For the middle of the 1950s, the Belvedere would be Plymouth’s top model, replacing the Cranbrook as top dog. Then the Fury came along, and the Belvedere became the “second banana.” A variety of body styles were offered, including the 4-door sedan here from 1954. It appears to have been sitting in the woods with other old cars for quite some time. The seller hopes someone will come along and save it from the crusher. From Ocheyedan, Iowa, this set of really cheap wheels is available here on Facebook Marketplace for a token $350.
People sometimes think Plymouth named the Belvedere after its assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois, but that’s a false assumption, as the company didn’t start building cars there until 1965 (and the Belvedere wasn’t one of them). Instead, the word stands for “beautiful sight” in Italian. The ’54 Belvedere was powered by a 230 cubic inch “flathead” six cylinder that was rated at only 110 horsepower. An automatic transmission finally became available mid-year.
The seller’s car is one of about 32,500 Belvederes produced in 1954, but when was the last time you saw one? This Plymouth has been sitting for so long that the engine is stuck. The seller is not interested in tinkering with it due to other projects of greater interest. Looking through one of the windows, the interior is a mess. Bring a few C-notes and a trailer and drag this thing home. Thanks for the tip, “NW Iowa Kevin.”
That’s priced about right. Just an old car needing a bit of work; doesn’t look like the structure’s rotten either.
Nothing to see here, move along… These old Mopars were pretty much an “accounts” car. Not much performance, but a reliable appliance. My friends in High School had one that they were going to put a hemi into and make a gasser out of it. The decided it would be neat to blow up the flathead. So they did what any good respecting teen would do, the dropped a brick on the gas pedal in neutral and stepped back… After about 15 minutes they had run it out of gas. They decided that if it could take that it deserved to live on and they turned around and sold it for $50. It’s probably still running to this day.
I have a similar story about trying to blow up an old Chrysler flathead engine. I had a friend who had a 51 Dodge with a flat head six engine that developed an engine knock. He was going to put a later model V8 engine in it, but but being the foolish teenagers that we were, he decided to see what it would take to blow it up. He lived in a subdivision where the streets formed a large oval, so he put it in first gear and drove around the oval with the gas pedal on the floor for several “laps” with the engine screaming and knocking, but it never blew up and came apart. He gave up and parked it until he could save up enough to buy an engine. I don’t think he ever drove that car again.
That grainy shot taken with a smudged lens seems to hint at something on the right-rear of the trunk lid. Could it be a Hy-Drive emblem? If so, this is a rarie of the first order.
That’s the spittin” image of the one that was gifted to me by my great grandfather when he was no longer able to drive. It looked and drove like new, only 28,000 on it. I had no business owning a car that pristine at my age , 17. Was cruising along about 40-45 mph when the driveshaft separated from the tyranny dug into the blacktop and immediately threw the front of the car straight up into the air.all I could see was the top of the telephone pole bedside me and clouds. Where she came back down she hit so hard it spread the front suspension so bad that the wheels were at a 45° angle to the frame. Scared the s__t outa me. That put a quick end to the old girl. If this one was within 50 miles of me I’d snatch it up in a New York minute. I would get it running, clean it throughly and scavenge a more human friendly interior, wet sand it and buff the the heck out of it. And a nice daily driver would emerge. Why are they always on the other side of the world ?