1962 Plymouth Savoy - Eyes On Your Own Paper

Our handsome 1962 Plymouth Savoy here hails from Marilla New York, a rural community roughly thirty minutes east of Buffalo. The owner has it listed on Craigslist for a very optimistic $6500. Wow. If they were asking half that I'd have the same sentiment despite its relatively pristine condition. The shape it's in all the more remarkable seeing where it comes from but I don't see that being a reason to over pay for it. Here's the listing. https://cleveland.craigslist.org/cto/6196485034.html



Not quite sure why they think a 55 year old, six cylinder, beige on beige, four door sedan  is worth that kind of money but let's be positive for their sake and wish them the best. Maybe they think this car historic? It's nothing but old if you ask me. Historical significance rarely if ever a harbinger to drive resale value. However, this car is historically significant because for model year 1962, Chrysler downsized Plymouth and Dodge "full" or "standard sized" lines upon getting clandestine intel that Chevrolet was going to do the same thing. Or that's what Chrysler thought Chevrolet was about to do. Problem was that Chevrolet wasn't downsizing their full size line but rather they were working on a new line of what would become their mid size line that would debut in 1964. Whoops. Sounds to me like someone got their executive washroom privileges revoked.



It wasn't out of the question that GM would be downsizing given the rise in popularity of smaller cars in the late '50's and early '60's. Chrysler taking to the offensive and sawzalled the daylights of their 1962 Plymouths and Dodges to get out in front the downsizing they thought GM was about to do. They did so to the tune of making the '62's approximately 8 inches shorter, 4 inches less wide and on average 350 pounds lighter than the '61's. All that slicing and dicing and the cars still had as much if not more room inside than the cars they replaced. That's progress and foretold of the great downsizing epoch The Big Three would go through less than twenty years later.

Now, were this a two door, even with the "Super 225" slant six, it would be a different story but as such, $6,500 is all the money in the world for it. Then again, if this was a two door it would be hard to believe this car wouldn't have gone through an engine transplant some time in the last half century. Note the "single pot" brakes and I've dug deep on other under hood photos in the listing to find a power steering pump. I couldn't find one.



There's also the thrill of yesteryear "three on the tree" manual transmission. This old girl is no doubt a handful to drive. Someone better really want an old school car like this and want to keep it this way to pay anything near the asking price for it.

Contemporary road tests of these cars were glowing but they were usually V-8 models that also had at least power steering. They could have been moon rockets for all that it mattered or didn't matter seeing how no one seemed to care.

That was because they were construed as ugly. They shared more than a passing resemblance to Plymouth's provocative 1960 Valiant and since the Savoy shared the Valiant's firewall, it meant that our "full size" 1962 Savoy was more of an upsized compact than a downsized full size car.



Personally, I find the Savoy a far more attractive design than the stubby Valiant. As we've discussed before, many times the size of the canvas can be as important to a design as the design itself. At least with the 1962 downsizing they had the good sense to skip the vestigial trunk hump they put on the Valiant. Oye.

Chrysler's gleaming of information on what Chevrolet was planning is the stuff of Detroit legend. Story goes at some sort of industry gathering that the President of Chrysler overheard what the President of Chevrolet was planning and literally jumped to conclusions. Not unlike changing your answer on a test when that smart kid has a different answer than yours. Best to keep your eyes on your paper.