When I came across these two pictures posted by stephenpellegrino1 at the Cohort, they reminded me of a picture of similar-vintage big Chrysler Corp. sedan that CC’s Jim Cavanaugh once owned in the late 70s. The driveway and house even reminds me a bit of Jim’s house.
Here’s the picture I’m talking about, of Jim’s Fury in 1979, although this was presumably shot at his mom’s house, not his current one. But you get the picture, eh? A couple of elderly Mopars still in service, some 20-25 years on.
Stephen Pellegrino left this brief comment about this one:
1959 Dodge Royal sedan, listed for sale in 1986 in Long Valley NJ. I test drove it but didn’t buy. Where is it today?
In someone’s refrigerator?
Wow, what a way to open the memory floodgates again. I sold mine in 1980 so that Dodge probably looked like my Plymouth would have by 1986.
It all rushes back – the dual front leaky wheel cylinders, the reverse thread left side lug bolts (not nuts) which made putting that first one in really nasty while trying to hold the wheel. The sticky brake light switch. The gas gauge that would register “full” when the sending unit connection got wet, requiring a stick down the filler pipe to check the fuel level. And the sound of the really old-style starter that predated the more familiar Hamtramck Hummingbird by several years.
I still have the 1957 Plymouth service manual and the 1959 Supplement – you know, just in case.
Ah yes, the left-hand lug bolts. Engineering masterpiece!
For J P Cavanaugh:
1959 Plymouth Savoy, Morristown NJ, 1999.
Nice!
This car had a 3-speed manual transmission:
Love the Dodge’s front snow tire on a rear wheel drive car.
I remember driving like that once. 4 unmatched tires on the car. In the trunk, jugs of antifreeze and oil, a spare and extra unmounted tire.
One memorable road trip from Tulsa to Key West in a ’58 Plymouth saw me needing the unmounted tire. A gas station guy somewhere outside Mobile looked at the unmounted tire and asked, “You seriously want that mounted? We throw away better tires.”
A short negotiation later, I departed with a better tire on the rim and several more newly acquired unmounted tires. I was $15 lighter, but much better prepared for the remainder of the road to Key West.
Life in the cheap lane.
Snow tires on the front of a rear wheel drive car were sometimes referred to as a poor man’s alignment. The thought was that if you couldn’t afford front end repairs or an alignment, the snows would wear better. It is for things like this, that many states have mandatory annual inspections.
“Life in the cheap lane.”
Indeed ! .
My ’59 Plymouth Plaza stripper two door was so cheap it didn’t have a heater much less a radio .
The Flathead i6 engine barely put out enough power to run the two speed slushbox but it has been bought as a City car so whatever .
It ran fine and had _zero_ problems unlike most other Forward Look MoPars .
I kinda-sorta miss it once in a while .
I still remember a 1959 Dodge getting towed away from my old neighborhood around 1968 or 69, after sitting for months. Not counting Tri-5 Chevys, back then, most cars before 1960 were old beaters [heaps] on last legs. {this is rusty Chcago I am talking about fyi}
In the late 1970s, a family was using a 1959 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer hardtop sedan as their daily driver in our town. It had definitely seen better days, and stood out like a sore thumb (no wheel covers, for example). Looking back, it was surprisingly free of rust for a late-1950s Mopar.
Even the cars driven by the proverbial little old ladies were mid-1960s compacts and intermediates by that point.
I guess they got the ’57 bugs out by ’59, and in these cars’ cases extra care in engineering really did go a long way.
If contemporary road tests are to be believed, Chrysler still had work to do regarding the workmanship and the quality of some interior materials on the ’59s.
At that, they had inherent issues with a weak structure. It’s probably no coincidence both of these long-term survivors are post sedans rather than hardtops.
I understand that the structure got shored up quite a bit by 59. My friend’s dad who had a 57 and remembered vividly how awful it was drove my 59 and told me it was much, much stiffer than his 57 had been.
But it still creaked and flexed a little on uneven road surfaces. The Unibodies of the 60s were so much better.
A neighbor where we used to live had a ’59 Royal, a gorgeous black-and-silver paint job. It looked like he had done a lot of restoration on it, and we’d see him driving it often. We moved to a different neighborhood in 2000, and I haven’t seen that car since.
Front view:
That car looks like it means business.
