Today’s Gran Fury is claimed to have once been restored as a homage to fire chiefs. Now it’s up to you to decide if its condition and price make it a hot deal.
It’s a sad fact that rally-bred cars like yesterday’s barely exist in the new car market today. Yes, Subaru is hanging on with the STi, and you could still perhaps make a case for the Golf R. For the most part though, that’s it in our present crossover obsessed world.
That makes it an even sadder fact that yesterday’s All-Trac came with an irreconcilable $16,500 asking and a somewhat dubious description. Un-messed with was how it was presented, but the litany of replacement parts and tacked on extras made a mess of that averment and the car went down in a sizable 90 percent Crack Pipe loss.
“Hey buddy, where’s the fire?”
You’d probably hear that a lot driving around in today’s . That’s because it’s meant to look like a fire chief’s car. Yes, it could get annoying.
That’s okay though, because being a firefighter is one of the top-five career choices most of us considered when we were six-years old. This Fury could also conceivably be an ‘80s undercover cop car, which was yet another aspirational career option.
In Greek mythology, the Furies—or Erinyes—were the female deities in charge of extracting vengeance on the insolent and setting right malefaction. Sounds like a great basis for a Plymouth, don’t you think?
The Plymouth Fury had a pretty good run. The nameplate carried across multiple generations and several sizes, spanning the course of more than three decades. Perhaps the most famous of those is the first generation, presented as a mysterious force of malevolence in the book and movie, Christine.
This M-body edition is far-less evil looking, and perhaps that’s the reason it proved to be the model’s end of the line. The chassis dates back to the F-body Volaré which debuted in 1976, and honestly is nothing more than a badge engineered job on the Dodge Diplomat. The Gran Fury was the smallest of the series which is probably while Chrysler decided not to call it the “Grand Fury.”
This one comes from the model’s third from final model year, a time when most were being pressed into civil service duty. The M-body had meandered through the K-Car era at Chrysler, during which it met with modest sales outside of transporting cops, fire chiefs and the like. It was finally killed off by impending safety standard upgrades that would have rendered the cars unprofitable.
The last Gran Fury was available with a 225 cubic inch Slant Six, or an optional 318 CID V8. For better or worse, this one carries the latter. That V8 offered a modest 140 horsepower which amazingly was less than that of Chrysler’s 2.2-litre turbocharged four. A three-speed automatic with column shift served as the only transmission choice.
There’s only 67,000 miles on this one, and it’s claimed to carry “most” of its original paint. A darker burgundy has been applied over the top as part of what is claimed was going to be a fire chief homage destined for a New Jersey museum.
Instead, it’s here and rocking steelies with mini caps wrapped in new Toyo tires. The ad claims that the Plymouth “drives, handles and stops like a new car.” It also looks damn-near new in the pictures. This is an end of era car and as such sports such old school features such as tufted velour upholstery and silver-faced gauges. The latter are almost outnumbered by the blank cutouts in the instrument panel, but not quite. There’s plenty of leg room front and rear, and the trunk is capacious enough to hold a weekend’s worth of firehouse chili.
Under the hood, the 318 looks as tidy as you could want even if it’s only putting in a half-day’s worth of work. New brake lines and redone rear drums make the car’s lack of modern safety equipment a little less terrifying. The title is clear, and the seller is only offering the car as he has replaced it with a pickup.
This is an unique opportunity to step back in time and perhaps play let’s pretend I’m a fireman. That’s got to be worth something to someone, right?What you need to decide is if it’s worth the $5,450 for which it is presently being offered.
What do you think, is this Gran Fury worth that kind of money? Or, does that price just make you furious?
Frederick, MD , or go if the ad disappears.
H/T to William Miller for the hookup!
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