The Michigan Road is one of Indiana’s oldest state-funded roads, built in the 1830s to connect the Ohio River to Indianapolis to Lake Michigan. It allowed commerce to move freely from riverport to capital city, and opened the (then) densely forested northern half of the state to settlement.
What does that have to do with this Fluid Drive Dodge? Well, that’s where I found it: on the Michigan Road.
Imagery ©2016 Google. Map data ©2016 Google.
It was also perched above I-74, where it could watch the cars go by. Just southeast of Indianapolis, I-74 was rather unfortunately built right on top of the old Michigan Road for a few miles. The two roads diverge for about a mile so that the tiny town of Pleasant View could be left intact.
I took these photos in 2008 while I was surveying the entire Michigan Road for what would eventually become a successful campaign to have this historic road named a state historic byway. (If you’d like to learn more about the byway, check out our Web site.) This old Dodge held court over I-74 for a couple years after that, but then disappeared. Here’s hoping it went off for a full restoration.
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Like an old woman watching from a bench in her yard, wondering where everyone is going in such a hurry.
Well said, Principaldan. Those are some very evocative photos. Mr. Grey really captured something special there.
I’d bet she was saved. Its resting spot when you saw her was well-maintained and she looked solid. It’s as though the owner knew what he had, and either had plans, or somebody else did.
Looks driveable …. with a rusty NJ license plate….
I have a soft spot in my heart for these old Mopars; they certainly are not fast but they are comfortable and are seemingly capable of running forever, those long stroke flathead sixes are certainly not overstressed. The first car belonging to my parents that I have any memory of is a 1946 Plymouth, in that same four door sedan body style as the Dodge above. In my mind I can still hear the sound of the Plymouth’s exhaust as my father was coming home from work.
The grandfather of a high school friend had a 1948 Dodge that was the near twin of the one above. This was in the late sixties and Mr. Hall’s Dodge was in immaculate condition; I’m pretty sure he purchased it new and decided early on that he would keep it forever. I don’t know what happened to this car when Mr. Hall passed away; I hope it went to someone who would appreciate it for what it was and that it didn’t end up as some sort of street rod project.
Colleague of mine a long time ago owned a ’46 Plymouth. He drove it to work sometimes. I got to ride in it once. As we approached, he said that in its presence I was always to refer to it as “the DeSoto” because he didn’t want it to have an inferiority complex. I rode in the back with a couple other guys and was astonished by how much legroom was to be had back there. But even the owner/driver was obliged to say, as the car flolloped around a turn, “This thing handles like a marshmallow.” And the acceleration was leisurely, even by early-90s standards. But riding in that car will always be one of my fondest automotive memories.
The first car I remember my parents having is a 46 Plymouth 2 door sedan.
Daddy had pretty much quit driving it by 1957 but he kept it until 1971 when some boy made him an offer he could refuse.
I had a college statistics prof who used one of these as his everyday driver around 1979 or so. He lived near campus, so the poor old rusty thing didn’t have to go far. But go it did, every single day.
I am getting to the stage in life where I am going to have to make up my mind about whether one of these is really a priority. I really, really want one. I would probably prefer the bigger Chrysler or DeSoto, but one of these Dodges would suit me in a pinch, of course.
I always found it odd that while other manufacturers at least made teeny trim changes to distinguish 1946 from 47 from 48, these Mopars simply did not buy into such foolishness. And, as Gene Herman will probably chime in later, this could be an early 1949 model, too.
Great to hear the actual highway was preserved. Looking after the best of highway features be they bridges, gas stations, garages, signs or manufacturies is to be supported. Always contact a local preservation group if you see something worthy of consideration.
It’s so nice to hear of the tiny town being left intact. Far too often here they get the guts ripped out of them so the road can go through.
I wonder who in Pleasant View had enough pull to avoid the town being decimated by the interstate.
Some would argue that having the interstate bypass the town caused a slower, drawn-out decimation.
Reminiscent of the town of Radiator Springs in the movie “Cars”, and all the real-life towns along Route 66 that inspired it.
