OK guys, this is rare wierd times 2. I am working in a town called Tsurimi, Japan. It is just North of Yokohama. I am walking from the office to the train station the other day and Bamm, there it was hiding in a small but crowded carport deal near a building. I thought it was a 1959 Plymouth Fury because of the trim and grill, but it looked different. The trim wasn't gold like I remembered the Fury's to be. I walked over and looked at it. It is in near perfect condition in and out so it had to have been restored. I mean sharp. Bright red, the trim was similar to the Fury, but the script said "Super Belvedere" where it should have said Fury or Golden Fury. Super Belverdere? I never heard of such a thing. A Belvedere yes. Belverderes were the "family sedans" from Plymouth of the day and normally four doors. This one is a two door hardtop. While looking around a very elderly Japanese guy came over to me. He spoke a little english. So, I asked him it was his and he said no, it was his sons. He siad that he thought it was a 1956, not a 1959, Plymouth Super Belvedere. I knew it couldn't be a 56 because of the fins on the back. It had to be 1957 thru 1959. I asked him if he knew anything about the car because I had never heard of a Super Belvedere. He told me his son bought it about 30 years ago while in California. He had it restored and shipped to Japan and has it ever since. He then told me that it had a hemi engine. I nearly dropped over. I never knew the Plymouths had a hemi in 1957. The Dodge, Desoto and Chryslers yes, but not the Plymouths in 1957. We opened the hood and sure enough, there sat a hemi with 2x4's and all. The valve covers are blank. No script. They have the bumps on them like the Chrysler industrial and marine engine did for the adjustable rockers. It had A/C, PS & PB's and push ****on ******. The damn thing was loaded for the day. He got the keys and started it up. The thing cranked up in less than three spins. You could hear the tappets clicking just slightly so it did have solid lifters. She idle smooth, but just a little rumpy. She had very good throttle response. His son came home and explained that When he lived in California he bought it just as it sits from a hollywood movie executive. He had it restored and painted and thats all. He claims the Super Belvederes were supposed to be rare. He went to the house and brought back the papers. Sure enough, it was listed as a 1957 Plymouth Super Belvedere. The equipment list showed the engine to be a 265 HP 354 CI 2x4 engine. Anyone out there evre heard of such?
Amazing. Expect to find 'one-offs' already IN country (mfrs use different brand plates overseas than here), but this one apparently originated in US? Too weird. Check with the OEM Mopar forums - somebody HAS to know the story on these dj
LOL I cant help but think of Peanut saying "Lets get Godzilla to kill him!" Would like to see pics of this car too
Wow, what a find..........I don't know about it's authenticity, but it is possible. I once had the pleasure of seeing a '57 Dodge 2 door post D501...yes....501...not 500. It originally belonged to Arnie "the Farmer" Beswick before he switched to Pontiacs. It, too, had the 354 Hemi, but was manual shift 3 speed, had the Chrysler suspensions bits, brakes and so on, The D501's were built in small numbers to support the drag racing guys. So, it's comceiveable Plymouth easily could have something similar. Thanks for shaaring your story. Ray
Actually - the Japanese say Go-jira...say it fast, and it's phonetically correct. Same with 'baseball' - pronounced bereseboro - linguistics and the inability to distinguish the R or L sound produces some interesting spellings as they translate into English
This is a weird one. As far as I know Plymouth never made a car badged as a "Super Belvedere" - at least not a production car! I'm just speculating here, but I'm wondering if the car *might* have been a 'one-off' factory prototype, concept or show car?? !n '57, Dodge produced a very limited number of special Dodge D-501 models, with '56-spec, dual-quad, solid lifter 354 "Chrysler-300" engines. I'm wondering if Plymouth, not having a hemi in any of their production cars and feeling they were getting left behind behind in this internal 'factory hotrod' race may have built a one-off, prototype Plymouth-bodied car, mechanically simillar to the D-501 Dodge, with hopes that it might get cleared by Chrysler br*** for production? That could perhaps explain the 'stock and original appearing' dual-quad, solid-lifter hemi engine, the odd "Super Belevedere' name and the mix and match of various pieces of production trim on the body. Also, you mentioned the car seemsedto be pretty well loaded with options. That would be odd for a homebuilt, stricctly high-performance or 'race oriented' car, but typical for a typical for a factory 'show car'. Can you get any more info on the car - pics, numbers, etc.???? Inquiring Mopar history buffs *NEED* to know more about this car!!!! Mart3406 ======================================
Savoy was bottom of the pile, then the Belvedere & then the Fury, all came with 2 or 4 doors. Maybe the "movie producer" is the key, a special order or something he had made up.
