Plymouth P14 4-Door Sedan 1942, Estados Unidos

 
Plymouth P14 4-Door Sedan 1942, Estados Unidos
Fotografia

Finished with dull paint and without chrome, the 1942 P14 sedan goes minimal for the war effort.
Years before the bombs rained down on Pearl Harbor, the American automotive industry in general, and Chrysler Corp. in particular, was already mobilizing for war.
Dictators in Europe were engaged in unrelenting territorial annexations during the late 1930s--the most audacious of them being madman Adolf Hitler and his brutal National Socialists. In 1937, the cabal of Japanese warlords and political opportunists who had usurped their emperor's authority stormed into China, unleashing unspeakable atrocities against its populace. That same year, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Permanent Neutrality Bill into law in an effort to appease isolationists in Congress who wanted no part of "foreign entanglements."
In the momentous month of September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Two days later, Roosevelt invoked another Neutrality Bill passed by Congress, authorizing the White House to sell arms and other materiel to allies under siege.
By mid-1940, Germany had crushed France and was bombing British cities around the clock in an attempt to force Britain's capitulation. Merchant ships, ravaged by U-boat attacks, ferried supplies to British ports, allowing it to finally turn back the German assaults. Japan's aggression in East Asia prompted Roosevelt to impose a total embargo on commerce with the archipelago. In retaliation, Pearl Harbor was attacked.
By late 1941, under the Lend-Lease Act, the auto industry had gradually begun adapting itself to produce the machinery of war, and proclaimed as much in advertising for its 1942 models. Yet, after Pearl Harbor, which left the Navy's Pacific Fleet a flaming wreck as war raged unchecked on three continents, Roosevelt decreed the combined might of U.S. industry to devote its strength to the newly declared war against the Axis, with the auto industry leading the way. The final car manufactured for civilian use, a Ford sedan, was completed and shipped on February 2, 1942.
Civilian production came to a close after the industry had gone through a weeding-out and robust post-Depression recovery. By the end of the 1930s, Plymouth was firmly ensconced as a legitimate low-priced alternative to Ford and Chevrolet, with the numbers to prove it. Model year production of the 1939 Plymouth P8, with its distinctive oblong headlamps, stood at 315,161 units, one of them also having the distinction of being the 3-millionth Plymouth built. For 1940, Plymouth got to share in the major restyling that the rest of the Chrysler lineup had received the previous year. With three additional inches of wheelbase and a repositioned engine and rear axle, the 1940 Plymouths' interior capacity gained 10 cubic feet. In that year's model nomenclature, Plymouths were available in Deluxe (P10) and Road King (P9) variations, with a 201.3-cu.in. L-head 84hp straight-six engine as standard power. Annual production climbed slightly to 316,417 units; Ford barely edged Plymouth for second place in U.S. sales.
When the 1941 Plymouths were introduced, the line had been divided into three ranges, led by the P11, an economy ultra-stripper with no vent windows, a single windshield wiper and, in an omen of what was to come, trim pieces that were painted rather than chromed.
Next up were the P11D, D for Deluxe, and the P12, or Special Deluxe, notable because it could be ordered with two-tone paint. Probably due to a buy-it-before-you-can't consumer mind-set, sales of all three ranges roared to 545,811 units, including the 4-millionth Plymouth, its publicity photos featuring a mugging Mickey Rooney.
Plymouth's 1942 model line might be described as "the cars that disappeared," both figuratively and literally. The line was cut to two models, the P14S Deluxe and P14C Special Deluxe. Both of them could virtually be called entirely new cars, with the previous X-style chassis jettisoned in favor of a box-perimeter frame, and new doors that concealed the vestigial running boards when shut. The L-head straight-six also increased in displacement to 217.8 cubic inches thanks to a quarter-inch larger bore, but utilized cast-iron pistons--aluminum supplies were restricted to military usage. With its bigger bore, it now developed 95hp.
Production of 1942 model year cars begin in July 1941. Gradually, more and more raw materials were designated as strategically necessary to the war effort and disappeared from the assembly lines, starting with chromium, which glinted on the 1942 Plymouths' all-new grilles. First, the side trim spears were radically shortened to save chrome. Later, the trim castings were simply painted and those cars became known as "black out" models, including our driveReport subject. Cars that didn't already have signed civilian sales orders when they were built were immediately impounded by the government, mainly for military assignment. When auto production ended for good at Plymouth on January 31, 1942, production stood at 124,782 units.
