Articles: 1957 Plymouth Fury – Bad to the Bone – 224

July 24th, 2010 by NZ Classic Car

Hands up all of you who saw the movie Christine and thought, yeah, that’s not a bad-looking car — even after the prolonged attack left her almost totally destroyed

Styled with the ‘forward look’ evolved by Chrysler designer, Virgil Exner, the Plymouth Fury — with its brash tail-fins — almost immediately raised Plymouth’s stature from drab to dramatic, giving rival makes a serious run for their money. This new-found success meant that by the late ’50s Plymouth’s reputation had increased steadily, from a position as a largely unheralded low-price division in the Chrysler stable, to claiming a unique and exciting identity of its own. Leading the charge of the division’s drive to attract youthful, style-conscious buyers was the new Fury model originally introduced for 1957.

The Fury was based on Plymouth’s basic two-door hardtop body, which featured a large, toothy lower and anodised gold-coloured upper grille and, of course, those tall tail-fins sprouting from the rear guards. The Fury could be ordered in any colour as long as it was Sand Dune White. Another distinctive feature was the gold, spear-shaped trim that ran the length of the body side, culminating at a sharp point just before the car’s broad front grille. A total of 7438 Special Edition Plymouth Furys were built in 1957.

In 1956, Furys had been Egg Shell White, and in 1958 they were Buckskin Beige. But from 1959, Plymouth Furys were no longer an exclusive limited edition model, and they were available in different colours and styles.

All 1957 Furys came with only one engine option, the 216kW (290bhp), V-800 5.2-litre (318ci) V8, equipped with dual four-barrel Carter carburettors, a twin point distributor, high load valve springs, solid lifters and a special high performance camshaft.

Standard equipment on the 1957 Fury also included a dual exhaust system, Torsion-Aire suspension, bumper wing guards, gold anodised side trim, variable speed electric wipers, a Jiffy-Jet windshield washer system, dual outside rear view mirrors, a safety padded dash, electric clock, dual interior lamps and eight-by-14 Goodyear bias ply whitewall tyres, plus a 240kph (150mph) speedometer, a 3.36:1 rear axle ratio, heavy duty torsion bars, heavy duty shocks and six-leaf rear springs.

Furiously Passionate

I’m a fairly fussy type of character when it comes to cars, while those who know me think more along the lines that I’m probably just obsessive. So, how do you differentiate between a nicely restored example and a concours winner? Well, my friends, it’s called attention to detail.

Now, to some people that all seems a bit over the top when all they really want to do is drive their classic and, providing it looks the part when it’s parked up, that’s fine. Then there are those people who will painstakingly and meticulously restore every single last nut, bolt and washer to the Nth degree — ensuring not only perfection but originality as well.

Glenn Barratt is one such person. Remember in Christine, when high school nerd Arnie Cunningham (and his off-sider Dennis) have their lives changed when they discovered Christine, a 1958 Plymouth Fury, and then restored her to her original beauty? I think this storyline may apply to Glenn, as his 1957 Fury has undoubtedly changed his life. Over six years of hard graft has resulted in an absolutely stunning classic car and, when Glenn told me of his limited mechanical skills, I could gauge his outstanding achievement — especially as he carried out almost the entire restoration himself.

The Beginning

It all started back in 1985. Yes, Glenn saw Christine and told his brother — who has always been into finned tanks from the ’50s — all about it. His sibling mentioned that he knew where there was one for sale in Mt Eden and, without any further encouragement, Glenn was over there like a shot. Sure enough, the car for sale was a ’57 Fury. After some very brief negotiating, Glenn purchased the Fury (at full asking price) from the owner — who had possessed it for 21 years. The date was August 19, 1985, and after a few quick touch-ups, Glenn simply drove and maintained the car for the next 15 years.

His Fury had been imported from Hollywood in 1960 via Australia, where it was originally converted to right hand drive. It is believed to be the only 1957 Plymouth Fury in Australasia.