Another side view:
Dashboard shot:
My father was 24, a newly minted Medical Doctor in 1957, ready to buy his first new car. He settled on a ’57 Ford Fairlane 500 convertible, after seriously considering the ’57 Plymouth, which was all the rage and seemed so excitingly modern. His heart wanted the Plymouth. his head went with the Ford He’s 84 now and only drives what I consider to be boring Lexus sedans, always in white. Me, I’d love to go back to the past, I’d take any and all Chrysler Corp. cars from ’57 and ’61, and a single ’57 Ford. I know about all the quality control problems ad nauseam about the Forward Look cars, but if you look at film footage, movies, and TV from the era well into the 60s you see plenty of them. I actually had something of a phobia against cars with fins in the early 60s (years before Christine) and perceived them as sinister, malevolent, and hideous. This was partly based on two traumatic experiences. The first was my mother telling me a cautionary tale about a little boy who had been ejected from the back seat of a big Chrysler product, and being scraped and bruised horribly in the street. The second incident was being told that the reason Sammy Davis, Jr, had lost an eye and had to wear a glass eye was that his eye had been impaled on the sharpest point of the fin of a ’59 Cadillac during an accident. So now, 60 years after my father’s Fairlane, I’m “stuck” driving a 2002 Dodge Stratus. It may not be a classic from the late 50s/early 60s, but it is 15 years old. It may have 270,000 miles on it but it is a daily driver. It may not be a Forward Look but it is a Cab Forward. And last, but not least, its a Dodge.
You’re close on the Sammy story. He was driving a new ’54 Caddy, which had a protruding “nosecone” from the steering wheel. He was involved in a garish accident that threw his face against the wheel, causing him to lose his eye. It got a lot of publicity in the day and according to his autobiography, Cadillac changed their steering wheel to a dished design because of that.
’54 Eldo
My parents had a 1958 Dodge Coronet 4 dr. sedan similar to this. It was ugly new, and even uglier old.
IMHO, the 1959 took essentially the same ugly and drove it way past redemption. The 4 dr. sedans are the most ungainly; the 2 dr. hardtops and convertibles can be attractive.
I know others’ opinions may differ, but that is my take on these.
When I see something like this I always do a little math in my head.
A 59 Dodge in 86= 27 yrs old
Today’s equivalent= 1990 Dynasty?
So I guess my question is would a 1990 Dynasty stand out as much in 2017 and more importantly… would we care?
Interesting, Bill.
Excellent comparison. Would a 1990 Dodge Dynasty stand out in 2017? Yes, but not as much as the ’59 in 1986. The styling of modern automobiles isn’t so dramatically different today than 1990. Only car people would notice. Or care.
When I drove that 20 year old 59, *everyone* noticed it. I got comments everywhere I went because it just dripped with personality.
I will say that my kid’s former 89 Grand Marquis had that kind of effect on those of his college age group, though less so for we older folks. Those pre-Taurus square-edge designs are as uncommon now as fins were then.
Besides the styling, I’m guessing it was a lot less common for a car to actually still be on the road after 20 years back then compared to today. I was born in 1980 and I don’t remember there being a lot of 1950s or 60s cars on the road during my childhood when those cars would have been 20-30 years old — our neighbor up the street had a 1957 Chevy (which I thought was incredibly cool), but that was more of a hot rod than just an old car. But today it’s not really that uncommon to still see 1990s or even 1980s cars still being driven.
Even though I live in the land that rust forgot and lots of people here drive them, I still get similar comments to the uniqueness and beauty of my ’89 e30 Cabrio. And notes under the windshield wipers to sell it…
In 1965 I was 17, I already had gone through a bunch of cars, always looking for keepers. I was driving a Mini-Cooper to school one day, past a car lot. I’d had a fair amount of problems with it, and when I saw a solid white ’59 Dodge Coronet Lancer 2 door with D-500 emblems, I stopped to look, I could always go to school. It was equipped exactly as if I’d ordered it. The Coronet series has thinner chrome on the lower body, smaller fin beginnings so the fins look longer, and this one had no hood ornament of rear side hash marks, I disliked both (trimmed like the sedan here), And had the stainless over the front wheel wells, and instead of the normal Coronet lettering on front fenders it had the emblems just ahead of the front wheels in the trim dip. The interior was like new (only 6 years old) in red/black/white and mylar chrome, with power everything, including 6 way power swivel seats, automatic dimming inside mirror, headlight dimmer, autopilot, heat/A/C/rear defrost, signal seeking radio w/foot changer, padded dash and visors, deep tinted glass all around, inside chrome trim, and TorqueFlite pushbutton trans, with two four barrel carbs, it was a SUPER D-500, with heavy duty suspension and posi traction. It had chrome rims with baby moons and narrowline whitewalls, it also had the chrome fin inserts. It had not been detailed yet, but did not have a chip anywhere. The dealer was an older guy, and was looking at my highly detailed Mini. He told me, “Start her up” the keys were in the Dodge. Two cranks and she fired up, moving the body to the right as it did. He yelled over, “Think it needs a tune up, doesn’t run too smooth.” i knew it was a very healthy engine with a very hot cam. We traded strait across. The rear power windows worked slow, but did work, and the fronts were fine. The engine idle gave a full body massage. Almost forgot, it was lowered an inch to inch and a half. I pulled out on the main street, and when the light a block away