(first posted 2/16/2016) On our recent trip to the Bay Area, I got roped into going to a giant flea/antique market held in Alameda on the runways of the former Navy Air Station there. Well, there were a few things worth looking at, mainly old tools, magazines, and things like that, while nephew Aidan snapped up vinyl records from the 60s and 70s. (we split up from the women). But the best antique of the day by far was this bad-ass 1970 Sport Fury GT 440 in the parking lot.
The rear ends of these fuselage coupes are long enough to make a great landing deck; maybe that’s why its here. And this one is nicely weathered; all those planes landing and taking off have worn that deck down to the primer, or less.
The hood isn’t much shorter either. These cars have to have the biggest ratio of hood/trunk to green house of any modern car, save an old business coupe from the 40s.
The hood “power bulge” is a bit hard to see anymore, but the 440 badge is still intact.
It’s a bit hard to see, but there’s buckets, a console and floor shifter for the Torqueflite. The dash pad is as well worn as the exterior.
Bet it still makes some nice music through those big quad exhaust extensions. Heavy on the bass, undoubtedly.
“These cars have to have the biggest ratio of hood/trunk to green house ratio”
There was that awesome article about overhang ratio back in 2013:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/design-analysis-did-the-lincoln-mark-vi-have-the-biggest-overhang-ratio-ever/
Methinks we need another one about greenhouse ratio.
The Imperial had an even longer hood. The Imperial Parade car would be the king of the hood-trunk:greenhouse ratio.
Holy Crap ! I would Love to have that Imperial flower car ! How old is that picture ??
This side view gives a great perspective on how the hood on an Imperial was longer than the Chrysler.
Wow–that is very illustrative. Longest hood of the modern era?
The Jag XKE’s hood *looks* a mile long, but that’s compared to the very short rest of the car. I’ll bet in absolute length this Imperial would have it beat.
Now imagine a side view like that of a 2 door or the previous pic of the parade car(which is a special version of a 2 door with no back seat and the green house shortened up)
My favorite Mopar is the 1970 Sport Fury GT.
I know someone who has a Sport Fury 4 door hardtop. It has bucket seats but no console.
Here’s a picture…
Same interior color
I should have cared removing that floor mat to show the seat.
The part I like most!
That’s the same car I took my driver’s test in!
Well, if it was dark green, with a medium green vinyl top…
And a Fury III…
And if it had a 383 2-bbl and single exhaust.
At least the 2-door part is right! 😉
The big CHRYSLER CORPORATION decal on this 1970 Ply leads into:
RIP John Riccardo, the least famous CEO of Chrysler. Took power in 1970, realized he wasn’t what the company needed, had the good sense to hand the reins to Iacocca in ’79. Very few CEOs serve the company by giving up power. Usually they have to be dragged off the stage kicking and screaming and suing.
Agree on Riccardo, although I thought he got the job later, in 1975 when Townsend retired. [Edit – President in 1970, Co-Chairman 1975] And, in a fit of ego, Townsend figured that it took two men to replace him, so he named Riccardo and Gene Cafiero as co-chairmen. Two co-chairmen who, as it turned out, simply could not work together.
Edit – I had not realized that Riccardo just died. His obituary can be read here. http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2016/02/15/former-chrysler-ceo-john-riccardo-died/80399134/
Bill Ford Jr. would be another example.
Is it me, or did anyone else spot the irony of the “Love Your Mother Earth” bumper sticker on the back of a car that could have its fuel economy expressed in “Gallons Per Mile”?
Love these old fuselage cars… Make mine a 1969 2-Door Polara… I call them “The Impala Years” because from the back, the untrained eye might mistake those taillights for the taillights an Impala.
Irony eh?
I know exactly what you mean. I traded a 71 Dodge Charger for my dads 71 dodge polara because it was a beautiful car and there was nothing like it in our city.
The memories of seven large men comfortably cruising down the interstate running 80-100 mph on the way to Uof K football games is something I’ll cherish forever. The capacity of the trunk is impossible to explain to somebody other than a moonshine runner of the same era.
These cars are long gone and mostly forgotten except for a lucky few who were fortunate enough to experience it . It really was downright scary the way these land yatchs “floated “ down interstates so smooth and isolated from bumps , vibrations, and any feel of the road thru the steering wheel what so ever. Rolls Royce, Bently and any other luxury brand had nothing on the mopar barges that never really got the appreciation they deserved.
Sorry, not a patina fan. This poor thing needs to be adopted by somebody who can afford to restore it. It’s not like this thing is a Road Runner or Hemi GTX. It’s RARER than either of those.
I’d prefer mine like this.