Fast forward nearly half a century. Bill Massey was living in Danville, Illinois, and looking forward to his retirement from sheetmetal work in a few years. Actively involved in restoring Chrysler products since 1962, he was flipping through the local newspaper when he spotted an auctioneer's advertisement for an upcoming estate sale at a local farm. A partial list of the property to be sold included a 1942 Plymouth sedan, with no further description. Massey wanted to restore a pre-war Plymouth as a retirement project, and stopped by the farm on the appointed day.
"I was the successful bidder, but there was only one other guy bidding, and he said he wanted it so he could turn it into a street rod," Massey said. "The guy was saying how he was going to cut it all up, put in a Mustang II front end and a V-8 and everything. I didn't want that to happen, and it turned out he didn't want it as badly as I did, even though I only paid $300 for it."
The Plymouth's original owner was the farmer whose estate was being liquidated. Chatting with the late farmer's nephew, Massey learned that the man's uncle was, like millions of other Americans, scrambling to adapt to the radically changed consumer marketplace in the days immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
"He said that, right after the war broke out, his uncle went into Danville to try and buy a set of tires; he drove an old Chevy. When he got to town, he found out they were already being rationed (Editor's note: Tires and other rubber products were among the first products to be rationed, because the vast territory conquered by Japan in the Far East contained about 80 percent of the United States' supply of natural rubber). Then he learned that there was a Chrysler-Plymouth dealer in town that might have one car left to sell. So he went in, bought the car and got the new tires. He drove it from 1942 to 1965."
The Plymouth was still wearing 1965 Illinois license plates when Massey retrieved it. It had been parked for years in the wagon way beneath a corncrib on the farm.
"The car was solid but there was surface rust all over it, and the rear fenders were crushed in--around here, we say the farmer tried to widen the garage door with the fenders--so they were practically useless," Massey said. "The paint was flaking off all over, and the interior was moth- and mouse-eaten. I tried to get the engine to turn over but it wouldn't; all the valves were seized. The fuel tank was bad and the fuel and brake lines were all rusted through. It's just what happens from sitting outside for years and years."
It was clear from the outset that Massey's restoration would be more mechanical than cosmetic, despite the completeness of the Plymouth. The work got underway in earnest following his retirement in 1995. First up was removal of the hood and front fenders, so the engine and transmission could both be pulled and then separated. The engine block went to a local machine shop, which bored the worn-out cylinders .030-over and reground the crankshaft .010-under for journal trueness. Egge Machine in Sante Fe Springs, California, supplied a full range of new critical internals, including .030-over pistons, .010-under main and rod bearings, camshaft bearings, plus new oil and fuel pumps, and Massey handled the reassembly.
The transmission was much easier, requiring only a basic cleaning and new fluid, as did the differential. Neither the transmission nor the rear required any disassembly. Amazingly, neither did the front suspension: The Plymouth still has its original front wheel bearings--Massey needed only to clean and repack them.
To bring the brake system back into working order, Massey needed to replace the master cylinder, wheel cylinders, brake lines and shoes. Besides getting new lines of its own, the fuel tank was flushed with boiling water and solvent at a local radiator shop.
It's worth noting at this point that, from the beginning, Massey intended to do a body-on restoration only. He removed the front sheetmetal, the doors and the deck lid, removed the seats, and, as he put it, "got down in the footwells and did a lot of scrubbing and scraping." The old paint was removed with a DA sander and a lot of elbow grease; Massey recoated the chassis and underbody in black using Rust-O-Leum spray cans, giving his reasoning as, "It's better than POR-15 because at least it doesn't take weeks to get it off your hands." In terms of finishing the body, he conceded, "It's been painted three times, and the first two don't count because they turned out so poorly. So I took the decklid to a local shop, Todd's Auto Body, and showed it to them and said, 'Paint the car this color.' It's clearcoat over basecoat. I have no idea how many coats, or what kind of paint they used, but I think the color's called Air Wing Gray."
Another of the few outshopped elements was the interior, or more precisely, the upholstery. A friend of Massey's who operates an auto trim shop agreed to handle the job, but matching the seat facings with NOS material was impossible, because there was none to be found. Instead, while wandering the aisles at a big swap meet in Indianapolis, Massey chanced upon a vendor who was selling material similar to the Plymouth's pattern, but not exactly like it. It was good enough for Massey, who said, "I've got enough of it left over to do another car." The interior is bereft of chrome--even the horn ring is painted metal, but Massey refinished it in its wood-toned paint.
So, what do you use for chrome trim when all the chrome's been hoarded by Uncle Sam for the war effort? In the case of the late-1942 Plymouths, the substitute materials for chrome were either plain thin-gauge steel or to a lesser extent, stainless steel. For instance, the emblems on the car are stainless castings; their lettering and graphics picked out in contrasting red paint. Running along the beltline, and encompassing the door handles, are lightweight metal strips also finished in the body color. The same goes for the grille and bumpers. And the hubcaps, for that matter. Who could have guessed that a generation later people would think that cars with monochromatic finishes would be hip and would pay a premium to buy them?
