Junkyard Find: 1953 Plymouth Sedan
When I visited Southern California back in December, I hit the jackpot with interesting junkyard cars to photograph. In addition to stuff I haven’t shared yet, there was this fully-loaded ’82 Subaru BRAT, John DeLorean’s weird rope-drive Tempest with 540-lb four-banger, this rust-free ’84 Cressida, and this ’51 Plymouth Cranbrook. The self-service yard that had the ’51 Plymouth also had today’s Junkyard Find, which tells you a lot about how spoiled Los Angeles car freaks are.
I can’t tell if this is a Cranbrook or Cambridge or whatever, because all the trim-level-specific emblems are long gone.
Still, it’s not rusty and it’s pretty much complete. Much as we talk about wanting to save all the old cars, there’s just not much value in a battered-yet-restorable ordinary bread-and-butter four-door of this era.
Chrysler made their flathead six-cylinder engine for nearly a half-century (if you count engines made for military vehicles and stationary industrial applications), making it one of the all-time engine legends. If this is the engine that came with this car from the factory (unlikely, but possible), it’s the 217-cubic-inch version.
According to the laws that established the CONELRAD system, all AM radios manufactured between 1953 and 1963 were supposed to have the “duck and cover” frequencies of 640 and 1240 kHz marked on their dials. Either Chrysler didn’t get the word, this radio was manufactured in 1952, or it was swapped in later.
Shopping for a used Plymouth in 1953? You know where to go!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Cool old four door. Four doors are a great way to get into the classic car scene without a big investment. Anyone else interested in the yellow fastback coupe thing on the top of the doomed car stack in the background? I'm guessing it is an Opel GT, Ford Maverick, Ford/Mercury Capri, or Datsun 240/260/280z. Any guesses or interest?
I seem to remember (through a foggy lens) my aunt visiting our house in the projects circa 1957-1958; she drove one of these, and I think it was pink. I was 3, I think.