. It was now called the “Utility Sedan”.
The last year for the Utility Sedan was 1961.
Thanks for the info!
Don’t forget, Chevy revived the “utility sedan” concept with the Chevette Scooter that waas originally a two-seater.
Ford seems to have used a shorter roof pressing and longer tulip panel for the coupe than the Tudor sedan through at least 1954.
Just to confuse the issue, Holden made a sloped-back two door sedan body on all their GM lines (including Vauxhall), which was marketed as the ‘all-enclosed close-coupled coupe’, according to my Dad who used to own one before the war. Commonly called a sloper. This photo isn’t Dad’s car, but a similar one restored.
One more point to add to this history, which wasn’t made clear in my earlier post: originally, trunked coupes were the only body style that had an enclosed trunk, which would have made them very attractive to the “business” buyer. Sedans differed from coupes in that their passenger compartment extended all the way to rear of the car’s body, and they invariably had an enclosed back seat, but they didn’t have enclosed trunks. So if you had a lot of merchandise or other items to carry around, and wouldn’t typically need to carry a lot of passengers, a trunked coupe made a lot more sense than a sedan.
In the 1930s, sedans with enclosed trunks began to appear. In the early years of trunked sedan production, the coupes may have still had larger trunks than the sedans, but eventually this advantage disappeared. (At Chevrolet, a 2-door trunked sedan was introduced as a 1933 model, followed by a 4-door trunked sedan in 1934. Production of the trunked models first exceeded the trunkless models in 1936. 1937 was the last year the trunkless models sold in significant numbers, although they continued to exist until 1939.) With sedans having more-or-less achieved parity with coupes in terms of trunk storage, moving business coupes to bodies with a passenger compartment large enough to accommodate a back seat, but using the space as a storage area, allowed them to maintain their storage advantage over 2-door sedans.
The way I remember my 59 being built, I would suspect that the bottom and back cushions for the rear seat were replaced by some kind of rubber or vinyl covered panels. There were some diagonal steel braces behind the rear seat back that would have prevented a full pass-through.
My folks had a 71 Fury in that gold color that’s on the formal hardtop in the brochure. I don’t think it was a Sport tho ’cause it was a 4 door. I was in elementary school so I don’t know much about it but it seemed to be a decent car. It was traded for a new ’78 Monte Carlo with the 305 in maroon. I remember comments that it was traded because the smaller car was easier for Mom to drive.
The Sport was available as a 4 door in 71, but not the Sport GT, which had the biggest engine and racing stripes.
heres one for all of you ’71 SFGT lovers. I know Ive also seen a bright yellow one with black stripes but I cant find the picture. Big beautiful cars.
John Lennon had a Chrysler T&C wagon, because he wanted a little more space, and that wagon was the largest vessel back then. I’m pretty sure it was the largest station wagon ever (by factory standard), and of course a highlight of american architecture.
http://speedhunters-wp-production.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/28184528/John_Lennon_Wagon-001.jpg
All fuselage wagons used the same underbody with the same internal dimensions.
The biggest traditional wagons ever were the GM clamshells.
I honestly had no idea that Plymouth was still offering a 3-passenger-only Savoy Business Coupe in 1959! Seems a bit unpractical for one looking to carry a lot of cargo over passengers, being a pillared coupe with still rather short front doors.
Mopars are weird as far as what sells and what does not. I had a ’70 Sport Fury for years that was the least sold body style in that model, it was a 4 dr sedan. Something like only 4.500 of them were made.
Those “business coupes” have always intrigued me. They’re easier for me to imagine as a tidy 1940s car than a sprawling 1959 Plymouth, but I see there are 1051 ways to prove me wrong. One of them sat at this dealer’s lot until very late in ’59, and this close-out deal sure sounds great (on a per-pound basis, anyway):
George Pelecanos novel What it Was used the ’71 Sport Fury GT image on the cover and the car plays a big role in the book. I prefer the cleaner grille of the ’70, but I’d take on these any day.
I wonder how rare these are. In ’65. they still used the Savoy name in Canada, instead of Fury I. Note in the fine print that the 170(not 225) slant six was standard!
Whoa. That must have been a pokey ride, with the 170 /6. Neither Ford or GM had anything comparable. The family of my best friend in middle school bought (ordered) a Fury III with the 225 /6 and TF. That thing was a wheezer on the hills.
But then Chrysler did offer the 170 in its pickups and vans here, so they obviously were determined to have the smallest engines available.
Additional comments on some of these:
1954 Savoy Suburban: As noted in the article, this appears in the Standard Catalog, but it isn’t mentioned in the Encyclopedia of American Cars. The Standard Catalog has no price and weight listed, and it isn’t shown in the brochure, suggesting that it wasn’t planned to be offered. There were no Savoy Suburbans listed in the next few years after this, either. My guess is that these were either built for export, or to use up some surplus wagon bodies late in the model year, or both.
1959 Business Coupe: This was the last year Plymouth offered a Business Coupe.
1969 intermediate convertibles: With much lower sales volume than Chevrolet or Ford, and convertible sales in decline, Plymouth’s overall intermediate convertible production was falling to very low levels at this point. With Plymouth splitting those meager sales among four different trim variants, two managed to fall below 1,000 this year. Both of those were dropped for ’70; while not mentioned in the article, the two survivors (base Satellite and Road Runner) were both below 1,000 in 1970. That was the last year for intermediate Plymouth convertibles.
1970 Barracuda Gran Coupe and ‘Cuda: Similar to my comments for the ’69 intermediates, Barracuda sales in general weren’t all that high, convertible sales in general were in severe decline, and Plymouth offered three different trim level variants; only the base model cleared 1,000. For ’71, the Gran Coupe convertible was dropped, but the ‘Cuda convertible returned and was below 1,000 again. That was the last for Barracuda convertibles of any kind.
1971 Sport Fury GT: This seems to be the only year the Sport Fury GT was offered as a distinct model, so it’s hard to offer much comment on what was going on here beyond the fact that this type of car obviously would have had limited appeal in 1971. That production figure seems almost implausibly low, though.
1987 Reliant base two-door: In recent years, K-car sales had been in decline as the design aged in the face of newer competition; there was a long-term shift occurring away from two-door cars to four-door sedans; and the upper-level LE was garnering the bulk of Reliant sales, with the base trim level selling at much lower levels. In ’87, those three trends converged to push the base 2-door below 1,000. For 1988, Chrysler collapsed the Reliant into a single trim level, introducing the “Reliant America” concept, which gave sales a shot in the arm. Those two changes ensured that there wouldn’t be a Reliant two-door model below 1,000 again.
1988 base Gran Fury: I can offer no explanation as to why this model existed in 1988 (and only in 1988), or how it was supposed to be different from the Salon. I have a 1988 edition of Consumer Guide’s new car guide, and it does list prices for both the base and Salon models, consistent with what is stated in the article, with the base as the more expensive of the two. The text write up makes no mention of the base model, however, and the base equipment list in the price section does not differentiate between the base and Salon (only one set of base equipment is shown).
I have always been fascinated by the marketing name-game of the automotive world between countries. In Canada, the Plymouth Gran Fury was called Caravelle. When the Caravelle name was used for the FWD E-body platform, ChryCo Canada renamed the RWD car the “Caravelle Salon” to differentiate the two. The Caravelle Salon’s last year was 1989. Here is a brochure cover of the 1985 Caravelle Salon.
Of all the F Bodies produced, I’d find a 1980 Volare or Aspen Sport Wagon, one of the most desirable. As their production numbers were microscopic.