As the 1958 Plymouth Suburban has been well-covered at CC by Kevin Martin here in 2020 and by Steve Crutchfield here more recently, I won’t try to duplicate their fine efforts. Instead, I’ll expand on the painful incident I briefly related in my introductory bio with some family (mostly automotive) background added for interest.
Much ink has been spilled over the years regarding the indifferent build quality of Virgil Exner’s new-generation “Forward Look” cars which Chrysler Corporation debuted for the ’57 model year (and mildly face-lifted for the recession year of 1958). In this case, though, I’d like to defend their less-than-stellar build quality. If the body integrity of our family’s ’58 Plymouth Suburban had been any tighter, I might not be typing this missive with both hands today.
Picnics, place-mats, potting soil, and Plymouth?
I suppose my parents opted for the relatively rare two-door Custom Suburban because they were afraid that their already car-obsessed five-year-old son might open a rear door at speed. Remember, this was long before child seats were widely used. And seat belts? The market’s apparent disdain for Ford’s 1956 seat belt option ($9 then, about $102 today) has been documented elsewhere, and the first Volvo equipped with three-point belts didn’t arrive until August 1959…
At any rate, I remember clambering into the second-row seat of the Plymouth, steadying myself by grabbing the passenger’s-side B-pillar just as my mother, getting into the passenger’s side at the same time, accidentally closed the door on my chubby little fingers. Fortunately, no lasting harm was done. My memory is a bit hazy after all these years, but I’m pretty sure that ice cream was somehow involved in the recovery process.
I don’t remember much about our specific ’58 Suburban, just that it was primarily black with a white roof and “Sport Tone” trim separating a white spear on each lower body-side. There was a V8 under the hood, most likely the base 318, as the gold-tone grille-mounted “V” proudly proclaimed. To a five-year-old, the most unusual features of the wagon’s black-and-white embossed vinyl interior were its space-age push-button transmission controls and dashboard-mounted inside rear-view mirror.
Standing next to the Plymouth with Dad. Note the sliding second-row windows, a detail I had forgotten.
The Suburban was purchased new from Heckman Motor Sales, Inc., in Ossining New York, on June 27th 1958, very near the close of the model year. Heckman was probably in a hurry to move the last remaining ’58s before the face-lifted ’59s started arriving the the dealership. I’m guessing that my dad likely got a decent deal on our two-door wagon, which replaced the ’51 DeSoto of last Sunday’s post. It was the only vehicle in the family, since Mother commuted to her Doubleday job in NYC via train from our Westchester County home and didn’t need a car. Indeed, she didn’t even hold a driver’s license at the time.
That would all change when Mom accepted the position of chief copy editor at Silver Burdett, a northern-NJ textbook publisher. We moved from Croton-on-Hudson, New York to Morris Plains, New Jersey in 1959, and not too long after that, the family fleet changed again, a subject to be examined in next week’s COAL…
Further reading:
COAL: 1958 Plymouth Custom Suburban – Dad’s Biggest Regret
COAL: 1958 Plymouth Sport Suburban – The Martin Family Truckster
Childhood memories often include some form of of car door and finger interactions.
There are some vague memories of me experiencing such an occurrence, but the details are fuzzy except that it was the most pain ever experienced until my appendix burst in middle school and I crawled the short distance home on my hand and knees. But I digress.
Yes, the push button transmission selectors were neat (and safely out of reach of kids riding in the front seat) and I recall the dash mounted mirror which eliminated that “eyes and head up” visual reach when using a top-of-the-windshield mirror.
(see photo of Bill Hickman below)
There are no memories of whether the ’57 Chrysler dash mirror represented a problem for me; I was too busy fiddling with the radio, mashing the gas pedal, and being an a**-hole teenage driver with a wet ink driver’s license.
The part of the trim in your photo is similar to trim used by Desotos of that era. Based on a quick network image search, 2 door Plymouths were very rare.
Wasn’t he the “bad guy” who drove the black 1968 Charger in Bullitt?