Closer to home, the NC Highway 64 Bypass effectively killed the Eastern NC town where my wife grew up. It was already in a steep decline due to a major employer leaving and most younger folks (my wife included) leaving after High School and never returning, but after the bypass took all the traffic away from the town’s Main Street, every single business along the street has since closed.
My Mom’s first car was a black ’48 four door. She learned to drive on it.
It’s hard to grasp from where we are now how much more difficult it was to control a late ’40s sedan for a student driver than anything we experience now. They didn’t stop well, they handled like logs escaping from a flume, and rearward vision was akin to peeping through a knothole in a fence. Not to mention the skills needed for parallel parking.
Maybe the slower pace of driving then went hand in hand with these limitations.
My memories are of a large expanse of floor between the seats, boaty floaty sensations (the kind where you felt the family joules arcing out of synch with the car upon cresting a hill) and, for some reason, the oddly placed windshield wiper switch, sitting high on the center of the dash (perhaps an artifact from when it was attached directly to each individual motor?).
But don’t forget that a forties car would have been immeasurably better than what came ten years before, and that’s how the buyer would have been judging it.
I learned to drive on a (late) 49 Plymouth, most of what you said was true except I don’t remember the ride as being “boaty-floaty”. If anything, I remember it as being stiff, almost truck-like.
As far as “control”, you quickly learned that these cars didn’t have lightening-like responses. You gathered speed like a runner who is toting a suitcase under each arm, and scrubbed off speed like the same runner trying to avoid “dumping” those suitcases….and their contents.
Maybe because my family had a 49 and 51 Plymouth, I prefer the Plymouth over the Dodge. You get a much better looking instrument panel, in my opinion, and the Plymouth is slightly smaller than the same year Chrysler and/or Desoto.
The Mennonite family I used to spend summers with had one like this sitting in the barn yard, under a tree, having been abandoned for a 1953 Plymouth. While the whole family took a post-mid-day dinner nap, I’d go and sit in it and imagine driving it all over the country. The mohair was a bit itchy on a hot Iowa summer day, and it smelled mighty musty, but I could spend a good hour in that thing.
I’ve wanted one ever since. They’re so tall and roomy; they fit me just right. Thanks for taking me back.
Well done Jim, two different articles out of the same photos, each with a different slant.
I hope this one went for restoration, lately I’m on a CL hunt for a 1938 or 1939 Dodge/Plymouth/Desoto and it’s rather horrifying how many of the available ones are stalled projects with crudely hacked in modern running gear.
It’s called milking the material for all it’s worth, my friend.
A pleasant relief from the Toyotas everywhere thats two in two days, Nice ol Dodge we mostly have Plodges but there is the odd real deal version about that one I’m hoping was just made roadworthy and put back in service it looks quite solid from the photos great find, the other relief from Toyota week and our Toyota clogged roads? I went to book my Citroen in for its 6 monthly inspection yesterday and the garage I use always has something interesting there this time a 1926 Rolls Royce that failed to proceed last art deco weekend its been sitting for 10 months or so but is now being revived I proposed a vacuum leak in the fuel feed, the same diagnosis as the garage has come up with I’ll get some photos next week when my car goes in the RR is nosed up behind a 70 beetle.
What a treat!
As a child, my paternal grandmother had a 1947 Dodge sitting abandoned just inside the woods near her house. The old girl was driven to her final destination before I was born; I am told she was smoking just a bit.
Several times I opened the doors, enthralled with the suicide rear doors. The dashboard was unlike anything I had ever seen and the various elements intrigued me, such as the third brake light and the badge that said “Fluid Drive”.
Going through the JC Whitney catalog (this was mid-80s, mind you) revealed many of the needed parts were still available at a reasonable cost. My father only laughed at my enthusiasm.
Sadly, my grandmother sold some of the timber off her 38 acres around 1990 and one day the idiot driving the skid loader ran down the side of the Dodge, annihilating it. I told her she should seek damages. She only laughed at the idea. The humiliated old Dodge sat there forlornly for another ten years or so before she sold it to some shady scrap dealer.
The car had been amazingly solid until its brush with the skid loader. This era Dodge is one of the few 40s model cars that really speak to me. It’s undoubtedly been long ago recycled into a refrigerator or dog food can.