There was a lot incorrect on the Fury when Glenn bought it. Most annoying to him was the fact the car was right hand drive, as he believes all American cars should be left hand drive. Then a friend gave him a left hand drive dashboard. Initially, Glenn intended just to convert the Fury back to its original form and re-power it with the correct drivetrain but, as always happens, the project snowballed big time.

The original FP31 motor had been removed and lost long before Glenn bought the car, and replaced with a later model engine. Fortunately, the car retained the entire dual four-intake set-up, including the carburettors, filters and distributor.Glenn eventually imported an original FP31 V-800, rebuilt it to Fury specs, painted it up in the correct colours and had it sitting on an engine stand, awaiting transplant, while he was still driving the car.

The original transmission had also been removed and lost at the same time as the engine, and replaced with a Chrysler 727 unit. Glenn was also able to locate a correct air-cooled Torque-Flite transmission and dash control assembly push-button selector unit from Kansas.

The front hubs and brakes had also been removed, and replaced with later model items, so Glenn completely installed the correct ‘total contact’ brake system and rebuilt the entire front suspension. The differential had been replaced with a later model unit too, and Glenn acquired an original Plymouth differential, rebuilt it, detailed and painted it.

Serious Restoration

Unfortunately, the Fury had been seriously damaged at some stage, wiping out the front of the car. As 1957 parts were not available at the time of the repair, it had been rebuilt using slightly different, 1958 parts. After much searching and patience, Glenn was able to source correct new-old-stock (NOS) ’57 parts, including headlight/indicator assemblies and eyebrows, upper and lower grilles. The previous owner also removed the Fury’s original seat fabric and replaced it with vinyl inserts, no doubt due to the fragile nature of the factory cloth which was renowned for lasting only a couple of years at best. Once again, Glenn was also lucky enough to acquire the correct NOS Fury fabric from SMS Interiors.

Once the entire front clip was removed to commence the left hand drive conversion, work began on stripping the firewall, and it soon became obvious that there were some serious rust issues. Apparently, this is a common fault with all Mopars of this vintage due to the poor design and rushed assembly back in 1957, as assembly lines struggled to keep up with demand. This resulted in poor assembly techniques, ultimately causing rust issues after just a few years.

After hand stripping much of the car, it was quickly apparent to Glenn that rust was also alive and well under all those shiny layers of paint, so it was booked in for a trip to the Kiwi Metal Polishers in Rotorua, which uses an alkaline-based stripping method and has dipping tanks big enough to take an entire car.

Upon its return from the dippers about eight weeks later, the sad reality was revealed — years of very poor Australian and New Zealand metal repairs, evidenced by metal patches brazed over rusty metal. It was probably about now that Glenn wished he had never started his Fury project!

Mike Wood from Restoration Panelbeaters spent the next three years in Glenn’s garage, replacing all the rusty metal — which involved completely disassembling the shell. The rear quarters were removed from the car and put to one side while extensive rust in the areas behind the rear quarters was addressed. All repairs were carried out to a butt weld, hammer and file standard, even in areas which will never again be seen.

A lot of this panel fabrication was done from scratch, as very little is available for these cars by way of reproduction panels. Much of the floors inside the car were replaced, with Mike reproducing the panels exactly — including all the swages and grooves. The entire boot floor was removed, right back to the area behind the back seat and, using an incomplete rust-free boot floor from a ’58 as a base, Mike reproduced the floor and outer extensions. As a section of the original boot floor patch panel was missing, Glenn needed to recreate the missing original groove swages, so he had a toolmaker make up some rolling wheels which fitted a rolling machine owned by Tony Katterns, who rolled the new swage grooves into Mike’s new boot floor panel.

Like aggressive cancer, rust had spread into every panel over the years, even the roof hadn’t escaped its unstoppable force. Starting with the rocker panels, Mike fabricated every panel from scratch, reproducing every minute detail of the original assembly down to the size, angle and placement of the little drain troughs under the rocker panels. The boot-lid was completely de-skinned off its frame to address the rust around the edge, and was then repaired, hammer and filed, and reinstalled over the frame.