My dad traded in his 57 Ford Ranch Wagon (overheating, smoking), for a 58 Plymouth sedan, 6cyl, 3 on tree. Only problem was it had the flathead 6 and if he went through a puddle, water would collect in the spark plug depressions and stall out. Pull over and wait a few minutes for the water to evaporate and away we went!
Memories this was the first car I was behind the wheel a 6y old on my father’s lap steering & shifting ( manual column shift ) it was the most strip down car to the point not even a radio !! I think heater / defroster was the only option & that mite of been NYS requirement ! lol ! Second to the last year flat 6 ! it was red with white roof & bl. & wh. interior only a few years latter it rotted over head lites & he fixed & repainted it carmel tan he put rocker trim panel to hide the rot ! lol then in 64 we bought a 61 Chrysler Newport wag. at least it was a step up ! lol then a 66 Imperial in 1970 well that was the highest ! even duel A/C ! lol but miss that 58 wag today I’d put a 440 4sp.
I too nearly lost a number of chubby little fingers via a Plymouth station wagon door. A ’61 in my case. I remember very little of the incident other than the flash of shock and surprise and my mother screaming. I still cringe from just remembering that little bit. Fortunately, all was well.
A much more clear memory was about 10 or 11 years later when a similar thing happened – again, to my fingers – only that was due to my little sister deciding to activate the power window in a ’71 Town and Country’s right side passenger door as I had my hand wrapped around the door frame standing next to the open door. I don’t think that auto-reversing mechanisms were integrated into Chrysler windows at that time. Either that, or it was broken. Ouch.
Great post and pictures…looking forward to the next chapter.
Since we both lived in Morris Plains, I’m sure we remember a lot of the same things. I lived off Malapardis Road on Cross Road from 1967-2000. And I’m sure you saw certain places and things that had changed greatly or vanished by the time I came along.
The distinctive Colonial style brick Silver Burdett building on Park Avenue & Columbia Turnpike was demolished about 20 years ago. I saved a little piece of it–When it was being torn down, I salvaged a mirror from the bathroom which I had cut to fit a Victorian Eastlake mirror frame that I got from another demolition site. The mirror had a date of 1966 stamped on the back. I still have the mirror.
I like two door wagons, I think the light blue looks good on these .
IIRC it was in ’59 when my fingers were crushed in the driver’s side rear door frame of our IHC Travelall .
So many strippers back then, now a buyer can get so many things standard .
-Nate
Nearly every child seemed to have a door-finger mishap until child seats became the rule. Anyone believe that was too much government intervention?
@ Zipster ;
I don’t agree .
In my case it was failure of the parents to teach me basic safety rules .
Seatbelts had zero to do with it .
I made sure my then young son knew safety and didn’t mindlessly yell at him to only exit the curb side of the car so he never mashed his fingers nor did he ever open the street side door into traffic .
Non of this is difficult, it just takes an Adult to care and to act like, well, an Adult .
-Nate
My child injury story occurred when I clambered out of the passenger-side back seat of my mom’s ’55 Chevy 2-door. She had not yet come to a full stop on the concrete pad in front of our garage. I tumbled on the pavement, not really hurt but certainly shaken!
I shut my own fingers in the door of my aunt and uncle’s 60 Catalina sedan. That was the end of my practice of slamming the door with one hand while holding my other hand on the adjacent panel. That hurt a lot.
I found a shot showing the color combo you describe – although on a 4-door model. That was a good looking wagon!
I think you are saying that the huge panel gaps saved your fingers?
I’ve mentioned this before on CC, but my aunt bought a new 1957 Plymouth Savoy 4-door sedan, with the flathead six and push button automatic. It replaced a similar 1955 Savoy sedan.
The car was striking with its red and white exterior paint and a black and white cloth and vinyl interior. However she had so much trouble with it (I was too young to remember the details) that she swore off Chrysler and replaced the car with a 1959 Chevy Bel Air sedan.
I think powered tailgate windows usually came as standard equipment on 3 row wagons, optional on 2 row wagons.