turned green I punched it. HOLY GOD !!!!! It slammed me into the seat back and left two perfectly strait rubber strips for TWO BLOCKS with smoke still rising from them. I was in love. The prior owner had provided at least a couple of hundred extra horses under the hood and enormous torque. I detailed it to showroom looks, then picked up a friend for a ride. On a winding, fun road, on a strait, I punched it for a second, the car lunged forward and JT screamed. I asked what happened, he didn’t answer, so I did it again. He screamed again. I asked again. He said “I don’t know what happened, but don’t do that again!” I turned on the interior light and his right leg was wet. The heater control valve had shot scalding hot water on his leg…twice. I had a set of original Chrysler wire wheels from another car, and decided to switch them onto the Dodge with a set of wide whitewall Goodyear Blue Streak tires. My Dodge had lug nuts on the brake drums studs, I know because I broke three off the left front drum before I realized it was left hand thread. After fixing that, with those mounted, 90% of the people who saw the car thought it was a Chrysler 300. Within two weeks I destroyed the wire wheels. too much power. So, I put the chrome rims back on with wire baskets and three bar knock offs on, it looked like wires but didn’t break. I had it four years, and in that time it never lost a drag race. With five people on board 0-60 was less than 7 seconds, top end over 140 mph. Believe me, the ’59’s were built strong, I would have torn it apart with all the drifts, 180’s and everything else I did to it. This was long before “Christine”, but the Dodge was taking on a character of it’s own. It decided to not do anything but race and go fast. If I wanted to cruise in the country it would die and strand me there. There are so many stories associated with the Dodge, but I’ll leave it with this. It was an incredibly beautiful car that I loved…and hated a bit. I sold it to an ex girlfriend, who sold it to someone in England. I’m actually glad there is an ocean between us. I also want an identical car back, just not that one.
“posi traction” is a GM brand name for locking rear differential.
Chrysler’s name is “Sure Grip”. Ford is “Trac-Loc”.
And they of course all came from “Twin Traction”, as introduced by Studebaker-Packard Corporation in 1956!
Couldn’t remember the Chrysler term for it, I did remember my ’56 Packard Patrician and Studebaker Golden Hawks (56 and 57) had the Twin Traction. Among the cars bought cheap at the local Chrysler dealership was a ’58 New Yorker 2 door hardtop, metallic brown with white roof, it was filthy, but cleaned up like new. (I think I could have gotten the Dodge this is about into show condition as an original) It had A/C full power and Sure Grip along with 392 Hemi and TorqueFlite. I was enjoying it, everything seemed fine, until it whipped around backwards on the freeway into the oleanders separating lanes at 75 mph. It happened so fast I had no clue what happened/ Nothing was damaged except scuffs in the paint that buffed out. The car was taken to the dealer and checked out, they couldn’t find anything wrong. I drove it carefully at lower speeds, and when I finally went back on the freeway there was another excursion into the oleanders at 65 mph backwards. This time they tore the rear end down completely. I didn’t understand the explanation, but one side of the sure grip locked at highway speeds. (Had my ’66 Imperial do the same spin into the divider years later, but it was from a large rock on the road that hit the eyelet the parking brake cable runs through, bent it up and locked the left rear brake) The ’58 was repaired, but I didn’t want a chance at three excursions and sold it to an old fellow in the neighborhood who couldn’t afford to buy a car, he never drove on the freeway. He was always super nice, and helped any way he could for neighbors. I sold the New Yorker to him for $1, and helped maintain it until he passed on.
It’s one of those car message board pet peeves, when posters call any locking diff. a “posi”. 😉
For my money, the right car with this body is the ’57 Chrysler. Here’s a somewhat distorted image of that car:
http://www.plan59.com/cars/cars336.htm
Or, if you prefer, the DeSoto:
http://www.travelgumbo.com/blog/cruisers-american-cars-in-stockholm?reply=361443895861272823#361443895861272823
Note the crisp, squared-off rear window, and compare to the Dodge and Plymouth, above.
Of course, the Plymouth had those nifty, geometrically pure conical wheel covers . . .
There’s no denying these big Mopars stand out from the crowd.
So few on the road now you might not even come across one at a car show. This 59 Dodge Custom Royal Hardtop has a couple of custom touches. Only 5,019 produced.
I think that two tone paint work around the front grille area is unique. Not many cars could lend themselves to such artwork.
Don’t know that I’ve ever seen a ’59 Dodge on the street, but there was a nice copper/white ’57 or ’58 Dodge sedan at a local repair shop recently, so that’s sort of a “backwards sorta CC effect”.
I do have some interaction with a forward look mopar that still sees regular service in 2017 though. There’s a retired fellow around town who drives a ’61 Imperial 4-door hardtop, the last year for the fins. I spoke to him briefly once and he said he bought it about 3 years ago, so he wasn’t sure if it’s an older restoration or a well-preserved original, but it’s a solid driver. White with blue interior and roof coves. I don’t think it’s his only car, but I do think it’s the one he drives most often!
When I was in my teens, late 60s early 70s, a friend of mine used to get those old forward look sedans for nothing from a Dodge dealer friend of his parents. They would come in on trade and had no resale value so Kevin and his brother would use them tear ass around on their family’s oil lease property. That was how we all learned to drive.