The snow has melted around these parts and we can again see the hulks of relics and other fantastic curbside gems in the yards, lots, streets, and driveways of the local topography, regardless of what Punxsutawney Phil says.
I have captured the quartet of Green MoPar fuselages at this location before and shared them with the CC cohort. Rich Baron wrote about the first sighting of the Furious Quartet previously (Captured 12/21/23), and all those photos were from afar. The Count of Green Furys on this property is down to 3 on this visit as it seems one of the ’72 models has gone missing, or is gone permanently,? Maybe it has moved to an indoor storage location for winter work? Who knows.
This time, let’s Take a closer look at these Green Plymouth beauties, the Pair of 71’s that are adjacent to each other on the 1971 Plymouth color chart.
The first Fury III for today’s visit, the more operational one, in my opinion, because I have witnessed it in different locations and parking spots. It has full wheel covers and 383 badges under the front parking lamps and reflector housing. Based on the visible single exhaust, that would be the 275 hp 2 barrel 383 as the 300 hp 4 barrel version came with standard dual exhausts. It is finished in MoPar 1971 paint code F4, Lime Green Iridescent along with a matching vinyl top.
If we look carefully through the boughs of the evergreen to our left in this shot, we can see the other ’71 Fury Wearing F8, Ivy Green Iridescent. The Ivy Green car is much darker and the color matches the evergreen needles almost perfectly.
Over to the Dark Green Fury now, I suspect the F8 Ivy Green Fury is likely powered by a 318, 360, or possibly even a Slant 6. Without having any engine displacement callouts on the front fenders ahead of the wheel openings, we will never know for sure.
It is lacking the factory wheel covers for the 15″ wheels and has a black vinyl top.
The F8 Ivy Green Fury III is in remarkable shape, as I do not believe it has moved much from this location; it was next to the same small tree back in 2023 when I photographed it last. The tires seem to be making a permanent impression in the soil here.
Even the Bottoms of the quarters are presentable for a big ol’ MoPar Fuselage.
A scratch above the rear wheel opening would not prevent me from owning or driving this old Fury if I were so inclined to own such a vehicle.
This example has the small metal /rubber cladding bumper guards, not the full blown rear bumper pad found as standard equipment on the Sport Fury and Sport Fury GT.
According to the factory brochure, the rear bumper pad could have been color-keyed to the belt moldings. This was all the rage apparently in 1971 as MoPar E body fans could get this similar option on the Barracuda and Cuda as well. I have never seen a Sport Fury with a bumper pad color other than black. I am sure they exist, I have never seen one however.
The one thing that blows my mind viewing these cars is the sheer amount of exterior and trim differences, with the Fury I and II having seemingly a different rear bumper and tail light assembly from the Fury III, Sport Fury and the Sport Fury GT.
Two different roof lines were available for both 2-door and 4-door models. It seems that the 4 door Sedans always had the formal roofline, which I find a bit austere and dull, especially when the formal roof is paired with the 2 door hardtop. I much prefer the pointed rear glass and roof line as shown with the 4 door hardtop below. It reminds me of the ’67-’76 Dart, and the ’68-70 Charger somehow.
The dark green car has some nicely preserved exterior trim.
The Plymouth callout on the hood and the highly stylized anodized aluminum grille also look excellent.
This example has the color keyed fender-mounted turn signals, which would last through the late 1970’s for Chrysler Corp. models such as the Aspen, Volare, and Diplomat, and even the Horizon and Omni. In the later years the parts were chrome, not keyed to the body color. This option seems to have been eliminated for the 1980 model year.
1971 Would be the last year for the complete wraparound bumper for the Fuselage Generation on the Fury lineup. 1972 would be a different face to the front of the car, and I am not sure I like the ’72-’73 front styling as much as this look;
It is striking to me how much different the Fury III Grille sets into the Wraparound bumper when compared to the Sport Fury Grille. As comparison, look at it against the orange example below, which was part of my dad’s collection:
A closer look now:
In the interior, some sections of carpeting are missing to show a fairly solid floor below. No Fred Flinstone stops in this car.
Let us now turn our attention to the other member of the Furious green pair, the F5 Lime green car.
Other than the engine being a 383, a green vinyl top, and lighter shade of 1971 green, and the full wheel covers present, this example seems to be a very close twin of the dark green Fury III.
The interior of the F5 Fury III seems to be mostly the same, with the one singular crack down the dashpad in the same place, some missing carpet, but with the addition of the venerable FM converter.
A little bump on the rear quarter, but the super rust prone areas at the bottom appear solid again on this example.
