„Fury fits right in with your ideas of fresh mid-size styling. Long, beautiful lines and wide expanses of glass, and standard upper-level ventilation. Tasteful accents of bright trim moldings. It’s the kind of car you’d be proud to bring home.”
This Plymouth Fury from Cienfuegos is another of those cars that don’t quite fit into the typical automotive landscape of Cuba. The great proportions, long bonnet and Coke-bottle hips make the Plymouth look large, but it was based on Chrysler’s corporate B-body and deemed a mid-size car back then.
Presented in 1971 as the Plymouth Satellite, this generation was produced until 1978, withstanding various facelifts and a name change. For 1975, the Satellite designation was abandoned and the Fury nameplate, once synonymous for Plymouth’s best performance cars, now tickled down from a full-size model into the sensible mid-size segment.
Plymouths of that vintage are probably best remembered as typical “cop cars” in the U.S., being immortalized in that role by many Hollywood movies and TV-shows. Back then, the Fury was one of the cheapest mid-size Mopars available, which made it an ideal fleet car for any federal accountant. Hence it was a staple of many police departments and government agencies. Patrolmen loved it, too, because it was spacious and — with the right engine — a zesty ride.
Under its long bonnet, the Fury could accommodate almost every engine available in the Mopar portfolio, from the 225cc (3,7L) six cylinder up to the mighty 400cc (6,6L) V-8. A vaunted 440cc (7,2L) E86 440-4bbl powerplant with 255hp was reserved for police cars, and transformed the Plymouth into a veritable missile on wheels: back then, a top speed of 133 mph (214 km/h) was quite impressive. However, that 440 option was dropped already in 1978, when Chrysler quietly abandoned the big-block engines due to tightening emission regulations.
We wouldn’t be surprised if our pictured Fury has spent its former life in an official yankee fleet before being shipped to the communist island. If it ever had a big-block engine, it sure isn’t installed anymore, as running such a monster under the precarious fuel supply situation in Cuba would be a prohibitive labour.
1 Kommentare:
Interesting that this is in Cuba. I remember before the US embargo of goods to Cuba was lifted within the last ten years, and this was probably sometime in the 1990s or early 2000s, I saw a then-current generation Chrysler minivan (whatever the badging) that I seem to recall was at a hotel in Havana. I could only surmise that because these were built in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, it was somehow a gray market import through that country, although as I think about it, those vehicles were assembled for the European market in Graz, Austria by Magna International (a Canadian firm). Still, I doubt either Chrysler Canada or Magna would want to risk going afoul of the US Government for the sale of one vehicle. Unless there were others on the island, it seems to have been an impractical choice in terms of parts and service. Regardless, this blog is an absolutely fascinating recounting of where world history and automotive history intersect. Thanks for this coverage!
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