The Rough and Rowdy life of "Maxine" a 1958 Plymouth

The long history behind this 1958 Plymouth Savoy must be explained to fully understand the "why" behind the creation it has become. The decisions of this Plymouth’s past helped dedicate the direction of its future. Like many other cars of this age, this Plymouth had a hard life, anything and everything was used to keep her running. The car spent a large portion of its life with a man named Bob until the current owner Tyler was able to get his hands on it. Bob owned a small junkyard in which the Plymouth played an integral role in keeping organized and running smoothly. With a hitch mounted to the front and back as well as push bars this Plymouth became a glorified forklift. Bob grew up during the depression and quickly learned to use whatever you have and do whatever you need to in order to get stuff done. The car needed more torque for all the pushing and pulling it was doing so Bob used some junkyard ingenuity and coupled a three-speed transmission to the back of the factory transmission. If you put both transmissions in first you would get a face-pulling top speed of 5mph but a massive increase in torque. Essentially, this setup was a homemade version of a transfer case doubler. To be a true Clydesdale workhorse of the yard many more creative additions were made. To create more traction in the muddy yard and put that extra torque to work Bob made his own set of dually wheels. Bob cut the center section out of a wheel, slotted it over another full wheel, and welded them together to create a makeshift set of duallys. A set of tires is not much good if they aren’t balanced especially when there are four of them on the back. Luckily, Bob had a tire machine that he quickly used to give his homemade wheels the balance of a gymnast. From the stories told Bob's balancing job held up well and allowed the car to drive safely and smoothly down the road. The next problem was a stock 58' Plymouth was not exactly designed to be the home to a set of dually wheels. To fix the problem Bob again took to his junkyard ingenuity by cutting a 55-gallon drum he had in the scrap pile in half, removing the rear wheel wells, and welding in his nice new roomy wheel wells. Even with all these ingenious homemade upgrades done the car's suspension needed to be beefed up because with a car like this you don't just move cars around the yard you do some logging occasionally too of course. Tyler the current owner stated "When I first picked up the car the trunk had three large toolboxes that were full of wrenches, sockets, etc that were very heavy.  It also had two full large (125) oxy-acetylene torch setups.  When I took this all out of the trunk the car rose only about half an inch.  The car had about as much give in the suspension as a brick."  

Bob used his homemade Plymouth workhorse for many years doing all sorts of awesome things with it until he, unfortunately, passed away. His widow was now left with a yard full of more cars than she knew what to do with. At the time she just wasn't able to run the yard anymore. With it no longer being considered a business the city required her to clean up the yard. Seeing a business opportunity another local scrap yard offered her $300 a car. Luckily, Tyler's mom was managing a convenience store at the time and many customers including Bob's widow would use her as a therapist. During one of their sessions, Bob's widow asked if the price she was offered was good. Being the great neighbors everyone wants, Tyler and his dad volunteered to help see if they could help get some more money for Bob's lifelong collection. Many cars were sold off to new homes and the ones that had lived their lives were taken to scrap. Tyler and his dad did trailer full after trailer full of odds and ends to the scrap yard. Not only did they help get the main clean-up done they went above and beyond to help Bob's widow by fixing leaky barn roofs, floors in her sheds, and countless other jobs. For all the work they had done Bob's widow ended up giving Tyler the modified Plymouth.   

Tyler had originally tried to buy what he now calls Maxine (The Plymouth) at 15. However, he was greeted by a saying all too familiar to many car guys "not for sale right now". Tyler was stoked to finally get his hands on Maxine after so many years. Like many cars that were driven hard and parked long, Maxine sat inside a barn so long her tires had gone flat and her rockers were sitting on the cold damp ground. Tyler's original plan was similar to many other 58 Plymouth owners, the plan was to make the car look like Christine a killer Plymouth from a Stephen King novel. After taking some time to look for parts Tyler came to the conclusion you more or less would have to spend way too much money or destroy another car to make one good car. After removing all the "patch" panels done early in her life Maxine had no floors left. The trunk was in the same condition, the interior was chewed up, the rockers were dust on the barn floor, the lower quarter panels were Swiss cheese, the hood looked like it got hit by a sledgehammer, and even though Bob's wheel wells worked for what he wanted they to would need to be replaced.

Basically, Maxine had lived a long and rough life and needed some serious surgery to make her look young again. After discovering most of the car had turned to dust from years of sitting Tyler wanted to see what life was left in the engine. Tyler summed it up by saying "it ran but it smoked more than a 95-year-old widow at a bingo tournament." With the news, he has a chain smoker under the hood Tyler started checking on all the other mechanical components. The brakes had enough power to essentially hint that you may stop at some point. Then the transmission sounded like a werewolf howling at a full moon. So essentially the metal was shot, the drive train had no more drive, but as Tyler said "I had a car that literally had nothing good left but it looked mean as hell." This is when it became so obvious to Tyler that this car was not going to be a tribute car. This car was going to pay homage to Bob by taking his vision to the extreme and then adding a few more notches on top of that. 

