Dirty Harry: 1970 Plymouth Fury
The fourth generation Plymouth Fury was released in 1969 featuring Chrysler’s fuselage look styling and riding on the C-body platform shared with the other rear-drive full sized cars from Chrysler and Dodge. Whenever I see one, I can’t help but think of those really bad 70s cop shows/movies and smile. Find this 1970 Plymouth Fury here on eBay offered for $13,888 located in Chicago, IL. Tip from Jeff G.
This 1970 model year Fury straddles the world between the sleek/dangerous/expensive muscle cars of the 60s and the slow/junky/cheap cars from the malaise era. The brown vinyl top might have you thinking this boat is made for the cruising, but the keel is setup for chasing the wind.
Under the hood is a 383 cubic inch Mopar V8 which when equipped with the gas sucking 4-bbl carburetor made 300 SAE Gross (or 250 SAE Net) horsepower and 410 ft-lbs of torque. It was a decently powerful engine for the era is mated to a 3-speed automatic in this one.
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Having ridden in one many times in the day ( turtle top) , I only remember thinking how cheap and terrible can a car be! It creaked and fell apart daily. Those doors barely lined up and closed. Chrysler somehow got away with junk in the early seventies, but it soon caught up to them .
Perfect fit for the mean streets of Chi-town. Pork pie hat, brown turtleneck, and a tweed sport-coat, and I could imagine myself as Popeye Doyle. Minus about a ton of the coolness. 🙂
All about rock and roll….no rock lots of roll…….
I still recall the disbelief and denial when the car magazines printed the first snaps of the "fuselage" designs.
All my car friends and I who dug Mopar were taunted by GM fans. I don't recall there being an avid following for Ford, although many still liked the hot Mustangs.
These cars never have moved up in my estimation. Tom Minch nails the devil-may-care build quality of these cars. My father bought a new 1972 Dodge Coronet and it drove from day one, until day 1095, like it was pieced together in a Bronx chop-shop. There is no way to exaggerate just how loathsome a car it was.
It had "Lean Burn" tendencies 4 years before Chrysler ruthlessly installed them on all their cars.
Vivid reminder how a great company that produced some great cars ends up when it stops giving a shit.
I had a 1968 Galaxie 500 as my college car. It was slightly lowered and riding on fat meats and cornered quite well for such a shockingly huge barge. Everytime I hit a large puddle it would short out the distributor. The back floor pans would fill with rainwater and if I hit the brakes hard enough a tsunami wave would shoot out under the front seat and up my pantlegs.
Such a shame about that build quality…as a Ford loyalist myself, I've always loved the fuselage body Chrysler Corp' lineups.