Chrysler pioneered the roll down into the tailgate window with their early 50’s steel bodied Chrysler wagons. But the company waited until the 1957 model year for Plymouth and Dodge wagons to have roll downs. My guess as to why it took them so long for this feature to find its way to their least expensive, highest volume brands was cost. Yet in 1957, all of Chrysler Corporation wagons would be sharing the same basic bodies, and tailgates.
GM and Ford were laggards when it came to replacing the lift gate with roll downs. It took them until 1957 to finally adopt this feature, and only in their medium priced brands which, again, suggests cost was the consideration. However, the ’57 Plymouth wagon with its roll-down tailgate window ambushed Ford and Chevy whose wagons were stuck with their old-fashioned lift gates.
It was not until 1959 for Chevy and all the way until 1961 for Ford to finally offer roll-down tailgate windows in their full-size wagons.
Correction – until 1959 for all of GM wagons.
Sliding windows eh? Interesting. I imagine they had a latch of some kind to lock them shut.
I wondered about that as well, with the question “which way did they slide” and the followup of why?
I couldn’t really tell from the picture, partly because glass is clear (duh) and hard to see. But I had a precedent in my family, though my Dad’s first car (and first new car) was a ’56 Plymouth Plaza, that wasn’t it. He later bought a new ’68 Renault R10 after his ’59 Beetle was totalled parked in front of our home when brothers of my friend living down the street ran into it. The front windows wound down into the door, but the rear doors (it was a 4 door) had sliding rear windows, divided right in the middle, they slid from side to side (not into the door, 90 degrees from that) though I don’t remember which side had the opening (of course when open you’d have one half with 2 panes of glass in parallel and the opening beside it). It had a small latch that of course was only accessible from the inside that you squeezed that allowed you to slide the non-fixed pane to the side to open it.
Why did they do it that way? I don’t know exactly, I think a roll down window was possible be the doors were much thinner on foreign cars so less room for rolldown window inside the door. Because it was a 4 door, opening rear windows were desirable, on my Dad’s Beetle which I think were fixed (I think later ones popped out at the back on a front hinge).
But…the Plymouth doesn’t have thin doors, and in fact the rear windows roll down on a 4 door wagon, so why not on the 2 door? I don’t know, I’d guess the window regulator could be the same as on the 4 door if the posts were in the same place (maybe they weren’t?). Otherwise it seems to be that sliding rear window would actually cost more in terms of unique parts not used on any other model. I’d guess that the posts were in a different place than on the 4 door wagon for some reason, but would be interesting to find out…anyone still have a 2 door wagon?
I think 2 door wagons are pretty rare now, but not necessarily when they were new, though I don’t have access to any production numbers, but lots of families didn’t want to have doors that kids could open but still wanted a wagon. Kind of like the old 2 door Ford Explorer…less popular than the 4 door no doubt, but this is a different time. I can only guess that “modern” parents were more interested in easy access to the rear seat (like to put children into car seat mounted there) and there are often lockouts for the rear door latches essentially turning them into (temporary) 2 door vehicles when activated. If you carry “responsible” people back there you can activate the latches…kind of like the rear seat on a 4 door police car if you don’t trust the actions of those in the rear seat.
Dad hadn’t met my Mom yet when he bought the Plymouth (the ’56 was his only one, though he had a couple later Dodges). Mom learned to drive on her Dad’s ’51 Chrysler Windsor that had a semi-automatic, but she’s really never been comfortable with anything but a “regular” automatic. Plus, my sister and I were born (twins) so they wanted more space, so starting in ’61 up through ’84, my family’s “main” car was always an automatic wagon. The ’61 (and ’63) were AMC Classic wagons but Dad bought the other makes (interestingly, never MOPAR) wagons too. Wagons were disappearing by ’84 when he traded in his last one, but the reason had more to do with the ages of the kids, by then my twin sister and I were on our own, and 2 younger sisters were older by then, so need for a wagon in our family went away…plus…he’d moved from Vermont to central Texas, and didn’t want to wait for the rear cargo area of a wagon to also cool off when he turned on the A/C…time to cool interior is a factor if you no longer need air conditioned cargo space.