I was thinking the same thing. These are so ridiculously rare that they should get the same kind of TLC a 70 B/E/A body would. I know the “it’s only original once” ferver will stomp that notion but this isn’t just any C body. I’ve NEVER seen one of these before outside out of old brochures, I doubt many anyone else has either, I really hate that this is the only one in the wild I’ll be able to imagine
Rare doesn’t necessarily equate to desirability though. Those Fury GTs pop up for sale every so often and when they do, they sell for pennies on the dollar compared to their B-and E-Body cousins.
I passed on buying this ’70 SFGT 3 or 4 years ago because the cost of a restoration was far greater than what I knew I could get for it if I had to sell it. Im not a car flipper and not in the hobby to make money but since its not a car I desperately had to have, I wasn’t going to just throw money at it knowing I could never recoup my investment.
I’m not saying it’s worth it or not, I just think the desirability of patina is undesirable on a car with so few in tact examples. This one’s in such sad shape I’d probably brush it off as just another ratty C-body if it weren’t pointed out. If I were a collector I certainly wouldn’t mind the full Plymouth rapid transit system lineup on display at my garage/museum.
You posted a photo of a B7 blue1970 Plymouth Sport Fury GT you were considering to buy back in February of 2016. Is there any way to know whether the vehicle sold or maybe you still have the contact information for the seller at the time? I have been looking for one of those to buy and thought I might as well give contacting you a try, just in case you might still have some information.
Boy, that poor car has really suffered sitting on that damp concrete. The wheel wells 😯
Or possibly this,
Definite restoration project. Dry surface rust can be fixed and then repainted. The dashboard can be recovered, as can any tears in the upholstery. Find a Kiwi buyer and your valueless heap will be transformed into a very valuable asset.
Patina is the new black out here too plenty of sunburnt paintjobs gettin around on Kiwi roads these days, WOF inspectors have finally figured out surface rust is just that, an exterior finish not a problem. I’d happily drive that car as is.
But I’ll pass on the S23 version. Get it? S23 alluded to the 230 HP rating of the 318.
Kind of like a jumbo version of Maverick Grabber or a slant six Duster with stripes.
Actually,the ’23’ part referred to the body code for the 2-door hardtop. Top powertrain combo was the 383 4bbl combo (if my rusty memory serves me correctly…)
You are correct. 318, 383-2 and 383-4 were the only engines available on the S/23.
One of the lesser known of the Plymouth Rapid Transit System, the other four members (in 1970) being:
Duster 340
‘Cuda
Road Runner
GTX
The Sport Fury GT could also be had with the 440-6v engine (but not the Hemi). Not many were built and it was the only year that combination was available.
No other brand covered the musclecar market as heavily as Plymouth in 1970. There was a musclecar in every size category:
Compact
Ponycar
Intermediate (2)
Full-size
Interestingly, Dodge did not have a Polara/Monaco version of the SFGT. In fact, they seemed to be going in the other direction as there was a Polara ‘Special’ that came with a slant-six.
As much as I love this car (and I really, really do) poor Plymouth was still hawking performance and attitude with its big coupe when Chevy and (especially) Ford were mopping up cash with their big cars geared towards luxury. As always in the Townsend years, Plymouth was 3 or 4 years behind the competition.
They were trying hard on that angle with the concurrent VIP and later Sport Fury Brougham
(avail concurrently with this BTW) and finally Gran Sedan and Gran Coupe.
They failed every time. In the low-price blue collar luxury segment, Ford LTD reigned supreme. The Caprice was a plausible 2nd place effort.
They tried to give away an upscale look at a Custom 500 price in ’70 and still got no takers. JP always said the big Plymouth market died after the the ’73 OPEC crisis, I maintain it was well on the way out before that.
Plymouth went from one of the “Low Priced three” or Top 3 seller to also-ran real quick. Trying to keep the muscle car era going in 1971 certainly didn’t work. The fuselage styling was too racy for average big car buyers, too, and went to GM/Ford in spades.
For ’72-’73, Fury went more luxo, but never caught up, and the ’74 “GM Look” restyle flopped badly. Only cop cars sold OK, but the Dodge Monaco “Bluesmobile” is more well known.
Chrysler really couldn’t catch a break on their large car styling. Even when they tried something a bit different from copying GM, the cars still wouldn’t sell.
I’m not so sure you can really blame the poor guys at Plymouth for not pushing luxury. Looking at the production/sales numbers for 1970 shows that Ford sold nearly 5 LTD 2 doors for every 1 Plymouth VIP 2 door. Numbers for the Caprice 2 door are not at hand but it appears Chevy sold almost as many Caprice 2 AND 4 doors as Ford sold 2 doors.
In 1971, Plymouth no longer built VIPs, pretty much ceding the market to Ford and Chevy.
I may have mentioned it before, but the neighbor (Rest in peace, Mr. G)across the street growing up was the service manager at the local Chry-Ply dealer. He used to get a new Plymouth demo every year and his ’70 issue looked much like the blue GT in the brochure pic above . Except it wasn’t: (
I still remember when his new ’69 got robbed for body parts to fix a customers car in the Fall of ’68 when they still were brand new. Drove it home minus the rear bumper and extension moldings.
