At first glance, this 1958 Plymouth looks like a Stephen King “Christine” movie car tribute without the red paint and evil intentions. But as the story goes, this vehicle began life as a Plain Jane Belvedere 4-door sedan and has been cut-and-pasted into a 2-door hardtop. It looks as though the majority of the work has been done, and the buyer will also get a cadre of extra parts and what’s left of a parts car. Located in Eastsound, Washington, this interesting Mopar is available here on eBay, where bids of $34,000 have not yet cracked the seller’s reserve.
Besides the 4-door at the roots of this project, the seller also needed a bunch of 2-door sheet metal from a 1957 Dodge Regent. Both cars were part of Chrysler’s “Forward Look” movement from 1957, so there was some interchangeability. Apparently, the builder took the roof, doors, and quarter panels from the Dodge and grafted them onto the Plymouth at the factory seams. As it turns out, the Plymouth was previously a one-owner family car that had traveled 87,000 miles.
Per the seller, 90% of the metal work has been even though a lot of fresh white paint has been applied. It’s finished to the point where it has been licensed, insured, and trotted out to local car shows. A 318 cubic inch V8 sits under the hood and comes with the parts needed to upgrade to a Dual Quad carburetor setup, paired with a TorqueFlite automatic transmission. New tires, brakes, and a radiator round out the installed bits list.
The parts car seems to be an assortment of pieces that used to be on the Plymouth applied to the Dodge foundation (a second restoration possibility?). That seems unnecessary and unlikely unless you think there would be a market for a 1957 “Dodge Belvedere” 4-door sedan? The 2-door conversion has been an ambitious project, where I would have just started with a 2-door hardtop to begin with.
Wow! The amount of effort spent upon this conversion is amazing! It looks like this is how it came from the factory. The only thing that looks “off” are the white bumper end caps. Glad to see that its NOT red! (Wonder how it’d look done in black?!) GLWTA!! :-)
Not my favorite car but great workmanship on this one. This was no amateur working on this car.
They did an amazing job on this conversion. I couldn’t even fathom how many hours it must have taken to do all of this. Beautiful job.
Looks great, and I’m confident the body will now hold up much better than the original to rusting in the future.
I don’t get it. If the roof, doors, and quarter panels of the donor Regent were good, why wouldn’t you use the sedan as a parts car for the relatively rare, Canadian-built hardtop? Love to know the story behind this one. It was clearly done by someone with some skills.
Walk me through this guys like I’m a 12 year old that’s a bit slow. Why? Are 57 hardtops that rare that he must make a Frankencar? What is the advantage? Was he just working with what was available to him?
Maybe the Regent had been in a serious front end smash and was not repairable, or maybe the rest of the car was rotted out beyond repair? Would be nice to know.
If you want to follow along on a similar splice, go to the Cold War Motors YouTube channel for the playlist of Scott saving a very rusty ‘60 Fury 2 door hardtop using a good ‘60 Dodge 4 door floor pan. Then subscribe to CWM and watch weekly a bunch of mates have way too much fun with old cars of every description – it’s my favorite channel!
As soon as I read where this car had been transformed from a 4-door to a 2-door with a Dodge Regent added to the mix I thought of Cold War Motors and some of the projects they’ve done and are currently working on. Their channel is one of the most enjoyable, informative and humorous on the Internet.
Thanks for the intro. I will give it a look. My “You Tube” favourites right now are Mat Armstrong and Ian Rousell, both unbelievably talented, but in different directions.
I can’t imagine bids to $34k on this, if it were an original two door hardtop in good condition $34k would probably be all the money, but this isn’t nearly as desirable as an original as far as I’m concerned. Who knows what squeaks, rattles, misalignments, one-off parts etc the new owner will have to deal with, no thanks.
Having owned a 58 Fury for thirty years I remember how long I searched to find my car and how hard it was to pry it away from the “not for sale, go away” owner. I suppose the obsession to own one could drive a person to build their own but it’s DNA, the VIN of the car will always be a four door sedan.
As posted by others: “why?”
Why not? We’re not talking about a one off Rolls Royce here.
This is very interesting to me. I had a 58 Plymouth hardtop like this that I bought when I got home from Air Force basic training in 1960. I always thought the 57 and 58’s were beautiful, and still do. Someone else must love them like I do to have gone to this much work to build one. They did a lovely job but I would remove the bumper wings as they detract from the rest of the car IMO. Although I do love these cars, the bid has gone a little above what I would pay for it, so I will leave it for some other lucky buyer. GLWTS
This looks great,but,not a fan of the flat white finish
SOLD for $34,600.