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“Balanced Ride:” The 1953 Plymouths, so stable you can read at 60 mph!
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Mar 19, 2025
What was really new about the 1953 Plymouth cars? Quite a lot, it seems! Two steps forward, one step back... here’s the story behind a dealership flag emblazoned with a gyroscope! Let’s explore... the Plymouth mystery banner!
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0:00
hi there it's me Dave from motels and
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I'm here to talk about the 1953 Plymouth
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the Revolutionary new car that is the
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first Motorcar with a truly balanced
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ride so that you can have a ride so
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smooth you can read a book at 60 MPH
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imagine that well for 1953 that probably
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was a big deal cars then you know you
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still had steel wheels you had
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relatively primitive suspensions and you
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could tune for either ride or for
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handling but it was hard to get both so
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we have this dealership uh item this
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would have been hanging in a dealership
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window or an inside and as you can see
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this would have been a lovely purple
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color with the gold it would have looked
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quite snazzy and you can see a
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gyroscope and so the flag is kind of a
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mystery to me I have to be honest this
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ad campaign just uh fell off the charts
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it might have been only for
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dealerships uh 1953 that would have been
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plymouth's 25th anniversary not for the
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cars but for the name Plymouth which
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came uh as many know that came from a
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brand of twine that was trusted by
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Farmers not from Plymouth Rock although
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they certainly did make use of that
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reference and amusingly its car the car
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that it actually sold as the Plymouth
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had been the Chrysler for just a year
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ago and before that it was the Maxwell
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so this is basically what was the really
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rubbish Maxwell that caught Maxwell into
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a lot of trouble and then Zer Skelton
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and Breer turned it into the good
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Maxwell and then it got turned into a
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Chrysler for a couple years and then it
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turned into the Plymouth by now of
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course all vestiges of that car were
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gone it was 25 years later and the only
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reason that they didn't celebrate their
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anniversary is because it was the 50th
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year for Buick and for Ford and they
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would have looked pretty silly so now we
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look at the actual car and the car
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doesn't make a big splash like this sign
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indicates because Chrysler was expecting
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that the Korean War would heat up and
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they were conserving on Chrome and
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copper and brass and all that that might
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be needed for the war effort so they put
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almost no Chrome onto the car so it
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looks pretty plain so let's talk about
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this incredibly balanced smooth ride
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it's kind of funny because what they
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actually did was they moved the rear
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axle forward by 4 and A2 in creating a
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lot of rear overhang that hadn't been
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there the car's length as a whole only
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got 1 in smaller and the interior got
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bigger so it's hard to know what they
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meant exactly by a balanced ride unless
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the front and rear overhangs now matched
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but normally if you have the wheels as
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far out to the corners as you can get
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you get better ride and
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handling uh it's possible though that
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this was ameliorated by the new front
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and rear suspensions so for the front
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suspension they used new control arm
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design that was better than the old one
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and resisted swaying you know when you
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uh T tilting body roll it resisted body
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roll which is the tilting when you make
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a turn too hard and the car leans over
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if it's an older car generally speaking
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modern cars are much better at not doing
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that they also had a front sway bar
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standard which you know some years that
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you had a standard anti-sway bar some
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years you didn't so a front anti- Wave
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Bar in 1953 was a pretty big deal and
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they also used spay mounted rear springs
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with five leaves and they did all sorts
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of things to try to keep the car more
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stable and to improve the ride with the
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positioning and design of that rear axle
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setup even though it was just leaf
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spring with five leaves they really did
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a lot of work to make it as good as they
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could so you know that for 1953 Chevy
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and Ford already had V8s Plymouth of
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course did not and what they had instead
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was a choice of three-speed manual
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transmission or three-speed with one
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overdrive manual transmission that was
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optional and the same old by now kind of
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obsolete straight six in so it was a
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good sturdy design it wasn't as powerful
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as it could have been there was a lot
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that they could have done to make it
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more powerful but their view the view of
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the executives at the time was people
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don't really care about power half the
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cars sold in America at that point were
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straight sixes and their sales were
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pretty good Chevrolet made twice as many
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cars as Plymouth in
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1953 so you know that there was some
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room to move up still the 53 Plymouth
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for whatever reason maybe it's because
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they had such neat purple and gold
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posters uh sorry flags for the
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dealerships and these pictures of
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gyroscopes and the ride so smooth you
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can read a book at 60 M hour uh maybe
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that will help them to beat their pass
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record record by 20,000 cars for the
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year again still nothing really compared
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with Chevrolet volume and not even
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particularly close to Ford volume which
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was quite high but quite good for
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Plymouth and maybe if they had put more
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money into being able to produce more
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plymouths back in 1946 Plymouth would be
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Chevrolet's equal by now but they didn't
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and it wasn't so one of the interesting
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things about the 53 Plymouth is that was
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the last year made with no head of
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styling at the company uh in a lot of
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ways you can tell it's not the most
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perfectly styled car ever made by
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Chrysler or anybody else the 52s were
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worse they looked even stubbier they had
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removable fenders in the 52s and
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Plymouth finally dropped that and had
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welded on fenders like everybody else in
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the 53s so they looked a bit nicer in
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the meantime I hope that you've had a
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good time looking back at the 53
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plymouths they were probably the highest
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utility car that you could get at the
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time they were very reliable they had a
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good ride in handling they had good
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brakes they had good parts and they were
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relatively big on the inside while being
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relatively small on the outside but it
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was a time when people did not care they
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wanted conspicuous consumption they
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wanted to show off and they wanted to
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have a lot of fun after the Pras and the
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sacrifices of World War II so
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it uh could have sold better if it was a
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less functional car which is
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ironic and with that I will see you with
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the next video
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