The Petersen Automotive Museum, positioned in Los Angeles, California, is house to a few of the rarest basic and collector vehicles from everywhere in the world. Every now and then the museum offers us an in depth have a look at one of many vehicles it homes within the Vault, an area within the museum offered by Hagerty that holds over 250 iconic and uncommon vehicles.
In a current video from Petersen, museum curator Leslie Kendall presents the world’s rarest Plymouth – a one-of-one 1954 Plymouth Explorer dream automotive.
Within the Nineteen Fifties, idea vehicles had been coined as dream vehicles. Designers on the time had been inspired to dream and suppose out-of-the-box to create distinctive autos, and this Plymouth Explorer is a superb instance of a dream automotive.
“This automotive was about as out-of-the-box as you possibly can get within the mid-Nineteen Fifties.,” Kendall says within the video. “It was a Plymouth, which is famend for its stable dependability and reliability and its uncomplicated equipment, but it surely wears most likely the sexiest physique a Plymouth has ever had.”
The Plymouth’s bodywork was executed by Carrozeria Ghia of Turin, Italy, in collaboration with Chrysler stylists. The Italianesque affect is discovered within the automotive’s deep-set headlights, topped fenders that run alongside the size of the automotive’s entrance and a really giant, uncommon grille.
1954 Plymouth Explorer dream automotive
1954 Plymouth Explorer dream automotive
1954 Plymouth Explorer dream automotive
This automotive, as Kendall says, didn’t stay a glamourous life, nonetheless, which appears typical for these one-off dream vehicles:
“As soon as they go away the arms of the influential first house owners or the place the factories have spent a lot cash having them constructed, they often ended up as each day drivers.”
This Plymouth has been painted quite a few occasions all through its historical past and was a metallic brown when it was found. It was additionally outfitted with a full-length entrance bumper and a grille with a full steel encompass that made the automotive appear like a Eighties Jaguar, in keeping with Kendall.
In the course of the automotive’s restoration, the bumper and grille had been eliminated and it was returned to its unique inexperienced colour.
Underneath the hood is a “Plain Jane” 230cid six-cylinder flathead engine manufacturing facility rated at 103 horsepower.
1954 Plymouth Explorer dream automotive
“Not very horny beneath the hood however that’s probably not what these vehicles had been about,” Kendall says. “These vehicles had been about sparking goals; they had been about getting most of the people fascinated about what the automotive producers are doing.”
An fascinating characteristic is that the 2 exhaust pipes embedded beneath the taillights make it appear like they supply a “type of thrust for the automotive,” Kendall provides.
Enjoyable truth is that solely one of many exhaust pipes is purposeful. The one port from which you’ll see exhaust emanating is the left pipe.
1954 Plymouth Explorer dream automotive
“In case you had been to attempt to construct this physique on an meeting line, it could be extraordinarily tough. There’s an terrible lot that simply can’t be recreated by a machine and this automotive exemplifies that,” Kendall says, wrapping up the video.
“Its natural form may solely have originated by hand in a small store.”
This text, written by Racheal Colbert, was originally published on ClassicCars.com, an editorial companion of Motor Authority.