The new ’57 front panels which Glenn had acquired only required minor cosmetic repairs to become perfect, and the rust free doors just needed some final finishing. While the body was at its most disassembled state Glenn took the opportunity to polish the bare metal, then etch prime, undercoat and double topcoat all the areas that are not seen and come unprotected from the factory. Only then did Mike reinstall the outer skins.

All Plymouths of this vintage have a satin blue/grey-coloured primer in the areas that are not seen under the floor, behind all the panels, under the bonnet and boot-lid. This colour was matched from a local 1958 Fury that shares the same paint colour in those areas. Glenn turned his garage into a spray booth and sprayed all these areas in PPG DP40, followed by three coats of the blue/grey colour. With this treatment, Glenn knew the Fury would never rust again.

Countless Hours

As the months ticked by, Glenn started working on the chassis whilst Mike continued hammering and filing his way through the body panels.

Glenn had a certified welder swap over the steering idler bracket back to the correct side, the only certified welding needed for the LHD conversion. The chassis was then sent off to Rotorua for dipping whilst Glenn prepared all the chassis components for POR-15 primer, then POR-15 chassis black. The chassis was also given the POR-15 treatment when it returned from the dippers.
Over the following months Glenn proceeded to build up the chassis, restoring all the components piece by piece and replacing all replaceable parts, including fabrication of all brake and fuel lines himself. Eventually, the chassis was sitting fully assembled and completely independent of the body, to a point where Glenn was able to start the engine and break in the cam.

With the bodywork still underway, Glenn spent countless hours during nights and weekends restoring everything else on the car. He mounted the donor, left hand drive dashboard on its own mini-rotisserie stand and assembled the dashboard piece by piece, including wiring, without fear of the fresh paint being disturbed. Most of the dash gauges are genuine NOS parts, and the original Search-Tune radio was overhauled and re-chromed. Glenn also disassembled the odometer to reflect what was to become a brand new car — now reading 000000miles.

The dash pad was a problem. Glenn did not have a dash pad, because his car did not originally have one, plus it had been converted to right hand drive. However, by using a 1958 Fury dash pad as a template, he made a new two-piece mould out of fibreglass and cast up a dash pad. The recreated dash-pad was covered in vinyl, vacuum formed by Dashboard Restorations Ltd, and then coloured.

Tackling the glass posed a whole new set of problems for Glenn. He discovered that most of the original glass was scratched and damaged beyond repair, so he took digital pictures of the glass safety ‘bug’ and had printing screens made to recreate this bug on new side glass. He then took the old glass to Metro Glass, which cut new side glass in the correct tint — etching Glenn’s safety ‘bug’ before toughening each piece as it as from the factory. The result is NOS side glass with correct Mopar date-coded ‘Solex Herculite’ safety bugs.

During the disassembly and restoration of many components, Glenn found that most of the fasteners throughout the entire car were showing signs of rust and age. Whenever he disassembled anything, he would dip the fasteners in Jenolite — which removes the old zinc plating and any corrosion — dry them and then spend hours wire wheeling the finish back to shiny bare steel. Once he had a good selection of cleaned fasteners, he would go to a local zinc plating shop late at night, string the components up on copper wire himself, then return four hours later to pick up strings of shiny mint restored bolts, nuts, washers, screws, brackets and clips. Glenn found this to be quite a satisfying achievement.

Once Glenn was completely satisfied with Mike’s panel work, he began assembling the entire car including front and rear screens, side glass, regulators, door handles and catches, stainless trim and lights, virtually everything to make sure it all fitted and was gapped up nicely before final disassembly for paint.

The End in Sight

Again the body was disassembled and removed from the chassis for Steve Levene and Aaron of Imagin-Airing to apply a fresh and gorgeous coat of Sand Dune White paint.
Once painted and safely back in Glenn’s garage, the task then was to remarry the body with the chassis.

