In 1964, I met my late friend Bob Mackey. It was, in conventional automotive terms, a day that would live in infamy forever. I cannot begin to count or chronicle the damage the two of us  inflicted upon the automobile world in the years that followed. Perhaps it is best that I not try, because any account I could render would certainly fall short of the mark. 

At the time, Bob was driving a beautiful 1962 Sport Fury convertible his father had given up in favor of a new Imperial Le Baron. The Fury was white with a white top and red interior. It had a 318  engine and a Torqueflite. I didn't even have a license yet, so my expertise then was very limited. Bob, however, was two years older and had already embarked upon a career of automotive destruction that probably can never be equaled. Many have tried, but all have fallen short. Some of his adventures are chronicled in the 300K section. He suggested we go for a ride so that he could show me what the Fury could do. Not knowing any better, I accepted.

"Belt up," Bob said casually as we headed off. People on the street crossed themselves when they saw Bob's car  pass by. 

"Catholics," he giggled. "They always do that. Now belt up."

"Huh? Belt what?" I queried.

"Seat belt," Bob smirked, pointing. "Put it on."

"Oh," I said. "Do you think I'll need it?"

"Probably," Bob muttered as he lit up a Marlboro Light, swung out onto Stratford Connecticut's North Avenue, and mashed the gas pedal to the floor. "Makes it easier for the cops to find your body in the wreckage."

"Whoa!" I gasped as the Plymouth screamed up the street, leaving a long black strip of rubber behind. I quickly affixed the seat belt. "You drive like this all the time?" I was used to my sister's 1956 Dodge, which seemed not to be able to go over 40 mph for some reason. 

"No, sometimes I drive fast," Bob grinned. The Plymouth leveled out at about 60 mph, which was exactly twice the speed limit. "Hang on," he said suddenly, and  yanked the wheel as far to the right as it would go.

"Jesus!" I yelled. "What the hell....."

The Plymouth slid sideways as the rear end broke loose and tried to come around. Bob deftly punched second gear, mashed the gas pedal to the floor, and twirled the wheel the other way. The car swerved wildly once, then straightened out. A loud bellowing came from under the hood as the carburetor gulped more air. 

"Handles pretty good," Bob said. "It's got a heavier frame because it's a ragtop. Makes it harder for it to flip over."

"Lucky us," I said quickly. "What's that noise coming from the engine?"

"I took the air cleaner off," Bob said. "Makes it go faster."

"Can you make it go slower?" I said, glancing at the speedometer. "I'd like to live long enough to remember this."

"I'll give you something to remember," Bob laughed as he turned back onto Main Street and stopped at a light. "I'm leaving for the Air Force next week. I gotta have some fun. Look around for cops."

"Cops? What cops? What are you going to do?"

Bob revved the 318 until it wouldn't go any higher, then punched Drive. There was a brief roar of tires followed by a loud mechanical snapping sound. The car limped forward as something banged around underneath.

"You killed it," I said with finality. "Your car is dead."

"Nah," Bob shrugged. "Just a U joint."

"A what?"

"Universal joint. You don't know much about cars, do you."

"No. Not that much."

"We'll have to fix that," Bob said. "But first we have to fix this. Help me push it over into that parking lot. I'll have us back on the road in a jiffy." He always carried U joints in his glove box. That says a lot.

That poor Plymouth took a merciless beating for quite a while, eventually being traded in on a 1963 Sport 300 with a 383, the fate of which is detailed elsewhere. I always thought to myself, these Chrysler products are tough! Any car that could survive Bob was tough stuff. 

What Bob taught me over the ensuing years combined with what I learned from my other friends, most of whom should have been locked up in insane asylums, resulted in a life long automotive adventure that I'd rather not talk about. Well, not too much anyway. There may be some outstanding warrants on some of what we did. Our little circle of friends trashed more Detroit iron than the average junk yard, and much faster. The question "where's your car?" became quite common around our homes. "Why did the police come to the house?" was a close second. 

My mechanical ability grew in direct proportion to my bravery, but my driving skills seemed to lag somewhat behind that of my friends.  Bob  had 15-15 vision, was stone cold sober all his life, and seemed to have been born without a fear factor when it came to cars.  I on the other hand had slower reflexes and a penchant for Blackberry Brandy. This resulted (within a 3 year period) in the untimely death of a 1961 Galaxie convertible, a 1957 Chevy powered by a 421 Pontiac Super Duty engine, a 1966 Ford Galaxie convertible, 3 Volkswagens, and my checkbook. 

My 1970 454 Chevelle LS6 survived, although I made several valiant attempts on its life. The first and most memorable was being clocked at 150 plus by the State Police on my way to Army Officer's Candidate School at 5 AM. Prior to that, I had never had a gun pulled on me outside of the military. The other was  my solo version of the Autobahn. This one involved large quantities of Jack Daniel's and a 3 AM run down Interstate 91 out of Hartford Connecticut at..... well, I don't really know, the speedometer only went to 120. All I know is that the tach was bouncing around the 6200 RPM mark with 3.31 gears. My guess is 150 easy, like before. 

The thing that should have slowed me down and eventually did (after I thought about it enough) was a near death experience with a 1968 Charger R/T. Having depleted most of the supply of liquor in Connecticut, my friend and I decided that a trip to New York was in order. Here, package stores were open until 10. At our age, the concept of drunk driving hadn't sunken in yet. Besides, back then it wasn't that big a deal, they'd just make you call somebody to drive you home. 

