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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, November 8, 1999
Plymouth will rock no more on auto scene
When Daimler-Benz hooked up with Chrysler Corp. to create DaimlerChrysler (what - they couldn't afford a hyphen?), there were reassuring noises from both sides of the Atlantic. The exercise, we were told, would generate all kinds of creative synergy - and would do so, moreover, with a minimum of trauma.
Sound familiar? Of course it does: It's the same beautifully polished script they trot out on the occasion of any corporate merger or takeover. There is no cause for alarm. Only good will come of this.
Iceberg? What iceberg? Don't be absurd.
The trick, of course, is to pay as much attention to what they do as to what they say. It is thus of more than passing interest that last week, less than a year after the German-American marriage, DaimlerChrysler decided to send the Plymouth nameplate into oblivion. Sometime during or just after the fall of 2001, Plymouth will go pfft.
Explaining the decision, corporate leaders made it clear that Plymouth had become a casualty of its own inability to create and maintain an identity for itself. With the exception of the zany, preposterously extroverted Prowler roadster, all of Plymouth's current offerings are re-badged versions of vehicles sold by Chrysler and Dodge.
And, just by the way, the numbers had something to do with it as well. From a peak of 750,000 units in 1973, Plymouth sales last year plummeted to 307,000.
In a rational world, then, the demise of Plymouth makes impeccable sense. You've got an under-achiever in the lifeboat? Over the side with him.
(In fairness, it should also be noted that there was talk of deep-sixing the Plymouth label well before Daimler-Benz's acquisition of Chrysler took place. It's not a German thing.)
However, there is more to it than just numbers - at least for people like me who have an emotional stake in cars. There are, after all, millions of us who foster fierce loyalties to Fords, Chevys and, yes, Plymouths. (Not to mention certain British marques.)
Meditating on this sad little story, I realized with something of a shock that Plymouths have played more of a role in my personal history than I realized.
There was, to begin with, the '38 (or was it '39?) Plymouth coupe my parents snapped up when my dad was assigned to a Pentagon job during World War II: With availability of all forms of vehicular transport at a premium, they were overjoyed to find it. Hence, its name (in those days, people named their cars): "Thank Goodness."
Then, quite a while later, my aunt and uncle in Mission, Shirley and Waldo Greene, acquired one of the first finned Plymouths, a white '56 Belvedere they called "Snowball." My most vivid memory was of the clear plastic covers they had put on the seats to preserve the upholstery. On a Rio Grande Valley summer day, those things tended to capture your attention. Aaiiyeee!
Oh, and Snowball also had Chrysler's pushbutton automatic transmission - an excellent idea that ultimately had to be scrapped due to lack of buyer interest (or so the story went).
I took driver's ed in a Plymouth, too: A bare-bones '59 Savoy with serious fins, manual transmission, and two steering wheels. Our instructor, George Washington Boone, was beyond question one of the bravest, most imperturbable individuals I've met.
There have also been two Valiants in my life - one a white '63, dubbed "The Duck," that my wife drove when we were dating, and the other a black '64 that saw me through a Midwest winter at the University of Michigan in '82-'83. Glamorous? Not a bit - but they were terrific cars. If you've got an afternoon to spare, I will bore you to tears with hymns of praise for Chrysler Corporation's Slant Six, one of the best-tempered, most indestructible engines ever to roll out of Detroit.
There were countless other Plymouths that I admired, albeit from afar: the Hemi-powered carnivores of the '60s, including the infinitely lovable Roadrunner, with its "beep-beep" horn; the 340-powered Duster; the huge, swaggering Fury of the '70s; the 'Cuda . . .
The bottom line rules, no question. But there should be no question on another count: For those of us who cherish wondrous machines that go vroom in the night, losses like this one exact a cost of their own.
(Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772 or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)
Brooks Peterson
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