Dealers still rob parts off stock cars to get cars in service dept back on the road but there is no way cars would leave with parts missing.
Hence the main problem with the big Mopar stuff of the time: horrid quality control. Getting a good one meant a big, powerful car that handled well for the time. Getting a bad one meant days at dealers who did nothing to fix the cars.
The ratio wasn’t very good, either. I’d hazard a guess that only 30% of big Chryslers were decently put together at the factory.
I’d say it was 20 percent…i.e. a Wednesday car. The Monday morning and Friday afternoon cars were the worst according to lore.
In clunker condition. How do you lot afford to run these things as daily drivers with gas mileage in the teens?.
‘Weathered and worn’ doesnt necessarily mean ‘clunker’. The body seems pretty straight, rust free and trim looks mostly accounted for. That big block may well be in perfect tune. And a car payment can run several hundred dollars, not to mention depreciation and insurance. That stuff adds up, so an old sled like this may actually be more economical in the long run.
Gas is $2.70 a gallon right now! I have been driving my ’65 Galaxie a lot more regularly this past year or so. Also depends on how far you go—a car payment is going to cost more than the extra gas on this beast unless your daily commute is pretty bad.
Gas is $1.50 a gallon here. Woooooooooooooooooo!
Now if the price of an oil change would drop to match it…
UK its 99p per litre. You do the conversion. Its the cheapest since 2006.
My buddy up in Vancouver BC is paying 99 CDN cents So its 1/2 the cost here
and his still paying tax and a fee towards BC mass transit projects. Rip off Britan again!
In Edmonton, Alberta where we have a number of refineries, the price per litre was 57 cents last week. We’ve since bumped up to 70 cents for regular.
$1.13 in Oklahoma City!
Teens? My God, man – I come from a time when something in the teens was economical. It was only when you got down into single digits that there was a problem. 🙂
That’s right! People forget – or the young ones didn’t experience – the time when domestic economy compacts typically got about 18 miles per gallon in normal driving, dropping to maybe 13 or 14 mpg as 1970s emission controls tightened. Only those little furrin cars would regularly break the 20 mpg barrier.
We used to have a ’73 Hornet six with automatic, purchased new. It was reliable as an anvil for the 10 years we owned it but dang was that thing a gas hog. It only got marginally better mileage than an intermediate or even full-size car. A relative had a Dodge Dart of similar vintage and it was even worse.
My ’68 el Camino with a three speed on the column and a 250 six would get 17-18 back in the 65 mph era. And that was without a/c. A 307 would have gotten better.
Could you get them in panther pink?
Wow, that is quite a mental image. It was 1970, though….
Plymouth is Moulin Rouge!
And it appears so! http://www.pantherpink.com/fm3283.htm
Thanks Matt.
WOW. Thatd definitely get you noticed!
I had one of these Sport Fury’s for about 8 years. Sold it about 2 years ago. It was the least produced ’70 Sport Fury, a “four door sedan” with a 318, auto, PS & PB and less than 100,000 miles when I sold it. Still have the trunk Sport Fury emblem as it fell off one day while closing the trunk. Glued on trim, never used to have that problem when trim was either clipped on or screwed on, in fact you had the opposite problem when you tried to remove it. Anyway I had 8 fun years of people smiling, waving and taking time to talk about the car. I think somebody bagged it because about 6 months after I sold I saw it on CL with 20 or 21″ and wheels and for 6 tomes as much as I sold it for. To me it was like putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa.
Loco mikado, would you be interested in selling that trunk badge?
Happy to see any surviving Chrysler fuselage. So love those warp around front bumpers.
My best friend’s mom drove a ’69 Chrysler Newport like below.
One of my all time favorite cars of the late 60’s and early 70’s.
A friend was moving, so we filled my 1968 Austin Mini Wagon and went to her new home but no key. I had to go to work, so we transferred items to her Grand Fury Coupe but all would not fit in, The Mini was 1/2 the size and 1/3 the weight but held more. The only thing the Plymouth did well was lay rubber. thanks, billchrest
Forget the Eurotrash and FWD 80s and 90s junk, THATS A CAR!
I like a little bit of patina on an original, unrestored car but that’s a little much; Id like see some decent paint on that one, especially since it looks so solid.
I agree – that dark metallic blue would really be awesome if it were repainted in the same color. Even with the extreme patina, it’s still a badass sled, that’s for sure.
The Accord visible next to this Plymouth, in pics
#2 and 3, blow it away in terms of space
utilization alone.
One of Plymouth’s Rapid Transit System for 1970… Rare Mopar with the 440, too.
It has potential and worthy of a proper restoration. A very cool find.