You have to love a guy like Massey. Plymouth built their pre-war cars for durability and he drives the gray sedan accordingly. Its odometer showed 71,000-odd miles when he rescued it from the corncrib and he's added another 8,000 or so since completing its restoration in late 1998. He'll routinely run a 200-mile round trip to hit a car show or a swap meet, though usually not on Interstate highways.
"The braking leaves a little bit to be desired," he said. "On the highway, I can drive the legal speed, 55 or so, but if you go much faster than that, I have to ask my wife if it sounds to her like the engine is straining. But the car rides soft; I've got a friend who has a new SUV and he tells me the Plymouth rides much better. There's a really neat event each year in a little town called Newport, Indiana, called the Newport Hill Climb, with a big car show. The hill climb's only open to pre-war cars. It's 1,800 feet long with 140 feet of vertical elevation. From a standing start, I can get to the top in 32 or 33 seconds."
Massey's 1942 Plymouth is the only one he's ever seen in person. He's spotted one or two others in club magazines, but both were copiously chromed, indicating that if faithfully restored, they were most likely assembled early in that abbreviated model year, before the civilian auto industry jerked to a halt. Massey's car represents the edge of the abyss.
"That's what makes it so historic," he declared. "This car was built just as this country was going through ... a lot of change."
Owner's View:
"I've been involved in the hobby since 1962, when I restored a 1932 Plymouth PB. My Dad had a Plymouth, and when I was a young guy in high school, I worked at a local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer. I had a 1935 Chrysler Airflow; sold that. A 1973 Plymouth Duster with 18,000 miles; sold that. I still have a couple of 1980s Chrysler LeBaron convertibles. With Plymouth, I was always attached to the name. When they dropped it, that hurt. I like this particular P14 sedan because I wanted to restore a pre-war automobile, and this one has a very special history."
Pros:
An industrial artifact on wheels
A salute to a Chrysler fallen flag
A pre-war car that's not a Ford
Cons:
L-head straight-six isn't exactly brawny
Not everybody thinks gray is beautiful
Doesn't have instant Ford cachet
What to pay:
1942 Plymouth DeLuxe
Price:
Base price: $935
Options on dR car: Heater ($49.20)
Engine:
Type: L-head straight-six, cast-iron block and cylinder head
Displacement: 217.8 cubic inches
Bore X Stroke: 3.25 X 4.375 inches
Compression ratio: 6.8:1
Horsepower @ rpm: 95 @ 3,400
Torque @ rpm: 172-lbs.ft. @ 1,600
Valvetrain: In block; solid lifters
Main bearings: 4
Fuel system: Carter B6P1 downdraft one-barrel carburetor; mechanical fuel pump
Lubrication system: Full pressure
Electrical system: 6-volt
Exhaust system: Single
Transmission:
Type: Three-speed manual, sliding gears, synchronized 2nd and 3rd gears, column shift
Ratios: 1st-2.57; 2nd-1.83; 3rd-1.00; Rev.-3.48
Differential:
Type: Hypoid, semi-floating axles
Ratio: 3.90:1
Steering:
Type: Worm and roller
Ratio: 18.2:1
Turns, lock-to-lock: 4.25
Turning circle: 41 feet
Brakes:
Type: Four-wheel hydraulic, manual
Front: 10-inch Expanding drum
Rear: 10-inch Expanding drum
Chassis & Body:
Construction: All-steel body on box-perimeter frame
Body style: Four-door, five-passenger sedan
Layout: Front-engine, rear-wheel drive
Suspension:
Front: Independent control arms, coil springs, tubular hydraulic shocks
Rear: Live axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs, tubular hydraulic shocks
Wheels & Tires:
Wheels: Drop-center pressed-steel discs
Front: 16 X 6 inches
Rear: 16 X 6 inches inches
Tires: Uniroyal steel-belted radial
Front: P205/75 R15
Rear: P205/75 R15
Weights & Measures:
Wheelbase: 117 inches
Overall length: 195.5 inches
Overall width: 73.3 inches
Overall height: 68.3
Front track: 57.0 inches
Rear track: 59.0 inches
Shipping weight: 3,060 pounds
Capacities:
Crankcase: 5 quarts
Cooling System: 14 quarts
Fuel Tank: 18 gallons
Transmission: 2.75 pints
Calculated Data:
Bhp per c.i.d.: 0.43
Weight per bhp: 32.21 pounds
Weight per c.i.d.: 14.04 pounds
Production:
Total 1942 Plymouth: 124,782
Four-door sedan: 68,924