'59 Plymouth Forum

I bought this '59 Fury coupe Wednesday afternoon, it turned out to be far better than expected.

The man I bought it from had it stored in his garage for better than fifteen years, he had plans on restoring it, but decided he wasn't going to get to it. He had bought it from an older lady that bought it new in Marysville, Ca. which is 45 miles from here. He told me that she drove it up to the early eighties, when it had racked up only 47,000 miles, then she had her grandkids push the car outside because she needed the storage space. The upholstery suffered from the hot summer days here.

This car still has it's original paint, which is a rarity to find. I haven't had time to really check the car over, but externally, there is zero rust.

---John

John, great find! I am leaving now with my Trailer and a bucket of cash to take it off your hands.... I wish!

Good find!

John Q.

That is a great find, similar to my Belvedere which was parked in 1974 and didnt see the light of day again until 2002 when it was sold to the party i got it from in an estate sale.....

Boy are you going to have fun bringing that car back to life. It looks about like mine did when we found it. Now it is all fixed up but sadly it is back to just sitting in the garage.

I drained out roughly five gallons of old, varnished gasoline, and poured in several gallons of fresh fuel.I primed the fuel pump and replaced a rubber gas hose that was as hard as a rock, filed the breaker points, and she fired right up!

The engine runs as a low miler would, and the transmission went right into gear, both forward and reverse. After adding brake fluid, the pedal actually pumped up, although the brake system will inevitably need to be rebuilt.

Next will be to give 'er a good cleaning.

---John

Y'know, I'd MUCH rather be living YOUR life than mine right now, John!
Driving around the countryside, seeing great (and not so great) old cars, trading stories, bringing a few choice units home to my personal 'playground'.
When the city re-zoned that property so you could move to the outskirts of town, what restrictions did they put on your business? Do you have to drain fluids before storing cars, for example? Obviously your cars are not on concrete pads...has the EPA ever come around?
I ask because starting a salvage yard seems like an impossible task these days.

Roger,

There were no special reuirements other than the current ones in place for dismantlers in this county. Our county oversees environmental regs, but these are way more lenient than those in place in the cities.

The large Pick-A-Part type yards are part owned by steel processors like Schnitzer steel, and they are responsible for pushing things like concreted yards that eventually drive the smaller yards out of business. Our county's population is small enough that the big self-service yards cannot justify establishing branches here as of yet.

---John

Very interesting. I would have pointed the "finger of blame" at the EPA for pushing the smaller yards out of business. I would never have thought the driving force was the steel-recyclers. Of course the yards that are flagrant violators of pollution regulations get the EPA's attention. I remember years ago when I was exploring local WA. yards with camera, searching for parts for my car, I was stopped at one yard's entry...NO CAMERAS!...are you an undercover inspector?...I convinced them I wasn't, and left the camera in the car. The "yard" was in a field and forest, with a creek running thru it, and it was total chaos.
Upside down cars, engine blocks, batteries, and trannies strewn about. I think he was shut down soon after. Another yard, in existence since the early 50's, had similar conditions except no creek. The half-crazed owner said when he eventually closed down, the top two feet of soil would have to be removed and taken to an approved landfill.

As with any business, unfortunately there are those that choose to violate all the guidelines set down, thus creating more laws to try to offset this.

I do not understand why someone would want to ruin there own property by making it an ecological disaster.

I remember a tow yard near Reno called Discount Towing, that would bring cars in and immediately drain the oils onto the ground before stacking the cars up. Some places you could actually have oil ooze up around your shoe where you'd step. They even had some kind of illegal 'smelter' back in the canyon that was fired with scrap tires.

EPA shut these folks down in the early '80's, all cars were crushed and removed, and the office buildings were levelled. Funny thing is, some years after, I wandered down a dirt path that led to a small canyon directly behind where the yard had been, and the enviro folks had simply bulldozed the piles of tires, gas tanks, car parts, etc. into this canyon where the general public could not see it. I spent several days collecting hood ornaments, fenders, trim, and whatever else was still good. The property is still vacant to this day.

---John

I got a chance to do some needed clean-up on the interior. The ten years the car was left outside doomed the carpeting, so I removed it. I did not find any kind of build sheet under the jute padding, or under the rear seat, although there was a mouse nest in the corner of the rear seat that could have been where the build sheet ended up.

I still have the area above the glovebox to check for it. The mileage shown on the odometer is the actual mileage.

---John

...that's a neat old memory find, John. I can almost smell that mouse nest from viewing your pix of the rear seat upholstery stains. The chrome plating on the driver's window looks pretty bad too, but the rest of the car looks dry, preserved, almost "fresh".

I think what you are seeing on the window frame is some rubbing compound that wasn't removed. I used compound to clean up the windows. I'll have some more pics up shortly of the rest of the car.

---John

Sorry, looked like pitting. Rubbing compound does wonders!
Have you ever heard of putting RainX on newly polished Stainless?

Can't say that I've tried the Rain-X trick, I'll have to keep that in mind, though.

---John

A convertible I have been chasing for the last year has become available, so I have decided to sell this car.

It would need minor mechanical work, and complete brake overhaul to be a daily driver. Engine and trans operate as a 48,000 mile car should.

The nice thing about this car is it's 100% rust free, no welding or patching has ever been done to the body, and it has 95% of it's original paint.

Price for the car is $8500.

---John