2026 Greenwood Car Show: Chrysler

The red car is a 1970 or 1971 Plymouth Barracuda convertible, the orange car is a Dodge Challenger R/T from the same years. Both are powered by the legendary 426 hemi. These have got to be "tribute" cars. If they were original hemi convertibles, they'd be worth seven figures.

This 1966 hemi-powered Plymouth Satellite is at the show every year. I always love seeing it.

A rare 1971 Plymouth Road Runner.

A very nice 1969 Plymouth Road Runner. This one is the fixed-pillar coupe, not the hardtop.

This rare 1956 Dodge Royal Lancer is remarkable is that it's one of the few smaller Chrysler cars powered by the original hemi-head engine series made from 1951-59. In this case it's the 315 c.i. The hemi engines powered nearly all the Imperials, Chryslers and DeSotos in the 50s, but only a handful of Dodge cars and no Plymouths.

Another very nice 'Cuda convertible.

A very original Doge Challenger.

Tweet

1956 Chevrolet Bel Air

66 years on the road and counting. Out here in the land that rust forgot, it's not surprising to see a car like this used at a daily driver. I'm always fascinated by time capsule cars like this that have never been restored.

Tweet

1956 Ford Parklane

In the 1950s Ford and Chevy were selling just about the same number of cars every year, and whatever one did the other had to copy. Chevy had the Corvette, so Ford created the Thunderbird. Ford had the Ranchero, so Chevy brought out the El Camino. And so on.

In 1955 Chevy introduced the Nomad, its premium two-door wagon. Although the Nomad was expensive to make and barely sold, Ford had to bring out a copycat car for 1956. Like the Nomad, the Parklane is a "hardtop" wagon with sliding windows in the cargo area. In 1957 the Parklane was rebranded as the Del Rio. But the two-door wagon was falling out of favor; 1957 was the last year for Nomad, and 1958 the last for Del Rio. The Parklane pictured here outsold the Nomad nearly two to one (15,186 Parklanes were produced in comparison to 7,886 1956 Nomads). But Chevy got the last laugh. Car collectors love the Nomad, but who remembers the Parklane?

Tweet

Sunset drive with a 1956 Chevrolet

 

Tweet

1956 Packard Four Hundred

"It's better to burn out than to fade away." - Neil Young

The last cars to roll off the line for a car company that's about to go about of business are usually pretty sad. The 1954 Hudson, the 1966 Studebaker, the 1987 AMC Eagle - these were all models that were long out of date because the companies that built them were out of money.

Packard Motors of Detroit, Michigan built its last car in 1956. A car of superb quality that was better looking than rival Cadillac, the final Packards built 1955-6 featured a new V-8 engine, power steering, power brakes, air conditioning, and power windows.

Tweet

1956 Rambler Custom

In my last post I mentioned that in the fall of 1956, American Motors tried to introduce the first car with electronic fuel-injection but ultimately killed to idea due to the complexity of the system. If they'd gone ahead, the unattractive sedan you're looking at would have been the fastest car in America. Even without the horsepower boost provided by fuel-injection, the 1957 Rambler Rebel (the pillarless-hardtop version of the car pictured) boasted a 327 c.i. V-8 with up to 255 hp. Combine that with the lightweight construction of the Rambler, and you've got a car with a 0 to 60 time of 7.5 seconds.

Tweet

1956 Ford F-350 pickup truck

Makes the F-250 I spotted last fall look small.

Tweet

1956 Plymouth Savoy

Congratulations to the owner of this car, who apparently managed to avoid losing any wheel covers in more than six decades. Oddly, this is not the only mid-50s Plymouth in this neighborhood.

Tweet

1956 Ford F-250 truck

Tweet