My friend, who was an excellent driver and just back from Vietnam, decided that doing 150 or so down the Merritt Parkway in the rain was the thing to do. Alcohol will do that to your judgment. Long story short, we hit two cars and everybody walked away. After my blitzkrieg with the Chevelle one year later, It dawned on me that I was lucky to be here and that if I kept it up, I wouldn't be. My high speed runs after that were almost nonexistent. I always thought about Bob and his 62 though, because that was the one that got me started. 

The 1962 Plymouth was sort of an orphan that people either loved or hated. There wasn't much inbetween. I liked it, for obvious reasons. Virgil Exner had intended it as his second major onslaught on Detroit conventionality. The first, his "Forward Look" cars, had set American automotive styling on its ear and had competitors scrambling to catch up. Exner had gone to the "big fins" well  too often, though, resulting in the rather unattractive 1960 models. The finless 1961 models were also met with no enthusiasm. Now he was going to try to make styling magic again with "Forward Flair," This style was based on the  European theme of a long hood, a short deck, flush C pillars with no belt line, and a close coupled passenger compartment.  But he was to discover that what looks good on small cars does not necessarily look good on larger cars.

Exner was ready to use a major theme of his asymmetrical XNR show car and have the new Plymouth oriented off center towards the driver. Meanwhile,  William C. Newberg, newly named Chrysler president, was caught in a conflict of interest scandal and had to step down after a bitter fight with former president Tex Colbert. In the midst of this fight, an unknown and unnamed  Chrysler official overheard that Ford and Chevrolet were coming out with smaller cars. What he  failed to hear was that despite the introduction of the new models,  both makers were to continue their full sized lines. Based on this rumor, Chrysler scratched the plans for a full-sized 1962 Plymouth. Styling studios were put on double shifts to narrow the car by four inches, and shorten the wheelbase by two and the overall length by a full 7.5  inches.

That done, newly appointed president Lynn Townsend took one look at Exner's driver oriented wind splits, rear license plate location, and  asymmetrical styling. Thinking it too radical, he ordered everything centered in the conventional pattern.

The 1961 press preview of the new 1962 models found automotive journalists very enthused about Plymouth's new look, calling it unique, handsome, and sophisticated.  Unfortunately, those were to be the last positive words spoken on the styling of the 1962 Plymouth. Future evaluations would not be so kind.

The 1962 Plymouth may have had the experts excited, but ordinary buyers felt otherwise and bought Chevys and Fords. Dealers saw the cars and immediately envisioned a disaster. And that's what happened.  Plymouth gained  6.7% in sales that year, (over the disastrous 1961 year) but it was a far cry from the 16% and 35% gains registered by Ford and Chevrolet.  Plymouth fell from seventh to eighth place in industry production. "Look At Plymouth Now!" the ad slogan for 1962, became an embarrassment .

  Virgil Exner, who was looking for his second styling success, had instead his last failure. Elwood Engel, designer of the 1961 Lincoln Continental, was hired away from Ford to replace Exner as styling chief. He began immediately to do what he could to conventionalize the already planned 1963 models.

Even before the 1963 models came out, Plymouth had tried make the best of a bad situation. In January, the Sport Fury returned for 1962 after an absence of 3 model years. A special interior featuring bucket seats and console, a partially blacked out grille, and six tail lamps enhanced the car. Later, at dealers' insistence, all Furys received a belt moulding spear that ran unbroken from front to rear. The flush C pillar and slab side drew the eye to the vertical plane, not the horizontal, thus making an already smaller car look stubby. The spear visually lengthened the car. Though purists complained that it disrupted the design integrity of the car, dealers and buyers liked it.

Beneath its unique if not controversial styling was Plymouth's first fully unitized body / chassis. The bolted on subframe introduced in 1960  was eliminated. The change helped the new Plymouth shed 200 pounds in weight and maintain as much interior room as the '61 even though exterior dimensions were reduced.

Aiding the increase of interior space was a new Torqueflite transmission. With an aluminum case, it was 60 pounds lighter than its cast iron predecessor. And it was smaller, making possible a lower transmission hump. The old two-speed Powerflite was now history. For the manual transmission there was  new tubular linkage, concentric with the steering column.

Other unique 1962 features included self adjusting brakes, foot pedal operated rear drum parking brakes, lube sealed 32,000 mile suspension fittings, printed circuit dash wiring, and the "Hamtramck Hummingbird," a new reduction gear starting motor that would come to signal by sound alone the starting of any Chrysler product on any parking lot anywhere.

Yet, for all its engineering features, the 1962 Plymouth will be remembered for is controversial styling. Whether it is ugly or not is a matter of opinion. Many say it is. A good number of others still find it very attractive, pointing to a purity of comprehensive design that, though unconventional at the time, was nevertheless well carried out.

It seems that at this point Chrysler had given up on performance. The 300H basically had the 300E engine from 1959, and Plymouth had nothing except the 361. This was unforgivable, considering that Ford and Chevrolet were offering performance engines of over 400 cubic inches with horsepower ratings to match; 409 horses for Chevy, and 405 horses for Ford. What did the MoPars have? A 305 hp 361. 

The engine lineup now consisted of the 225 slant six, two and four barrel 318s, and the 4 barrel 361. The long ram manifold engines of 1960 - 1961 were discontinued across the board except for the dealer option for the 300H. I should think that they would have at least offered the single four barrel 383 or the inline dual quad 383, but they didn't. However, during  midyear the  unstreetable   short ram 413 engine  was offered. This engine would establish Plymouth as a drag racing force for years to come. 

Though a sales flop, the 1962 Plymouth bore styling features that would show up for years to come on competing makes. In just two years, Ford's Mustang would make the long hood short deck styling theme an instant success.  Much like its ancestor the Airflow, the 1962 Plymouth was too far advanced in an unattractive sort of way. It was the right car at the wrong time. Bob didn't think so, though, and neither did I.