I suspect that these cars are not native to Pennsylvania where they are found currently. If they are native to PA then they lived many years inside or off of the salty roads before this owner acquired them and allowed them to be stored outside.
After growing up with the orange Sport Fury, it is refreshing to find this pair to jog my memory and compare all of the little differences between these Fury Models.
This shot shows the clean lines of the fuselages’ design language:
The formal roof line could be had in 2-door hardtop or 4-door sedans:
Since both of today’s green finds are examples the Fury line up sedan version, they have the formal roof. My preference, of course, is what I call (unofficially) the Sport Roof, and It could be had on 2 door hardtops as shown below and on the 4 door hardtops.
I hope you have enjoyed the Pair of green fuselages as well as some of the comparisons. These late 60’s and early 70’s Plymouths have to be the most diversely optioned and trimmed offerings from Plymouth division at the time. If Plymouth was positioned just below Dodge during that moment, then with the Fury line they would have been reaching the Value buyer as well as the want to be Chrysler buyer for whom that Newport, New Yorker, or Imperial or was just out of reach.
Related CC reading:
Auto-Biography: 1969 Plymouth Fury – Somewhere East of Laramie by PN
Curbside Classic: 1971 Plymouth Fury III – Good Things Come For Those Who Wait by B. Saur
Curbside Classic: 1973 Plymouth Fury III – An Ode to an Avocado Fury by J. Shafer
A very respectable car , looks very well designed althought that size is completely outdated . We never had either one in Argentina, but is a pretty collectible car , one of the best Chrysler’s productos of all times
Excellent post. You’ve done a great service documenting some of the features of these cars in up-close shots. I definitely agree that these cars really couldn’t have lived in PA for long. Although it’s kind of a mystery why someone would go to the trouble to acquire 3 of these cars and then leave them to sit in the elements.
Well, maybe less of a mystery when you consider how large they are…
The MoPar brochures from that year are great. I used the Chrysler ones for a post about 1971 Chryslers, and the Plymouth ones are similar, although with a decidedly more working-class orientation in the models and situations. The hard-hatted architect and the cop are excellent. As always, I wonder just what the photo situation/pose is trying say narratively. In this case, is the cop about to ticket the architect for parking somewhere he’s not supposed to? Or is the cop lusting after a 2-door version of his work car with a vinyl roof?
And the two guys in sweaters at the golf course chuckling with each other about they are both so rich they don’t care about their Plymouths’ awful resale value. 🙂
Nahhh, These guys are so square. They were probably talking about the spirtual on last night’s Lawrence Walk show, totally oblivious.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest neither of these two have ever come close to seeing (much less smoking) one of those marri-ju-wanna ‘dooh-bees’.
Well…the song’s about Jesus and trains, right? 🙂
The Lawrence Welk Show was a hardcore favorite of my mother and grandmother and so therefore I watched way too many hours of it whenever both of them were together (we lived quite close to where my Grandmother lived). Because when you’re 10, you pretty much will watch whatever is on the TV. Or at least that’s how it was in 1971.
Wunnerful, wunnerful….
IMO the FUSELAGE design was one of Many Chrysler Corp mistakes!
Is there a single fuselage Plymouth or Dodge in existence that does not have at least one big crack in the dash pad?
That nit aside, I love these cars more with each passing year. When these were new, the 69-70-71 all mushed together in my mind. I have learned to tell the difference over the years, but the different grille and tail end variants among models in any one year make it harder than it should be.
FWIW, I’m not sure that color chart is from 1971, because it’s missing the Tawny Gold Metallic that seared itself into my brain from my ownership of the 71 Scamp.
You are right JP, the chart in the article is for M.Y. 1970; I noticed the absence of Amber Sherwood, the name I recalled for what is almost certainly the color of the final Fury in the post:
Amber Sherwood always sounded like the perfect name of the girl everyone my age wanted to date in high school. 🙂
Or the secretary of a private detective in a ’70s TV show.
Our neighbors had a Sport Suburban in Tahitian Walnut with the woodgrain trim. But it had no radio! Even then I thought that was very odd.
Good source of fuselage info:
http://fuselage.de/
Neighbor had this car in “brown”. Got it in “75-76ish”. Was in pretty good shape. The seat was the taller one . (like the one in the final pic)
I wish Mopar could have put a wider variety of fender shapes on the fuselage cars, because they all look too much alike, from the cheapest Plymouth to Imperial, for all 5 years. Plus, it made the body appear too massive for the DLO, an extreme over-reaction to the previous generation. Maybe the peaked shape was required for strength.
By the end of the 70s I was sick to death of Mopars in green. Today it looks not bad.
