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Dick Koch - Palm Beach Gardens, FL, USA

Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 1:46 pm
by Faulkner
Subscribers to the 1959 Plymouth Forum are well aware of Dick Koch, who casts a tall shadow. A frequent participant and advisor, Dick owns three stunning 1959 Plymouths, two of which he restored himself. You can read about those restorations here and here. Just enter "Dick Koch" in the "author" text box for the search function, and you will see many, many examples of Dick's craftmanship and sage counsel.

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Just for fun, here is a video Dick himself posted on Facebook of his '59's.



And, just because I throw nothing away - what follows is the original Showcase posting of Dick's Sport Furys from over 13 years ago.

Re: Dick Koch

Posted: Sun Feb 18, 2018 1:52 pm
by Faulkner
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Dick relates his love affair with MoPars: "My first NEW car was a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere Convertible, I courted my wife of 45 years in that car and I still have her [the wife, that is - Editor]. I have always loved the Chrysler winged cars, As far as I'm concerned nothing beats their styling. I started looking for one several years ago but not many were left and of those that were, they were out of my reach financially -- so I started looking for a 1960 Desoto which had always been one of my favorites. I found a 49,000 mile all original survivor in Georgia. It originally came from S. Dakota, I'm the third owner. All I had to do way detail it and drive it. The only major thing I have done to it is add air conditioning (South Florida, you know). Anyway I took it to my first Mopar show at Moroso Drag Strip here in Palm Beach Gardens, when this beautiful Red and White 59 Plymouth Sport Fury drives in... Almost immediately I knew I had second place locked up, sure enough he got first place and had won it the previous 3 years. Real nice fellow owned it, we got to talking and he mentioned he was thinking about selling it. Come to find out he only lived about 4 miles from me and had owned the car for about 15 years, he only took it to that one show each year. About five months later I finally convinced him to sell it to me, I see him once in a while and he is still kicking himself."

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"The car was originally white, he had it painted and had the engine (318 Poly) rebuilt. The red and white cloth upholstery had turned brown with age and the cloth in the seats was shot. He could not find the correct material so he left the door panels alone and had the seats done in white vinyl. I found the material at SMS, so I had the door panels redone and left the seats alone because the are pretty nice. I have spare material to do the seats later."

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"This car was originally air conditioned but it was taken out, I have an original AC setup that I will be putting back in. The tranny leaked oil pretty bad so had all new gaskets and seals installed, the power steering box broke, found a used one and had it resealed and gasketed, NAPA has a kit. It has 57 hupcaps on it now, but I'm putting the 59's back on. I added skirts, dual rear antennas and had Forward Look Frank fix my radio and fix it so I can play CD's and FM radio through the speakers without messing up the radio. Works great. I installed front disk brakes with a dual master cylinder because I never knew what lane I was going to be in when I stopped. Great Kit from AJA brakes. Rebuilt the AFB carburetor twice and and it still had problems so gave up and installed a New Carter 625. The engine and tranny are so smooth now its unbelievable. When I was a kid I always wanted to have Smitty Glas Packs on my car but my mother would never let me have them. Well I'm 69 years old July 05 and I finally have my Smitty's."

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