'59 Plymouth Forum

Just received my recent copy of the HCC Nov 2010 issue and they show a head-on shot of a 59 Sport Fury Convertible at a Concours event in New England. Page 61.

Only one photo of it, Says it is owned by a man named Tom White of Hopkinston, Mass and it is "One of the Best restored 59 Sport Fury Convertible in the country.."

Has anyone seen this car and have any other pictures to gaze at? Or even know the owner? Looks good to me and has the bumper wings to boot on it.

John Q.

Nobody responded to my inquiry on that subject (see my Sep 4 post in Much Ado about Nothing).
I thought about tracking him down via Internet....

Roger, Sorry I did not see your Sept 4th Much ado about the same owner, but your right, we must track him down and find out more about him and his Covert. I will start putting his name in some searchs and find out more about him.

I have two cousins in Mass. and once I find an address I will send one of them over to snoop a bit.

John Q.

John - I met Tom White when I brought my green 59 to the AACA Nationals in Melbourne, Fl. He drove in with a PERFECT I mean PERFECT fuel injected 58 Desoto Adventurer Convertible that he restored himself. The car had a Bulova Steering Wheel clock, I have one and he showed me what the retainer looks like, I don't have one. The car was sold for $400,000.00. The next time I saw it was at the Lake Mirrir Classic Concours de Elegance in 08. It was in the Annivarsary section where my 60 Desoto will be. He is a real nice guy, he and his son do top end restorations, in fact he mentioned they were doing a 59 Plymouth. www.carestoration.com/massachu.htm Phone 781-863-2382.
Dick

Dick,
Can you help me navigate thru the site for which you posted the link? I don't find anything on Sport Furys, Tom White, or Desotos??

Dick, Once you mentioned the fuelie De Soto, I do know of him, Never met him but I saw and article on his Bendix Fuel injected De Soto several years ago. It was beautiful! I bet his one is done the same way.

John Q.

We saw this car at Carlisle three years ago. It was sold by a guy by the name of Crutchfield - shows up every year with a MoPar of some sort, he had a '59 SF there this year. Here's a correspondence I received from Bernie at the time:

Bernie Brouillet wrote:Crutchfield's convertible is now in Massachusetts!!!
Sent: Sun Jul 08, 2007 9:56 pm
From: Bernie B.
To: Faulkner

Wow - "And baby makes three" should be my titling of this event.

Unfortunately, I did not buy a Pennsylvania lottery ticket and win big and buy his car, but the next best thing happened. Tom White, whom I told you about as the owner/ restorer of the only Fuel Injected DeSoto on the planet bought that red convert this morning, I got there just as they were concluding the deal and stayed until they loaded it up for the ride to the Bay State.

The "...baby makes three" comment is due to there being three 59 Sport Fury converts up in this little state now: Tom's (running car) plus Bob Budrys' and mine (neither running) - Even better is that a close friend of Bob's is a close friend of Tom White so maybe all three of us will make quicker progress.

Tom will restore the car right, right, right. I gave him some info and he already caught onto that it doesn't have the original engine block, it is a "P" coded one instead of "M".

I told him of your web site, Dan, and he may contact you, if not, I'll look him up soon, he invited me to drop in anytime... he's about 60 miles away, and pretty close to Dick Skinner.

For a peek at Tom's workmanship on the EFI DeSoto, just search under "Bendix Electrojector" and similar (OK, easy for me, I've been doing that for years) words and you should have no trouble finding him. It will be very special, as he apparently has resources in every sense of the word, far beyond the common restorer. And he keeps most of the cars, it is not a quick swap for cash, he is dedicated to the Chrysler hobby.

Thanks again for the hospitality Saturday, and to the Keij family for the special .Net T-Shirt - will be worn proudly. Happy to meet everyone in person, too.

Later,

Bernie Brouillet

Roger - you are right, I googled Tom White and that's what I got. (nothing) To look at the car to to www.58-adventurer.com/tw/htm.
Dick.

Messed up - try www.58-adventurer.com/tw.htm.

Just got my Hemming's Classic Car mag yesterday. Darn mailman must have been reading it for a week Saw the '59 SF on page 61. Another interesting photo is on page 18. Shows a ship/barge being loaded with cars. In the foreground it looks like a lot of 1959?? Dodges. I think I spot a '59 Plymouth wagon a few rows from the end. It could be a Dodge wagon though, kind of hard to make out the fin detail.

I looked for those photos, only to realise you are talking about Hemmings CLASSIC CAR magazine..I saw the 59SF in Oct. Hemmings MOTOR NEWS

Sorry to be so late in this reply, I've been away from the board for a few months and see that I've missed quite a bit.

I did visit Tom White in September 2009 and found that not only did he have this red Sport Fury convertible, he is running quite a restoration business and has a very decent personal car collection, not just Mopars either. Realized I'd seen some of them before but not knowing who owned them. I first met Tom in 1996 at a car show just outside Boston when he had a 57 300C convertible, absolutely perfect restoration. A few years later at that same show he had a 58 DeSoto Adventurer hardtop, the first one I ever saw in person. Notable was the chrome air cleaners (factory dress up option available way back then, have seen them on other similar cars) and an Aruba license plate on the front. We talked some more that day, and he told me of the fuelie convertible that he had just acquired, that has now become so famous, and since sold. I visited Carlisle when he had it there and got to look it over real good, behind the ropes, it is one of those things that pictures cannot do justice to, it is even more impressive in person and when he got to telling the story behind it, it is pretty amazing.

As that DeSoto received a lot of press (and was supposed to be made into a diecast model, never happend apparently) Tom was often quoted as saying "... I don't go looking for these cars, they find me!"

And that introduction brings us to the convertible he bought at Carlisle in 2007 and has kept and shown many times since a -dare I say "easy"- restoration. He said the car was in such good shape he couldn't pass it up - another one "found him." He made the following changes that I saw: Dual quad carburetion added, along with correct heat-source exhaust manifold; NOS grille, wire wheels, radial tires and a new black top. I cannot be sure if he mentioned repainting or re-upholstering. or even mechanical work, maybe it just cleaned up so well. It is very clean, and apparently he's keeping it for a while. One other thing I remember from seeing it at Carlisle is that it is a "high serial number" meaning a later production date, possibly June based on other cars I know of from the Evansville plant.

One thing to remember is Tom White is running a business, with his talents in great demand... he said he was booked several years into the future in projects, and kindly showed me some in progress... one which has since won major recognition at a WPC show, and others that are simply one-of-a-kind. I just dropped in, no appoitment, after intending to go down there for several years, and after a few minutes of conversation reestablishing our past conversations he took more than an hour out of his day and gave me quite a tour. Very kind, but I don't think he has much free time from the looks of the queue. He was working on a brown and white 58 Dodge that day, at the beginning of a restoration so that car should start showing up soon, or maybe already has.

Hope this is better late than never info on one of the best restorers out there.

Bernie B.