Previously mentioned Roller managed to download my phone
And this at the same place a Talbot RV just for Paul
The old MOPAR flathead 6s may have not been fast, but just about the only machine simpler or more reliable is perhaps a Zippo lighter.
Terrific photos and imagery .
Those old MoPars were floaty once the shocks died , adding decent ones made them much more bearable .
The center mounted wiper switch was because the single wiper motor was vacuum operated , some brands used vancy long linkages , others remained simpler and placed the wiper control as close to the wiper motor as possible .
Those old FlatHead engines were sturdy but any real RPM’s caused them to run hot then fail by failing the connecting rod bearings , speeds over 50 MPH did them in really fast ~ like 3,000 miles or so .
I miss these cars greatly especially the Coupes .
-Nate
The wipers on these Dodges were typically two-speed electric. That was the main difference between the base Deluxe and slightly upscale Custom series. Most people bought the Custom.
This one is a beauty. It has a molding on the rear fender, which makes it a Custom.
Pretty sure it’s not a ’46; the rear reflectors are red instead of white, and the ram is the very slightly larger post-46 version. I don’t think there’s any way to distinguish 47/48/early 49 visually.
Those old FlatHead engines were sturdy but any real RPM’s caused them to run hot then fail by failing the connecting rod bearings , speeds over 50 MPH did them in really fast ~ like 3,000 miles or so .
Nate, I see you copy and paste that same comment every time we have a car with a flathead engine. I’ve let it go, but not this time. It’s just not true, and way too generalized.
To start with, not all fleatheads are alike. Yes, the Ford flathead V8 had a specific tendency to run somewhat hot, because its center exhaust ports ran through the block between the middle cylinders, and that threw a lot of heat into the cooling passages. But with a big enough radiator, they could stay cool. keep in mind that Ford flathead V8s were used successfully in quite large trucks and city buses, running essentially flat-out day in and day out.
Anyway, inline flatheads don’t have that issue, so there absolutely no specific reason why they would/should run hotter than an ohv engine. Flatheads were used in an incredibly wide range of vehicles, from the little Jeep four to giant truck and off-road equipment.
The Chrysler flathead sixes had a particularly good reputation for toughness and durability. They too were used in all sorts of trucks and other equipment and run at quite high speeds. The legendary Chrysler a57 multibank 30 cylinder tank engine was essentially five of these flathead sixes built around a central crank case.
To say that “speeds over 50 mph did them in real fast – like 3,000 miles” is very much off the mark. First of all, you do realize that folks in the 50s and 60s drove faster than 50 much of the time. This engine was used in Chrysler cars through 1959, and I know folks who drove them all over the country with their kids on vacation, in the mid-late 60s, on the freeways, when the speed limits were 70-75. I never heard of anyone that blew up one of these. I’m sure it happened, like any engine of the time, but these were considered as bullet proof as any.
Anyway, it’s not the speed of the vehicle, but the engine speed that makes a difference. A passenger car at 50 in one of these was not running very hard. But in a 2-5 ton Dodge truck, they were run flat-out, and that top speed might be 45 or 50.
I personally knew folks who had these, and rode in a number of them, including a memorable interstate trip from Baltimore to Iowa, in a 1950 Plymouth. We did 60-65 the whole way; the engine purred like a kitten. That car was then 20 years old and on the original engine.
The only way you could kill one of these in 3000 miles would be tor run it without oil or water. Even then, I wouldn’t guarantee it. 🙂
Thanks for setting the record straight, so to speak.
My parents had 2 of these flathead Mopars, bought when they were already 10 years old, and my sister bought a 3rd as her “go to college” car. To say that these cars were tough as nails is an understatement. All three were driven at speeds over 50 miles per hour, my sister’s 54 Plymouth most definitely was driven a few thousand miles at speeds above 50….as I got her car after she moved up to a near-new 67 Mustang.
In the case of 2 of our family’s cars, major front end damage inflicted by another car and a large tree stump made repairs too costly, but mechanically they were still runners. The 3rd was sold when my father got transferred 1000 miles and it was cheaper to sell it than move it.
Two reasons why the flathead MoPaR sixes and straight eights are so durable are that they have hardened exhaust valve seats and a water distribution tube that assures a constant spray of coolant on all six of them.