-------------------------------- If you want to see some real butchery ('blutchery'???) of the English language, check out this site - www.engrish.com - LOL! Mart3406 ============================
I have gone back to take pictures and ask more questions. Noone home. But, I know the guy lives there. He drives the car on weekends, holidays etc so maybe it will be back during the week. I did ask if he wanted to sell it. He said maybe when he is about 75 or so. He is around 50 now I would think. I'll be dead by then. One question though. I am no Chrysler guy so I dumb on them, but I have never seen a hemi with blank valvle covers (no script). All the ones I have seen have Chrysler Firepower, Industrial, Marine, Firedome, Red Ram,,,etc. These are blank.
Here is a 1956 Plymouth dealer brochure. There is NO "Super" Belvedere listed as a part of any model description. The model names for 1957, '58, and '59 were similar. I'd have to see hard proof of a "Super" Belvedere. Click and see for yourselves. http://www.lov2xlr8.no/brochures/mopar/56plym/bilder/3.jpg Yes, that Dodge D-501 IS a real car. If it were a car built for export to Japan, it would have right-hand-drive (like a car built for the UK, Oz, or NZ, a**** others). What this sounds like is a Japanese owner took a Belvedere and put "Super" on it, like folks do today with stripe kits and such to personalize a car.
Could it be "Suddenly"...the 1957 Hot Rod magazine car that ran at Bonnieville and Daytona?...or a copy of it?
Any of the Chrysler based hemis in Dodge truck applications that I have seen have plain valve covers and If I remember correctly, the D-501 I mentioned inprevious post had the plain covers as well. "Suddenly" was a Savoy post 2 door, not a pillarless hardtop, in all the photos I have seen of that car. Ray
The original Suddenly Plymouth was a hardtop. The recreation made sometime later was a sedan. DeSoto Hemis (276, 291, 330, 341, 345ci) ALL had blank valve covers. Although, none of them had bumps on the valve covers, which were only done on solid lifter Chryslers to provide clearance for the factory adjustable exhaust rockers. '57-59 Dodge trucks were available with Chrysler Hemis (331 and 354) and these were the only Chrysler engines made with blank valve covers. All factory Hemi installations would have had wire covers in place, which would have concealed the rocker bumps on the valve covers. If you can see the spark plug holes, then the original wire covers are missing. Mopar has never claimed factory installation of any Hemi engine (Chrysler, DeSoto, or Dodge) in any Plymouth. No one-offs, no race car variants, none at all. If you have access to this car under the hood, please look under the thermostat housing and let us know what is stamped there. That is the engine ID pad and will tell us definitively what the engine was sourced from. I'll stop short of saying it's not original, because there were a lot of possible combinations of parts back then and a Hemi in a Plymouth is easy to accomplish. Doing so with A/C, P/S, P/B, etc on the shorter-wheelbase Dodge/Plymouth ch***is is a different story. Definitely get us some pics! Plymouths from '57-58 were available in Plaza, Savoy, Belvedere, Fury lines. For '59, the special high-performance Fury was dropped and replaced with the similarly-named Sport Fury which was just a trim and interior package. I've never heard of any Super Belvedere, but I would really like to check out this car!
--------------------------- The 331 and 354 Chrysler hemis used in Dodge heavy-duty trucks - and the 354 Chryslers in the '57 Dodge D501 p***enger cars too - were painted black, had no identifying 'script' stamped into them and had the 'bumps' for adjustable rockers. If someone other than Chryler built this car, they went to a lot of trouble to make it appear as though the factory did build it or could have built it. Mart3406 ==========================
As said above, there was NEVER a Hemi installed in a Plymouth from the factory. Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler all had their own Hemis, but Plymouth never had them, nor did they "borrow" one of the line for a factory install. People have put the Hemi in the early cars after the fact, but they were never factory jobs. Yeah, yeah, someone out there is saying "But, but, but, Chrysler would do anything the customer wanted for the right money...!" A fairly true statement, but this, you can bank on.
Maybe...maybe not.......Chrysler built several 'one off's' that are do***ented, such as a '56 Imperial Convertible that was featured in Old Cars Weekly several months ago, just to name one. The fact is, no one can be absolutely positively sure of anything in this regard ............ Whatever the actual origins of this car, it sounds like a neat machine! Ray
Well, it sure did look original, but I am no expert on Mopars of any kind. I ***ume that it could be a build job that was kept to look as original as possible. Plus the language barrier prevented asking a lot of detailed questions, The owner was no mechanic or even a car guy. He just has some money and loves cars,,to drive. He has a few others too. A Farrari (sp) and another Italian job (I think) I could hardley see through the fence. I never di get pictures and am back in the states now. When (if) I go back in October, I'll take some.
This is such a kool story, im really curious now and really hope you make it back and shed some light on it.
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