Was it stylish back then? maybe.
There were a lot of them back then, in fords, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, and Chevy’s as well.
Were the green hues somehow cheaper to manufacture than the other colors?
Very nice – I do hope the Ivy Green Fury III isn’t just marking time waiting for the crusher .
I remember when I was a lad, not many young folks had these fine cars but those who did didn’t have then accidentally .
-Nate
I had considerable seat time in both a fuselage Fury and a Dodge. I can still feel myself behind the wheel and all the attendant sensations. They felt quite distinctively different from the full BOF GM and Ford cars; not as isolated,quiet and smooth; one felt more connected to the wheels and the drive train. There was a somewhat hollow feel to them too, which was not apparent in their immediate predecessors. They did not feel as solidly built, yet they were of course plenty rugged and tough.
Having the 67 Parklane and 73 Polara, both near similar weight cars, they do feel fairly different, when driving. The Parklane feels a lot heavier and is nearly quiet even though 58 years old. The Polara feels like a lighter car when driving and has noises that the Parklane doesn’t. The Parklane feels rock solid vs. the Polara. Hard to tell you are doing 100 in the Parklane but the Polara isn’t bad once past 70. Almost feels better at 75 than 65
I can’t help but like these cars, they remind me of American detective programmes from the seventies. In the same way that I’ve posted elsewhere here about the wrongness of Kaiser Frazer’s these cars have a rightness about them. When I lived in Sheffield there was a 1970 Dodge Coronet four door in the metallic lighter green that I fell head over heels for, not for sale though.
Definitely NOT a VIP, one of the Very Important Plymouths ever! 67-68s were the epitome of low price elegance.
One of my science teachers , (circa 9th grade) had a “68 VIP”. Gold/black top.
I’m always stunned to see a fuselage Mopar with clean, unrusted, lower quarter panels. Those things got eaten away rapidly in the Rust Belt. As stated, the feature cars cannot have spent much time in Pennsylvania. The front seat in remarkable shape (especially for an old Mopar) speaks to that, as well.
And it’s refreshing to see the ‘sport roof’ with curved rear glass quite similar to that of the Dart Swinger. I don’t think it lasted but a few years, but it’s certainly distinctive and memorable.
Depends on which part of Pennsylvania. The winters are harder in the western and northern parts of the state than they are in the south-central region.
When we travel to visit our family in Indiana (Pennsylvania), I see vehicles with much worse rust than their counterparts that have spent their lives in the south-central part of the state.
Mine is bone dry on the inside. Immaculate you could say. Did spend from
1973 to 2009 in Modesto.
I’ve had some shots of a Fury III in my files for a while, so rather than creating another post later on, I’ll just share them here.
Image 1 here
NJSP used these beasts for awhile.
My grandmother had a ’71 Fury II in what I considered that ubiquitous 70s harvest gold, but looking at the color chart it must have been Sahara Tan. This is the same grandmother who had previously driven a ’57 Bel Air, ’62 Impala and ’67 Monterey, all convertibles, so the Plymouth was a bit of a comedown.
We drove it around New Hampshire on a vacation to visit family in the summer of ’74. It may have been a former rental car because even at three years old, it was already a rattletrap (not that Mother Mopar was known for consistent high build quality in the 70s). My mother hated it, but it was free.
My aunt had removed the hubcaps so they wouldn’t get stolen when she drove to Boston to pick us up at Logan. I never understood the logic of that. Now the car looked exactly as what you were trying to avoid. It added to the hooptie vibe of the car.
I did like the concave grille on these Plymouths though. And I know there is a lot of debate over Chrysler’s fuselage cars, but I like the overall design of them, particularly the four-door hardtops.
My other grandmother drove a ’72 Valiant with the trusty Slant Six. We used that car on a subsequent visit. I think the Valiant, Duster and Dart, and later the Cordoba, are the only things that kept Chrysler in business during the 70s.
“I can’t help but like these cars, they remind me of American detective programmes from the seventies.”
As I have said before, these cars are the automotive equivalent of brutalist architecture. In a certain milieu, they have a rightness about them, but they are an acquired taste with a limited clientele. For a cop, a mobster or for an executive like Albert J. Dunlap, they were perfect, but probably not the best car for the small-town banker or salesman, or anyone else who wanted to convey at least a certain modicum of congeniality.
I was fortunate enough to have owned two former 440 Fury 1 squads, in 1975 and again in 1979. One was from Ohio; the other from Virginia. Neither one came with a radio. They were decent cars, plenty of passenger and trunk space. I wouldn’t mind having another one but I have no room for it.