Latest Cars Reviews Blog: one-offs and homebuilts

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What would you do with a Belvedereamino?

Steve Donohue's 1963 Plymouth Belvedere sedan pickup

In response to a recent Four-Links link to a story on launching a Plymouth from the deck of the USS Enterprise, reader Steve Donohoe of Port Clinton, Ohio, told us the Plymouth was definitely a 1963 Plymouth Savoy. How did he know for sure? He himself owns a 1963 Plymouth, though not one you see everyday.

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Steve said he first doodled the design of a Plymouth sedan pickup in high school notebooks in 1968, then bought a 1963 Plymouth Belvedere four-door sedan in 1971 and went through with the chop in 1980. He fashioned the tonneau cover out of two Belvedere trunk lids, and swapped out the original poly-head 318 and manual transmission for an LA-series 318 with a push-button TorqueFlyte. He then managed to get Michigan to re-title the cruck as a “1963 Plymouth Pickup.”

Time’s taken its toll on the Plymouth, and Steve said he recently lost his storage for it, so now comes the decision time – to restore and keep, or to attempt to sell? What would you do?

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Weekend dreamin’: Long-gone deals on Jensens, Lancias, Packards and Willyseses

It has been many moons since we dove into the HMN archive boxes, which contain some of the photos sent to us for classified ads back in the 1970s, so we thought it high time to pull a few interesting photos from another issue, this time July of 1978.

And we start with the Lancia Zagato coupe above, allegedly a one-of-one build. “Superb mechanical condition. Bodywork sound, but paintwork dull.” The Knutsford, Cheshire, England-based seller wanted just $1,950 for it. He wasn’t, apparently, selling the Jensen in the background.

We did, however, find another Jensen in this issue, a CV8, from the same Knutsford seller (apparently a dealer). Two owners from new, and the seller described it as “a very hairy but luxuriously appointed GT four-seater car with complete reliability from the Chrysler V-8 engine. He wanted just $2,995 for it. Were they really that inexpensive then, or did the dealer have some sort of kickback program from a trans-Atlantic shipping company?

The Northfield, Massachusetts-based seller of this 1940 Packard ambulance didn’t mention the coachbuilder (Henney, we’d assume?), but did say it was running and in good shape. Or, at least, as good as $1,200 would get you then.

The Knutsford dealer shows up again with this 1938 Railton Special, described as “a beautifully built and proportioned two-seater in polished aluminum. A well-known competition car, but thoroughly tractable on the road.” Offered at $4,140.

The Connecticut-based seller of this 60,000-mile, original interior 1940 Willys three-window coupe claimed you could drive anywhere at highway speeds in it. I don’t think anybody eyeballing it now would be content with highway speeds, but hopefully the $4,500 delayed the inevitable fate as a gasser. What’s that poking its nose out of the garage in the background? First-gen Javelin, maybe?

Finally, a real oddball. This 1960 VW Rometsch aluminum-bodied roadster featured a new top and interior (even though the seller described it as 100 percent original) and was being offered out of Cold Spring Harbor, New York, for $3,500 OBO.

If you know where any of these cars ended up, let us know!

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