'59 Plymouth Forum

The registration for the tags that the limousine bore seemed to be lost in antiquity; and the bureaucratic hurdles of reclaiming the historical registration proved to be quite a challenge. Richard O'Donaghue, Limerick councilman (at the time) and fellow classic car enthusiast, to the rescue! Richard...

...and, the limo out and about! 39071403_1632757546846100_2603480781082853376_n.jpg 39193508_1632757526846102_3739109445980913664_n.jpg 40575755_1661931013928753_7165497177769246720_n.jpg 40589139_2220353021369788_5224766344796307456_n.jpg 40603022_2220361881368902_2674603828891877376_n.jpg 40607207...

Remarkably, the car cleaned up rather nicely. After throwing in a new battery and some gas, the Toyota transplant fired right up! Even the brakes worked. Here are some shots of the limo in the Castle environs. 106427634_10221204489798279_7175803443321472583_n.jpg 31301866_1496800787108444_2413080538...

While Pat was on the hunt for a donor car - and, before he stumbled across the LHD limousine he had previously owned, which ended up being the donor - he learned of an online posting of yet another (RHD) limousine, on the Limerick Classic Car Club Facebook page. And who posted it? Colin Williams, th...

Irish Vintage Scene (IVS) is a premier magazine publisher in Ireland on classic automobiles. They have described and documented Pat's astonishing sedan restoration in much better detail than I have here, and have graciously agreed to permit two recent articles - one in IVS, the other in their sister...

Just a few more pix, because we all like looking at 1959 Plymouths! 119769805_3036372976484543_8280794187433704270_n.jpg 119785946_3036356573152850_4333111125240310822_n.jpg 120664665_3081012192020621_8382799657669091123_n.jpg 132632580_3297559587032546_8719790793232825153_n.jpg 132669816_3297559617...

Some interior shots... 72722905_2254099761378539_1128614854454673408_n.jpg 105982870_2800856183369558_6705077855703013050_n.jpg 107594739_2839009272887582_7016324858922006240_n.jpg 106989411_2818891474899362_3989008908414102799_n.jpg 74453469_2305023246286190_400230908344401920_n.jpg 117587036_29271...

And the end result? Astonishing to behold... The donor Jaguar XJS V V12 5.3 is a 1978 model. The first with fuel injection. The car lay idle for some years and a lost cause. Every thing imaginable in the engine bay had to be addressed. Massive issues include cooling, oil leaks, modifying the actual ...

Now work on the sedan could begin in earnest - and begin it did. Here are some shots of the restoration under way (apologies to Pat, if these appear out of sequence). 107764104_2839009046220938_3884506032086146477_n.jpg 143946735_1327241664318195_9112464356472467229_n.jpg 107604023_2839009029554273_...

Serendipity plays a large role in this story! On the hunt once more for a donor car, Pat spotted one on Facebook in November of 2017, and pinned down its location with Google Earth; a LHD limo, painted all black, but with a suspicious patch of pink! Now the LHD limo was back in my possession. This t...

Fast forward 26 years. Pat's sedan restoration efforts had been stymied by the lack of a suitable donor, and his career had taken him abroad for many of those years. The remnants of the hearse languished in the shed of a friend where Pat had parked it in 1990, and after subsequently losing touch wit...

As luck would have it, one of the 1960 LHD limousines became available! For years in the eighties it had sat outside "Crazy Joe's" nightclub in Dublin, painted a lovely shade of pink. 118662764_2637799859818984_4226029993205278844_n.jpg 143600422_259970392146955_4551421710213374735_n.jpg 1...

In 1959, 12 four-door sedans (saloons, in Irish and British parlance) and 24 seven-seater limousines were produced in the Summerfield plant, all marketed as Belvederes, all right-hand drive. (All of the limousines were first stretched in Belgium before shipment to Ireland as "Completely Knocked...

lineup.JPG Where to begin. Where to begin! Pat Conroy is the proud owner of three 1959 Plymouths, two of which are road-worthy, all originally assembled as Canadian exports in the F.M. Summerfield Ltd. plant in Dublin, Ireland. The stories behind these cars will unfold in this Showcase entry, but s...

100_0688_00.JPG In his introduction elsewhere on the Forum, Kevin writes: I have a '59 Plymouth Belvedere Limousine. There was a number of these cars exported to Antwerp, Belgium in '59 and stretched into 7 seater limousines. My car is flathead 6 with 3 speed manual. It is also right hand drive. My...