This one from an eight shows the individual ports that deliver the coolant where it’s needed….
…and how it is accessed from behind the water pump.
Thanx Gene ;
This thread has caused much remembering of old MoPars with this engine , that water tube would clog over time and instead of taking the time to carefully clean the holes with a long welding rod or coat hanger , folks would replace the original well made one with a cheaper galvanized one that usually rusted out in plain water in two or three years leading to hot spots in the water jacket…
Dorman Products still sold these tubes into the late 1980’s .
I also had a ’48 and ’49 Dodge one ton tow trucks in the very early 1970’s , battered and beaten but _NEVER_ bowed ~ the ’48 was *so* tires and whipped , I ran it on drain oil from the Customer’s cars , it didn’t leak too badly but it sure burned it .
The ’49 was actually a nice old truck although asking it to hoist up a full size ’67 Chevy one day made it _very_ unhappy .
Good rigs to be sure , many happy if slow miles logged in MoPar FlatHeads .
-Nate
You’re very welcome, Nate. Those Pilot House pickups sure would take an extraordinary amount of abuse and still come back for more.
The bizarre looking A57 tank engine that Paul referred to. Hard as it may be to believe, these proved to be reliable units in the field, despite their complicated appearance.
Five 251 cubic inch flathead 6 cylinders made 445 brake horsepower and 1060 foot pounds of torque.
They were floaty even when the shocks were GOOD, Nate. In fact, that was a selling point, LOL! But rugged they were, both under the hood and under under body.
Not So Gene ~
They were _smooth_ not floaty . BIG difference .
My ’39 Dodge (? D11 ?) had tube shocks and I was amazed , GM stuff still had lever shocks (worthless) at that time .
Adding stiffer shocks makes these oldies ride andhandle much better and still ride nice .
-Nate
Oriflow tube shocks and hydraulic brakes made Fords and GM’s seem old fashioned at the time. I run a set of gas shocks on my ’49 and they’re really great.
Thanx for bringing this thread back up , I really like the initial photograph and think it’s look nice in hi-res , framed on the wall of any shop .
I’ve also been thinking about all the ‘ floaty ‘ comments and these cars surely were _not_ floaty when new , in fact they were considered good road holders .
The engine had a single center motor mount that sort of dangled the engine greatly reducing transferred vibration and ChryoCo called this the ” Floating Power ” design because it worked so well and delivering smooth power if not very much of it .
-Nate
My plymouth 54 with the 230 flat 6 did just fine above 50, and it had the 2 speed powerflite auto. Somebody should have told Earl Edgerton about the limitations of the engine, before he started taking them to the salt flat. Johnny Cash drove one all over the us on tour, no problem. Maybe he didn’t top 50, though. Doddering around the country, I suppose.
I’m a Buick guy (a marque that never used a flathead engine) and yet I seriously respect the MOPAR flat 6 as much as I do the OHV “slant”6. I know they don’t grab the headlines of the SBC or MOPARs own Hemis and Wedges, But a lot was done (and still is) with them with regards to performance and both have a life span and inherent engineering that makes them classic American engine designs.
Nate,if you had bought a 48 Plymouth new,I don’t think there would have been any where to drive it over 50 until the sixties Am I right here or not ? When I started driving in 1970
there were interstates all over By then you had to drive 70!
There were numerous freeways, throughways, parkways, toll turnpikes, divided highways, and other high speed highways in the 1940s. The interstate system greatly expanded that, but please don’t think folks only doddered along at 50 until the 60s.
Even before the interstate came through Iowa in the 60s, the speed limit on the major two lane highways was 70, and I remember riding along at that speed quite often. At least until one came up behind a big truck doing 45. That was the big problem then – the semis were not as fast as cars yet.
Here’s a jammed freeway in LA in the 40s.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike opened in 1940 and for the first year or two, had no speed limit at all.
I am learning something here. I thought most of the time you needed a ohv modern
something to drive fast for a long time with no troubles.