Glenn and a good buddy, Anthony Hannon, devised a way of lifting the body in the garage high enough to wheel the completed chassis assembly back under it, so it could be lowered and bolted onto new rubber mounts.

Glenn spent many more months reassembling everything in his spare time after work and on weekends. Items like the dash had been restored and covered for years, so it was a real buzz for Glenn to install all those items, which he had personally restored.

Craig Reynolds had carried out the daunting task of removing 50 years of dents and poor workmanship from the stainless trim on the car, delivering excellent quality and an outstanding finish. A large portion of the trim parts were bad — peppered with 1/8th drill holes — and all of it had suffered from previous poor repair work. The stainless trim on this car is probably better now than when it was new, thanks to Craig.

The next job was to fit the front clip and make all the connections to the engine and transmission.

To date, as far as building this car goes, Anthony Hannon was the only other person who has turned a wrench on a few nuts during the final assembly, Glenn did the rest.

The only time the Fury left Glenn’s garage during these final stages was for the fitment of a new exhaust, a wheel alignment and new carpets.

Surprisingly, as a self-employed contractor Glenn had no prior experience with building cars except for some occasional maintenance — he even had to buy his first torque wrench to tighten everything up!

Extraordinary Lengths

Glenn’s Fury was manufactured on April 16, 1957 in Detroit, Michigan, and on its 51st birthday — April 16 2008 — Glenn drove it for the for the first time after the restoration, and for the first time as a left hand drive car.

The car currently now has 1100km on the clock and has been completely trouble-free apart from the transmission, which lost all forward gears at 100km. Turns out that installing a 50-year-old NOS transmission rebuild kit and then using new 2009 ATF fluid was not a good idea.

Throughout this restoration, Glenn has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that every single part used is either original or NOS — you will not find any foreign reproduction parts on this car. That made finding things like speakers and many other various parts extremely challenging but, with enough effort, Glenn found everything he needed.

Optional equipment fitted on this Fury includes the TorqueFlite three-speed, push-button auto transmission, full-time power steering, power brakes, safety seat belts, heater, Search-Tune radio with dual rear speakers and fader, Highway Hifi 16 and 33rpm record player, dual rear antennas, twin strut rear view mirrors, under-hood lamp, trunk lamp, courtesy lamp package, glove-box lamp, tinted Plexi-glass visors, tinted Solex glass, handbrake warning lamp, rear screen defogger, bumper grille guard, and licence plate frame.

Glenn’s ultimate goal was to build a brand-new 1957 Plymouth Fury, just as it would have rolled off the assembly line. And, of course, to enjoy driving it — he’s not one to subject the Fury to travel by trailer, or to leave it parked up in the garage for very long as he enjoys every chance he gets to drive this beauty. Every time he steps aboard he relishes the new car smell and reckons the ’57 Fury has one of the sexiest rooflines in the business.

Having now owned this car for the past 23 years, Glenn has also been in contact with other Fury owners throughout the world and has collected a database of less than 50 1957 Furys left in existence.

The Fury shares a garage with a Dodge Ram daily-driven work truck and a one previous owner 1971 Dodge Monaco, the latter owned by partner, Michelle. Also on Glenn’s property are a very original Holden Kingswood and a Ford Fairlane — an unbiased mix of American and Australian marques.

During my time with Glenn, I realised that not only is he one of the most dedicated, committed and passionate people I have met, but his level of workmanship and supreme attention to detail have resulted in one truly outstanding car. We can’t wait to see his next classic project.

1957 Plymouth Fury – Specifications

Engine Chrysler V8
Capacity 5204cc (317.6 ci)
Bore/stroke 100mm/85mm
Valves Two per cylinder
C/R 9.25:1
Max power 216kW (290bhp) at 5400rpm
Max torque 440Nm at 4000rpm
Fuel system Dual four-barrel Carter carburettors
Transmission TorqueFlite three-speed automati
Suspension F/R Coil springs/semi-elliptic leaf springs
Steering Recirculating ball
Brakes Power assisted drum