The Birth and Death of the Limited Edition Plymouth Fury

Plymouth was Fury-ious in 1956

The Plymouth Fury was a genuine eye popper when it debuted in January of 1956. This was probably the most radical departure from what Plymouth had stood for since it inception in 1928. It had always been regarded as a solid, down-to-earth economical family type car and was known for its dependability.

The problem was other car makers had jumped ahead of Plymouth in styling and engines. In 1954 Plymouth had dropped all the way down to fifth in sales from their normal position of third for the first time since 1930. The Plymouth did a lot of catching up in 1955 as they were equal to Ford & Chevy in the looks department as well as the horsepower with a 260cid (cubic inch displacement) V-8 with up to 177HP (horsepower). Their sales went up and they moved up to the fourth position for both 1955 and 1956. In 1957 they were able to regain their number three spot.

I believe a lot of the credit for them being able to climb back up the sales ladder was not only the new styling and V-8 in 1955 but the debut of the Fury in 1956. Plymouth realized they needed something more to get customers into the show room besides styling and horsepower of the 1955. After all, the Ford and the Chevrolet both had nice styling and V-8's and there was nothing Plymouth had that could match the Thunderbird and the Corvette for bringing potential buyers into the showroom.

Now that the 1955 was doing well Lee Iacocca decided they should have some fun and at the same time get people excited. Thus the Fury was born. Basically the Fury was designed around a high horsepower engine. This appeared to be the primary reason for building the Fury. What has puzzled people since the debut of the Fury was why they didn't use one of the Hemis that Chrysler had come out with in 1951 and by 1955 was the main engine for the Chrysler C-300, the car with the most muscles at that time.