To get the monstrous look Tyler wanted he took a 1977 Dodge W300 (One ton 4WD) and got to work hacking away at it like a drunken surgeon. The frame was shortened to nestle under Maxine. All the raised cross members were cut and lowered so the body of the car would sit even lower on the frame. Whereas other sections of the frame needed to be raised as the truck cab sat even lower than Maxine would. A Dana 60 dually axle and some heavy-duty leaf springs were added to give some better ride quality than mentioned before.  Much like Bob, Tyler knew he would be doing some serious towing with the car so a gooseneck ball mount was added in the trunk. Since the floors were emulating the Flintmobile Tyler took the time to replace the floors so he didn’t look down and see pavement. To mount the car to his new frame Tyler used a body mount kit meant for a late 70s Chevelle and with some fabrication had himself body mounts. It was time for the chain smoker engine to be replaced and Tyler found himself a lively motor home 440. The 440 was hooked up to a 727 transmission and an unknown transfer case from the W300. Tyler later learned that the unknown transfer case happened to be all the time four-wheel drive. The 440 needed to guzzle some serious air so a much bigger rad was installed. Just in front of the rad, a new heavy-duty bumper with a winch was installed just in case Maxine found herself in some sticky situations.

What are all these fancy upgrades worth without a set of serious high heels?. Tyler was on the hunt for anyone who made old-style steel dually wheels that were offset enough to run a gigantic 33+ inch set of tires. Unfortunately, Tyler was unsuccessful in his search. He even reached out to four different suppliers to see if they could make him some, with all of them either saying no or just not replying. Tyler eventually went with a set of 20' Cleavers from Fuel Offroad. With the outside of the car having some cosmetic surgery done to bring her a new look the inside needed fixing. Tyler had the interior completely redone by Fabric Magic near Roy, Utah. With all the big stuff done it was time to add some final touches before hitting the street such as a new sound system, a roof rack, a gambler 500 emblem under the hood, and a special license plate. 

With all the work Tyler had to do just to get Maxine looking more like a car again and less like one big slab of swiss cheese he was only getting 8mpg due to the full-time 4WD. He had 411 gears in the back which would cause the car to top out around 75 and scream like a banshee due to the high rpm. With Tyler saying “ I loved how she looked but the performance just was not what I had hoped for.  It was time to go back to the drawing board.” Tyler's father-in-law gave him a 2007 2500 HD Dodge Cummins that had spit out its guts through a fist-size hole in the 24 valve. Tyler started the butchering process all over again much as he did with the W300. He again shorted the frame, fabbed cross members, made motor mounts, tranny mounts, and much more. He was able to find a 12 valve without a fist-sized hole in it for a decent price. With a new motor in hand, he had Northern Utah Diesel go over the engine to make sure he wasn't lacking power this time. They changed gaskets, checked piston rings, added a bigger turbo, bigger fuel plate, bigger springs in the p pump, and lots more little upgrades. They even freshened up the look of the motor by painting the valve covers white with bright red splatter, the block black, and all other accessories red. The red paint splattered on the value covers is reminiscent of blood splatter, which certainly gives Maxine just a little hint of Christine. Tyler tried to go for the hefty NV4500 but the only two he came across were $4,000 each and had unknown miles on them. In the end, Tyler went with a Tremec TR-4500 which is still a great transmission. Tyler says “It was only about $1000 more for a brand new transmission with the bell housing adapter, clutch, slave cylinder, and hardware included.” Much like the first version of Maxine Tyler used the transfer case from the donor truck. Due to the size of Maxine, some serious braking power is needed so Tyler opted for a brake assembly from Wilwood. For an added layer of fun and usability, a line lock system from Hurst was also added. Then to ensure Maxine would stay cool year-round Tyler cut out 95% of the factory rad support to make room for the biggest rad that would squeeze between the fenders. On top of all that cooling, Tyler added the biggest liquid-cooled intercooler system that would fit, Maxine now has a heart of ice. Maxine sings through 2 ¾ piping that dumps out of a hood stack.  Finally, a new set of Rancho RS9000X’s was added for some adjustability and Tyler plans to add airbags before anything really heavy is towed by the car.

With the new engine, Tyler estimates it will make around 500hp and over 800 lbs/ft of torque. Maxine has been improved inside and out, she will stop better, handle better, go faster, ride smoother, and will only smoke like a 95-year-old widow at a bingo tournament when Tyler melts tires. Tyler says “Maxine catches a lot of crap due to the cutting up of a rare car.” The journey of Maxine shows that sometimes it is better to do whatever you can to keep a car alive than do nothing at all to keep it original.

If you enjoyed the article don’t forget to share it with a friend and leave a comment. Also, come back Wednesday at 8 pm EST for another bite-sized article about some of the other creations Tyler is currently working on!

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