American automotive customers purchased many thousands and thousands of the four-door sedans that flew off Detroit’s meeting traces within the decade after World Conflict II, and so loads of them nonetheless stay in barns, garages, driveways and yards right this moment, awaiting loving house owners who will put them again on the highway. Sadly, these with the money and time to tackle difficult classic automotive initiatives are inclined to choose coupes and convertibles, particularly these made by the higher-prestige marques. That signifies that many of those vehicles proceed to expire of time with every passing day, taking that ultimate tow-truck trip to their final parking areas. Right this moment’s Junkyard Gem is a kind of vehicles: a 1954 Plymouth Savoy four-door painted in Piedmont Maroon, present in a Denver self-service yard not too long ago.
For example of what number of of those vehicles nonetheless get crushed every year, this is a partial record of a number of the 1946-1956 American four-door sedans I’ve personally documented in automotive graveyards during the last decade or so: 1947 Dodge Customized, 1947 Frazer Manhattan, 1948 Plymouth Particular Deluxe, 1949 Dodge Coronet, 1949 Kaiser Particular, 1949 Oldsmobile 88, 1949 Plymouth Particular Deluxe, 1950 Cadillac Sixty-One, 1950 Chrysler Royal, 1950 Studebaker Commander, 1951 Chevrolet Styleline, 1951 Frazer, 1951 Lincoln Cosmopolitan, 1951 Plymouth Cranbrook, one other 1951 Plymouth Cranbrook, 1952 Kaiser, 1952 Buick Particular, 1952 Mercury Customized, 1953 Packard Clipper, 1953 Plymouth Particular, 1953 Pontiac Chieftain, 1955 Studebaker Commander, 1956 DeSoto Fireflite and a 1956 Mercury Montclair.
It is particularly robust for the 1946-1954 Plymouths, as a result of these vehicles have been seen as stodgy transportation home equipment for cheapskates after they have been new. Because the Forties turned the Fifties, most American vehicles turned longer, sleeker and flashier-looking, however Plymouths appeared to remain the identical.
For the 1955 mannequin 12 months, Plymouths acquired a clean-sheet redesign and caught up with present styling traits effectively sufficient (in all probability not coincidentally, Plymouths lastly acquired their very own dealerships in late 1954, slightly than simply being offered out of Chrysler, DeSoto and Dodge showrooms). However for 1954, one of the best Chrysler might do with the appears to be like of the more and more aged-looking Plymouth was give it a brand new grille and a few physique chrome. Bumpers have been made to stay out just a few additional inches to cheat on the general size a bit.
Chrysler’s Plymouth Division entered 1954 in third place for gross sales (behind first-place Chevrolet and second-place Ford) and had dropped to fifth by the top of the 12 months, due to Buick and Oldsmobile grabbing the third and fourth spots, respectively.
Issues appeared very old style beneath the ’54 Plymouth’s hood. This can be a Chrysler flathead straight-six, a easy and dependable engine with ancestry stretching again to the Twenties; if this one is that this automotive’s unique plant, it is a 217- or 230-cubic-incher rated at 100 or 110 horsepower. Whereas Chrysler started constructing vehicles with trendy overhead-valve V8s as early because the 1951 mannequin 12 months, it wasn’t till the Slant-6 debuted for 1959 that the outdated flathead was retired from vehicles (although it soldiered on, actually, in navy vans for a lot of extra years).
Loads of new American vehicles nonetheless had flathead engines in 1954, after all; you may purchase a brand new American automotive with a valve-in-block engine design all over 1964. Nonetheless, valve-in-head designs have been shoving the outdated flatheads apart in a rush by the center Fifties. Ford launched an overhead valve straight-six for 1952 and a pushrod-equipped V8 for 1954. Chevrolets had overhead valves of their sixes going all the best way again to 1929, and everyone knows what occurred within the Chevrolet engine world in 1955.
Even the Plymouth sailing-ship hood decoration (positioned atop the engine by a junkyard shopper) appeared old style in 1954. Although Plymouth had been named after a model of twine well-liked with American farmers, the ship theme was an try to attach the model with Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower.
Plymouths did get an optionally available totally automated transmission for 1954, although this automotive has the three-speed column-shift handbook that went into most Detroit machines on the time.
The 1954 Plymouth might be bought with an optionally available Hy-Drive semi-automatic transmission in addition to the bottom three-on-the-tree or two-speed PowerFlite automated. With the Hy-Drive, you bought a clutch pedal, using which was solely mandatory for beginning out from a lifeless cease. As soon as underway, you may shift between ahead gear ranges with out touching the clutch.
Despite the fact that this automotive does not have Hy-Drive, this commercial is price a watch.
Whereas we’re at it, this is how Chrysler’s Dodge Division pitched the PowerFlite a bit later.
So this automotive was thought of hopelessly behind the occasions when it was new, however that ought to make it even cooler to somebody right this moment who needs to work on and drive a classic Detroit machine. The physique on this ’54 is nice and stable, with no rust-through that I might discover, and the inside is not the nightmare of powdered horsehair and hantavirus-laden rodent poop that you simply see in so many Excessive Plains vehicles left outside for many years. I feel it spent many of the previous couple of a long time in a storage, awaiting a revival that by no means got here.
Somebody cherished this automotive and took care of it for at the very least the primary few a long time of its life. I am guessing the checkered-flag decals date again to the early Seventies.
The half that actually hurts is the airbrushed mural on the decklid. At first I assumed the Seventies-Los Angeles-style lowrider depicted right here with a chop job and Dayton wheels was an idealized illustration of this ’54 as it might sometime be in actual life, however additional examination exhibits that the illustration seems to be based mostly on a mid-to-late-Forties Chrysler or possibly Pontiac. In any case, this automotive deserved a greater destiny.
The unique vacuum-tube radio (which needed to heat up for some time earlier than working) continues to be within the sprint. The truth that no person put in a extra trendy sound system implies that this automotive by no means acquired transformed to a 12-volt electrical system (Plymouths had 6-volt electrics till 1956). Notice the CONELRAD nuclear-attack triangle-in-a-circle symbols at 640 and 1240 kHz; 1953 was the primary 12 months for obligatory CONELRAD symbols in automotive radios, not coincidentally following the primary check of a working totally thermonuclear weapon the 12 months earlier than. The notorious Citadel Bravo H-bomb check was within the information when this automotive was brand-new.
Smokey the Bear has a message for you.
Attempt to think about this automotive again in 1954, when the inside awaited a well-dressed woman after a go to to the jewellery retailer. The truth is, the Savoy (which was the mid-grade Plymouth trim stage for 1954) listed at simply $1,853 for 1954, which quantities to one thing like $20,555 in 2023 {dollars}. That is plenty of automotive for the dough!
These easy bench seats would not have value a lot to get re-stuffed and re-skinned, by the requirements of such work.
As I usually do, I carried an outdated movie digital camera with me on this boneyard go to. This {photograph} was taken with an Ansco Shur-Shot, a New York-made inexpensive field digital camera that may have been favored by the Plymouth-buying demographic in 1954.