But that one looks worse than Joe Dirt’s car.
Bad Ass? More like bad paint.
I love that RTS ad. What’s really cool is the smoke coming from the tail pipes in the background. 1970 truly was the zenith of the musclecar era.
Plymouth was still trying to sell muscle to people (even in the larger sized cars), but god bless ’em…..the horsepower enthusiast in me agrees with it.
These Sport GT Furys are attractive cars. They look pretty menacing…..even though they’re a full size, it’s still not something you’d want to take lightly, with the 440. I can imagine the ridiculous gas mileage, though!!
This is a great find- love the Fusies, especially the Plymouths. A parishioner at my old Catholic school had a dark green 1969 Plymouth Custom Suburban that looked so long and sleek pulled up to the side of the building- I remember oggling over it as an impressionable pre-teen. Even though these are actually shorter than the GM ’71-’76 cars, their high sills, low window height and crisp lines made them appear even longer. Don’t know what became of that car. . .Hopefully this one continues to serve its owner well and gets a new coat of paint on that roof in due time.
Short of a pickup from the same era in the same condition, this thing would have to be one of the quickest ways across town possible – who would dare get in your way?
I’m surprised nobody mentioned the vanity plate. This is somebody’s baby!
That series license plate was produced in the seventies. That platee, perhaps the original, has likely been with the car for a great many years!
Definitely a vanity plate, CA never had a 5 digit series plate in the 70s. I don’t know when CA started with vanity plates, but no doubt that was an early one.
Wow what a car!
The 70 SFGT had the 350hp station wagon 440 as std. The 390hp 440 6bbl was optional. The 71 SFGT had the 375hp 440 super commando std with no optional engine. The buckets and console were also an option on the SFGT.
The exhaust tips look like the 70 Challenger and the 300 Hurst, but they are unique to the SFGT.
They only made approx. 600 of these and 65 of those had the 440 6bbl. Its a very special car.
Love that plate.
Paul, I hope you share more vehicles photographed at the Alameda Flea Market. I’m sure you noticed there are plenty of antique vehicles used by the dealers such as two ’65 – ’66 Ford F-series pickups, numerous old vans, and a well used early bay window VW type 2. I think the vehicles there are at least as interesting as items for sale.
Are those GT stickers factory original? They seem like something a previous owner stuck on the car.
Love this car. One of the “last of the mohicans” of the full-size muscle car. So much attitude, and I love how the styling allows the hidden lamps and the white-letter tires to look “at home” on the same car! I’ll bet it sounds amazing when fired up.
I hate those giant GT stickers though. And the front/back windshield decals aren’t any better. To each their own style…
The fuselage cars were the last decent big cars Mopar made until the cab-forward cars (and were more reliable than the cab-forwards). I loved the big, tank-like structure of my grandpa’s purple Fury III two-door. And those impossibly high-backed bench seats – like airplane seats. The 70-71 models were especially striking looking with the optional hidden headlamps. The fuselage worked best on the Plymouths for some reason, at least to me. I’m biased because of my grandpa I guess.
I think the Chrysler 300 has the best front bumper and grill
i own 3 of them..all have the gas guzzler 390HP 440-6 engine option..V code in vin for you numbrs nerds.. ..neatest cars ever.. PH23VO
I’m looking for one to buy. Do you have one for sale? Doesn’t have to have an engine as I’m going to drop in a newer motor. Thanks.
I love the Fuselage Mopar era ! It’s nice that the folks on this site aren’t too critical about their general size, no matter which body style. For those that have never ridden in one, just imagine sitting in your most comfortable recliner as you cruise the country side without a car in the world….aahh bliss !! Here are pic of my Behemoth Mopar !!! Keep driving them !!!
I’ve got to weigh in on gas mileage for that era. It wasn’t nearly as good as some were speaking of. I knew a guy with a ’64 Imperial. Dunno what engine except if you rev’d it up in neutral it would smoke. He claimed he got 4MPG, then after a tune up got 6! And he was driving down to see his girlfriend 60 miles away most days. Guy was in his 40’s.
I briefly had a ’64 Buick Electra. Long story I’ll not bore you with here. It could get 15-16 on the highway, moving pretty good, but in town with an egg under my foot it was 12. Keeping up with traffic was 10.
Mom had a ’63 Ford Galaxie. 289 2 with the glamorous Fordomatic. It got 10.
In town on the latter two were more suburbs/commute, not nearly downtown LA or NYC.
I don’t remember gas mileage being that bad. Large cars maybe 12 mpg. Midsize and smaller cars somewhere around 15 to 18 mpg. VW’s in the mid 20’s. A gas engined motor home might be below 10 mpg. If you had a 289 Ford that got 10 mpg I’m guessing it wasn’t tuned right or the gas pedal was used as an on/off switch. I’m sure YMMV, but in general that’s what I remember.