PB 308 new page 14-18.indd - Plymouth Club

From the Editor
Fury ury FF ifty-six
The stick-shift Fury
that got away
Amailing mailing from New Brunswick
arrived at my door. I first
thought it might be a tourism
packet enticing me to visit the
Canadian Maritime province (which I
would like to do someday). Instead, I
pulled out photocopies of road test
reports on the then-new 1956 Plymouth
Fury. Interestingly, these
reports had been published in
1956 issues of Road & Track
and Sports Car Illustrated
(now Car and Driver), two
magazines dedicated to the
sports car set that seemed to
naturally disdain “oversized”
Detroit iron, even (especially?)
those, like the Fury, that
exhibited sporting pretensions.
So, what did these
sports car writers think of the
new Fury? More positively
than one might expect.
The New Brunswick
mailing came from member
Jim Marr who lives in
Moncton. Jim, who holds an
interest in early sixties police
and performance cars, now
owns an unusual factory-original
Dodge Polara four-door
sedan powered by a
Sonoramic engine (and no, it’s not a
retired police car). He had found the
Fury articles while sorting through
some old magazines. I emailed him,
saying that I was interested in reprinting
the articles in the BULLETIN but
would need the originals for scanning.
In short order another New Brunswick
envelope was in my mailbox and I was
set, so I thought.
Magazines now have independent
brokers handling their copyrights, and
the brokers may not be as ready to
grant reprint permission to a club publication
as did the magazines themselves
in the past. After some time I
was able to receive permission through
Car and Driver’s brokers. Road &
Track’s brokers wanted money, more
than we should pay. They asked me if
My ‘65 Suzuki almost became a ‘56 Fury.
I wanted to make a deal. I made an
offer but I didn’t hear back. You do
have the Sports Car Illustrated road
test to give you a flavor of sports car
thinking when it came to the Fury.
That led me to requesting stories
from the club’s ‘56 Fury owners. The
response was great, thanks in no small
part to Jack Lewis, the Golden Fury
unofficial “godfather” who started and
maintains the Golden Fin Society website.
-2-
NOW, WHY THAT MOTORBIKE picture?
Because, it almost became a ‘56 Fury. I
had purchased the Suzuki 50cc bike in
the spring of ‘65 after I was left without
wheels when my ‘57 Dodge’s 325
poly engine threw a rod. It was easier
for a college student to get a loan to
buy a new motorbike than borrow
money to fix a used car. But I
still had the car to fix, and
after procuring a ‘58 325 with
summer job money, I found an
ad for a ‘56 Fury. I hopped on
my bike to take a look and
found a somewhat beat up
Fury with a manual transmission.
The asking price was
$550 ($3700 in today’s
money). Not much, but it was
more than I had after buying
the engine. But I did have the
Suzuki for which I had paid
$350 a couple of months earlier.
I offered a trade even-up,
telling the seller that it would
be great for his young teenage
son. He mulled it over for a
couple of weeks but finally
said no.
It may have been just as well.
I was having visions of putting
a floor shifter in it, painting it
red, radiusing the rear wheelwells…
making a mess of it, in other words.
Besides, with its “new” motor, the
Dodge was in much better shape. And
I still had my motorbike. Still… a
stick-shift ‘56 Fury? It’s one that got
away. – Lanny Knutson
The Plymouth Bulletin
No. 308 May-Jun 2011
LANNY D. KNUTSON, editor
LEEANN LUCAS, asst. editor
THORSTEN LARSSON PHOTO