A bit of history first... Way back in 2003 my wife and I made a trip to IN to the James Dean/ Gl*** City/Ducktail Run car shows with the car club we belonged to at the time. While we were there, we were hiking through the swap meet at one of them (James Dean Run maybe) and we saw a 49 Plymouth 2 door station wagon for sale. My wife fell in love with it, so being the great husband I was, I talked with the guy about the purchase of the said vehicle. I even had the cash to buy it. Unfortunately, the guy that was walking away when we first came up on it, had laid down a deposit on the car. As hard as I tried (I offered him 2x the asking price), the guy kept his integrity and held the car until the guy came back and bought it. Ever since then, we have been chasing a 2 door 49-53 Plymouth wagon. When we had the money, we couldn't find a car. When we didn't have the money, they showed up like the sunshine. As we have been growing older, we have a bit more uncommitted money more often. A few years ago, a few of those wagons started showing up when we actually had some money. Often the wagons that showed up were either too far away, or cost too much, or were way more of a project then I wanted to attack (old age has a way of avoiding too much work, unlike my younger self would have done). We have arrived at the point, that when a wagon shows up within a days round trip drive, we will go look at it. We have two distinct requirements. The car we look at has to be in good enough condition that I'm willing to invest my time in it (actually do the work rather then make up excuses not to), and there is a budget limit (both in time and cost) in which the completed ride will need to be road worthy. If it doesn't fit with in the requirements, we walk away. My son is so willing to help us out in this wagon adventure (he really enjoys trying to lead us astray ), that when ever he sees something that he thinks might be of interest to us, he will send me a link to the FB marketplace posting. My son sent me a link for a 53 Chrysler 4 door wagon Wed evening. I replied that his mother wouldn't want a big 4 door wagon like that Chrrysler (I was so sure of that!), but I showed her the pictures anyway. Her desire for an old wagon is stronger then I thought. As we discussed the Chrysler, we also discovered the 4 door wagon would be more practical for us at this time! It didn't help that the wagon didn't have any real rust on it (but missing the Hemi drive train). It also didn't help that the car's price was within reason for its condition. It also didn't help that it was less then 100 miles from home... We took the trip to look at the wagon this afternoon, its really a clean car! Now I'm trying to figure out how much its going to cost to make the car road worthy! Parts availability have really dropped off the last couple of years. I'm looking into a V8, OD auto trans (Mopar of course), probably efi (my wife will be driving it the most), a disc brake conversion, firewall mounted master cylinder, and a rack and pinion power steering. The seats are there (need recovered), most of the gl*** is good (a couple vent windows have cracks), the floor pans and both rockers are still solid, even all the dome and tail light lenses are in good shape. There are a few trim pieces that are gone (the hood ornament and the V8 medallions), and I'm not too impressed with someones attempt of creating fake patina across the hood and front fenders, but the natural patina on the rest of the car probably would have been OK. Its all my son's fault! I'm blaming him, even though I showed the pictures to my wife, then took her to see the car...
The Jalopy Journal
