My name is Will Walker. I have been a member here for about a year now and a lover of all things MoPar muscle, Forward Look and mid century modern. Feel like I know a lot of you all already as I have read most every thing in the message boards haha and I am even friends with some of you on FB. I'm quiet on the internet so you probably never see me post much, I just "like" every ones statuses haha.
About 3 years ago a beautiful emerald green with emerald green interior 59 Sport fury came up for sale on Craig's List about an hour north of me, the price was right the car looked amazing, just needed a little TLC. But as they say timing is every thing and time is never on my side, I am a Gunnery Sergeant in the Marine Corp and was deploying to Bahrain / Iraq that week for a 8 month deployment to help drop bombs on ISIS and was literally living at work getting ready to go and I missed my chance at that fury. It was on CL for a month after I left, I kicked my self at not making the time to get there and buy it but I just did not have the time.
A few months after I got home a white SF came up for sale in Las Vegas, So what better reason to go to Vegas right? My wife, father in law and I drove up from San Diego to check it out, It was rough but complete, White with a copper interior and a Golden commando 395 with A/C!!! but the price was a little high. talked the owner down some but just could not get him to come down to where I was comfortable. Walked away and kicked my self all day. Decided to pay his price and called him that afternoon. He sold it to a guy who saw it a hour after I was there for more then he was willing to sell it to me, good for him but I had missed another 59 Sport Fury.
So I started watching CL and ebay again but as the Marine Corp often does it said I had to move again. unfortunately I got orders back to Okinawa Japan (my 3rd time here in 14 years). Oki is a small island chain about 4 hours flight south of main land Japan.
A few weeks ago I woke up to a Facebook message from my wife's cousin, he is our racing/ demo derby buddy, He sent a CL link that had just been posted. A emerald green 59 Sport Fury for sale in San Diego! Some of you might have seen it when it was posted, I immediately called him and he said he would go take a look! I was already sold on it haha. he checked it out, sent me a couple hundred photos and we made a deal, transferred some cash and he picked it up and last week and put it in storage for me.
I have training exercises in Alaska and advanced courses for my job I have to go to all summer so I wont get to see it till August and even then I will just be able to be home long enough to play musical cars to make room for it in my shop at my house and do a detailed inventory. Our current list of cars are my 49 Ford shoe box (chopped custom) 63 Mercury Comet (my first car I bought at 13 years old for 900 dollars) my 69 Charger and my wife's 64 Dart. We had a couple other cars but when we got orders we had to thin the pack, that was a sad day....
So, I have about 2 years left here in Okinawa before I can move back to Camp Pendleton. My goal is to order every part I need to completely restore it as well as build up a small mountain of cash to help ha-ha. every time I go home on leave do a little at a time to further the project (pull the chrome and send it to the platter, order interior, Media blast and prime, ect) and once I get home for good, blast it all apart and do a full restoration on it. Until then I will continue to live through all of you who get to curse your cars, and turn wrenches on them.
I just want to thank you all for the wealth of knowledge on this site and the links to parts and tech info! just about every bench racing question I have had I have found an answer to on here and I cant wait for the next 24 months to go by so I can get home and get started so I can start making real progress.
Feel free to msg me about any thing I can help with or add me on FaceBook (search: William Grant Walker).
Will, what a find! It looks very solid and straight. Lots of TLC is in order, but you seem like the man for the job. We're here to help when the time is ready. Best of luck in your deployment, and your restoration!
I have a long way to go for sure and a lot of work ahead of me haha.
I have about 400 HD photos of the fury and a couple videos. The body is almost completely rust free, one ding in front of the rear passenger side wheel, some rust under the trim on the deck lid and a few spots in the floors but nothing serious. Metal work is my favorite part of a restoration...... block sanding not so much hahah.
The car has been off the road since the early 70's, it has been repainted once prior to that and at that time they removed the sport deck and the Plymouth badges. They also did a cheep dye and paint job trying to turn the interior black as you can see. The rest of the interior is in the trunk but is completely toast from the sun but will be good for getting the pattern for the interior.
One strange thing is its radio and clock delete, which I find odd and Which puzzles me a bit, So I'm on the look out for That stuff. I bought a clock off eBay the other day, and putting together a list of rubber parts from Gary goers catalog. Big M (john) i got your email response the other day, I appreciate you looking for the correct wheel for me as well and I found a guy in San Diego who can recast them (qualityrestorations.com) anybody bought from them before?
Other than that I don't know any thing of the cars history. Hopefully when I get home I can do a little more detective work and find more out about it.
For now, I'll just keep hunting for parts online. Hoping I can get most every thing for it as far as the soft pieces, interior, replacement parts etc... Thanks to all of you guys I have a pretty good idea where to look and who to talk to.
I am planning on keeping it the original emerald green and thinking of going with SMS for the interior. I want to keep the look and vibe stock with a late model drive train.
I want to make this a car for long distance road trips so for maintenance and ease of parts I'm thinking of a disk brake conversion, B block 400 painted and dressed like a golden commando with a Holley stealth EFI and A727 and 8 3/4 rear. Would the imperial services conversion cable be the correct way to keep the push buttons functional?
I will keep all parts that come off it of course, I know some purist will probably want my head on a pike but I promise I'm not going to do any thing that can't be undone or put back to stock.
Sorry I'm so long winded, just excited to talk to people who love 59 plymouths!!! I promise I'll keep it to a more reasonable length in the future. ☺
Do you have a pic of the VIN plate and/or data plate? I'll decode them!
As for the engine, you might wanna keep the 318.
Big block is fun but the 318 is bulletproof and gets great gas mileage.
Clock, radio and ash tray were all an option, even on the Sport Fury!
Raymond Ward his SF is the lowest optioned car I've seen so far as he doesn't even has (from my head) power brakes and power steering
Here we go!!
M: 1959
2: Plymouth V8
4: Build in L.A
1: Sequential number
01859: 1859th Sport Fury build in L.A
Your data plate should be in the cowl next to the passenger side hood hinge.
Entering your car in my database right now.
Your car was build just 32 Sport Fury's behind Dick Koch's emerald green hardtop and 21 Sport Fury's ahead of Earl Hess's "the lonely one"
That's amazing you have all this info!!!! Dicks car is my inspiration!!!! That's crazy to think our cars may at one time been in the same parking lot!!!
Ohhh if only cars could talk. The stories they could tell!!
Thank you soo much! I know how you feel haha mopar is an obsession for me too. When I was building my 70 duster a few years ago (before I had a family) it was a decision between groceries or expensive parts....
Needless to say I ate a lot of Ramen noodles haha.
Thank you for the add on Fb too, I was just checking out your Sport Fury! Amazing!! and I am glad mine is able to be added to your data base.i just need the next several months to go by so I can get my hands on it
