1972 Plymouth Satellite Sebring Plus - There's a Fine Line Between Cool and Weird

 

The Chrysler Corporation's Plymouth and Dodge divisions swung mightily for the fences with their intermediates for 1971 and based on sales, early on at least, seemed they cleared them. While the four-door sedans and wagons were more or less rounded off updates of what was offered from 1965 to 1970, the coupes were, as is the case of this 1972 Plymouth Satellite Sebring I found on Facebook Marketplace, ahem, from another planet. 

Strong as sales were, though, and I can't find break outs by vehicle type, they were roughly a third of Chevrolet Chevelle sales, so they weren't exactly everywhere when I was growing up. I recall seeing sedans and wagons, but the coupes were unicorns. And the ones I saw, I thought were cool, odd as well. Not as odd as I found AMC's Javelin's of the same vintage but kooky enough that had I been of the age and means to buy a new car when new, I'd have head straight to my local Chevrolet or Pontiac dealer for a Chevelle, Monte Carlo or Grand Prix. 

As they were going back to 1965, from 1971 to 1974, all Plymouth intermediates, or mid-size cars, were "Satellites", Plymouth taking a page from Ford's "Galaxie" play book playing off the "space age" craze. Starting in 1971, the coupes went off in their own styling direction and to differentiate them, if they weren't called "Road Runner", they got the "Sebring" suffix. 

Complicating things further, this car is a "Satellite Sebring Plus", meaning it has nicer seats than non-Plus models and this funky paint scheme the current owner altered, if you know better, rather dramatically. While the white "carriage top" vinyl roof is period correct, the paint on the "rocker" part of the exterior is white where it was silver from the factory. 

He claims he had it painted, "his way". That's all well and good, pal, but when you're asking $40,000 for a non-Road Runner fuselage era Plymouth intermediate, you can't do things like that and think you're going to sell it for a king's ransom. If I'd ever spend that much money on a "classic" car, I'd want it as it would have come from the factory as. Say the asking price slowly so it sinks in even deeper. Forty. Thousand. Dollars. 

My favorite part of this car is the "loop" front bumper. The '71 and '72 Satellite Sebring's have this, owing to the five-mile-per-hour safety bumper regulations, the '73 and '74's have a front end that looks not much different than what's on the sedans and wagons. It's fine but it ain't this. 

Seller claims the car was originally from Portland, Oregon and he bought it out of Seatle ten-years ago. Apparently, he's has sunk a ton into it. From the looks of it, he did. This thing looks tight as a drum. Problem is, seems he's trying to recoup his expenses. Perhaps then some. 

Now as then, I'm on the fence about these cars. As they say, there's a fine line between cool and weird, perhaps these cars push the weirdness thing just a little too close to the cool side of the ledger for me.