Tulsa to unearth '57 Plymouth this week

Tulsa World ^

[riverdawg]

“... the American manufacturers were a good 10 years behind the Europeans when this car was built.”

In 1957? Most European manufacturers were still recovering from WWII then. VW was cranking out pre-war Beetles, and BMW wasn’t a serious, mass-market car company yet. Mercedes had the 190 SL convertible and the iconic 300 SL gull wing coupe, but the latter cost nearly 30,000 marks at the time - hardly affordable, middle-class cars like we’re talking about. The 220 and 300 series Mercedes sedans were well-built, and also expensive, but still looked like late-40s American sedans.

IMO, 1957 through 1969 was the zenith of American automotive engineering and style.

[Fester Chugabrew]

See 117 for archived remark regarding preservation measures.

[painter]

It will run fine on the unleaded gas.Except the exhaust valve seats will start to wear away at an excellerated rate because the lead in the gas back then not only helped with octane it also it protected the exhaust seats from the heat.

[painter]

Thats what I meant about moisture getting in I have a basement too. I have also seen basements stay dry as a bone. From what I can tell they went all out to keep it dry. I guess we will see this week.

[Fresh Wind]

On my advice, my parents traded it in 1966 for a new Dodge Charger with the 383 4-barrel :)

LOL! I tried the same tactic on my mom for a '69 Charger. I knew I didn't stand a chance with my dad. She said the salesman asked her why a Charger, and she told him it was at the urging of her teenage son. That was the end of that. She claimed the reason was that she couldn't pile grocery bags on bucket seats. She ended up with a Coronet, which was basically the same car. At least I convinced her to get the 318 rather than a 6.

[lexington minuteman 1775]

Somehow GW will get blamed for digging up this gas guzzling environment destroyer.
WE ARE DOOMED!

[Obadiah]

LOL.

[painter]

I saw them spraying that stuff in the video.

[Chi-townChief]

My dad liked Dodges; after a ‘51 Merc and a ‘53 Ford, he bought ‘56, ‘60, ‘64, ‘67, ‘71, ‘76 Dodges followed by an ‘83 Imperial (which he thought would be his last car.) Now he’s 91 and has a ‘97 Grand Marquis; there must be some kind of law that that’s the model you drive when you get that old.

[calex59]

Amen to that! Although my dad had a ‘57 Ford Fairlane 500, the four-door hardtop without the post, and it would give the Chevy a run for its money in the looks department. Some of the most memorable events of my life took place in that Ford on the back roads of rural Alabama in 1958. Sure would love to have that car now! It was yellow and white. I recall dad and I spending a very cold Saturday in 1958 putting dual glass packs on that car.

My best friend in high school's father bought a brand new '57 ford, salmon pink and white, we drove all over norhtern CA in that car, I never could figure out why his dad let him have the car so often, his dad always took their older '54 ford and let Steve have the new one. A real puzzler to me at that time!

[patton]

Somebody joked on an earlier thread, they will probably find two mumified teenagers in the back seat.

Well, I laughed.

[gcruse]

Suddenly, it was 1960. Plymouth's model year 1957 had brought its 1960 cars to the public. Now what would the real 1960 bring?

Three years earlier, Plymouth, under its advertising slogan "Suddenly it's 1960," had rocked the automotive world with a daring new style of car. With its lines low and wide and its fins high, Plymouth joined its corporate siblings in wresting automotive styling leadership from General Motors, which had assumed the "styling leadership" mantle as if by divine decree. In the process, the designers of the now much vaunted '57 Chevy nearly got fired for fielding such a "poor" competitor!

[beckysueb]

My Daddy had one of those! My brother has it now. Its black and has these massive tailfins. LOL

[America needs to wakeup]

If they didn’t put about 10,000 of those little desiccant packs in with it they may find nothing but some rotted tires.

[America needs to wakeup]

"I presume it was built for 'leaded' gas. What would one have to do run it on today's unleaded gas?"

Unleaded gas wasn't used in cars until 1975, during that year all cars manufactured had hardened valve seats. I use a lead additive or substitute on my 65 Ford and have for years, no problems.

[jwparkerjr]

Dad got our ‘57 Ford at an auction in Mississippi. They had bought a bunch for their highway patrol and didn’t need them all so they auctioned off the surplus. It had a huge 8-cyl v8 with a 4-barrel carb and a three-speed on the column. Sure would like to have that car today!

[jwparkerjr]

We also had the resonators, but I couldn’t tell that they made a whole lot of difference. I know that big ol’ v8 stick shift sure sounded good with those glass packs! It would had to have been the coldest day of ‘59 in Grand Bay, AL, the day dad chose to put those mufflers on the car! Took us all day and into the evening as I recall. We used to go down to Pascagoula, MI, and buy tires, retreads, for it. As I recall we paid $6.95 a tire plus a couple of bucks to have them trued and rounded and balanced. Ah, the good ol’ days. You could lift the hood and actually do something, like change the plugs or set the timing or replace the points and condenser. Those were the days!

[calex59]

At the time these cars were built(57 ford and 57 chevy)I thought the 57 ford looked better than the chevy, but the chevy became a classic and the ford faded away! Can’t account for taste:).

[battlegearboat]

I just returned from driving around midtown Tulsa.

The classic cars are arriving and tooling down Cherry Street and Peoria.

At 0800 tomorrow, they begin scraping away the topsoil.

It's a pretty sunset tonight overlooking the Arkansas River.

I love this town.

[Shaun_MD]

That was actually a 58 Plymouth Fury