The little sidevalves in some small British cars were crap and couldnt run the cars at sustained high speeds but Ive never heard of that problem with mopar flathead sixes and like Paul know of many examples that were driven hard for much of their lives as used cars, the suspension and steering gear would clap out but the engines just kept going. We didnt get many Mopar V8s through the 50s mostly it was canadian Plodges with sidevalve 6s and people were happy to have them after often years on the dealers list waiting.
To be crystal clear : these indeed were veru fine cars .
They littered the American landscape from new until the late 1960’s when folks began to drive 75 + all the time .
I had a ’39 Dodge four door sedan that was one tough little car , roomy inside , small and easy t park out side , near impossible ti kill .
I also had a Dodge B1B pickup truck with fluid drive and a three speed manual transmission , another incredibly tough , hard to kill MoPar product .
There’s a reason why I lust so badly after the blue Dodge two door that occasionally pops up in these pages .
Didja know ? these were _heavy_ suckers to ChryCo. used dual leading shoe brakes to make sure they actually _stopped_ unlike my beloved pre war Chevies that suffered (and killed and maimed thousands) with Huck (notice how it rhymes with ” SUCK “) brakes from 1937 ~ 1950 , even on the light duty trucks .
If you have one of these old MoPars and it doesn’t stop it doesn’t need disc brakes , it needs proper shoe to drum adjustment , easy to do once you understand it .
IMO , had ChryCo had a decent OHV engine instead of the FlatHeads , they’d have run away from The General with these fine cars .
Lastly , I don’t copy and paste ~ I take the time to write it because I have owned and worked on more of these than most here will ever see , they were always for sale dirt cheap either with a rod know or smoking badly , not worth repairing .they didn’t wear out and fall apart like Chevies did .
Just that *one* small but important defect .
-Nate
Nate;
I can’t speak from my own experiences but I can pass down what my mechanic father told me. he was always a leadfoot driver and his motto on cars was
“if it isn’t fun it had better be dead bloody cheap to run!”
thru the 50’s and 60’s he had several flathead mopars as shop cars and he always said next to the indestructible slant six, they were the slowest but toughest motors Chrysler ever made. I used to see him use the gas pedals on the slants like a light switch(on and off) and have to presume they were treated the same.
I have to figure if they survived him they had to run hard, run fast, and run forever!
I blew a slant six before, and I could tell how destructive I was to the mechanic from his expression.
Sounds good to me Bill ;
Shop cars don’t typically spend more than a few minutes at WFO……..
You’re right they were sturdy and durable engines , few remember that multiple carby set up woke these up nicely .
I drifted off to sleep thinking of so many of these in my youth ~ in rural areas they out number GM cars by a wide margin and the Mid West Junk Yards used to teem with them by a 2 to 1 margin over GM products .
Slant sixes , another wonderful wildly overbuilt ChryCo engine .
-Nate
Thankyou! What a relief.
That Toyotaorgy almost did me in….
Ironically, someone here on CC once remarked that pre-1955 Chrysler products were considered to be the Toyotas of their day, selling at or near MSRP.
And then Exner’s Forward Look cars showed up, and Chrysler’s quality has never been the same.
What a nice piece. By that I mean the article AND the solid looking old D24. Needless to say, I also hope it found a good home.
The Classic Car Database shows the standard axle ratio as 4.1:1 and 6×16 tires. What this means is that @60 MPH the engine will be turning over @3000 RPM’s, or, in high gear, 20 MPH for each 1000 RPMs of engine speed, roughly.
I could just sit in that chair and take in those curves for a long time.
Yep ;
Those curves are _sensuous_ to me .
-Nate
Jim,
I am poring over your Michigan Road travelogue. Great stuff and done with such care, knowledge and detail.
Thanks! Glad you’re enjoying it.
Great photos and piece, Jim. I often wonder what road travel was like for the average American before the time of expressways. These evocative photos took my mind to that place.
Here’s a reflection I wrote on that very topic.
http://blog.jimgrey.net/2011/05/16/bursting-the-nostalgia%C2%A0bubble/
Just now noticing this, but the photos are indeed wonderfully evocative. The old-timer may not get out much anymore, but instead watches the world go by, and serves as a reminder of times past.
This fine old Dodge looks rock-solid and all there; hopefully it got the restoration it deserved, or maybe it’s back on the road looking just like it does here. I’d be happy either way.