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 suffice it to say for now that one of the three ended up being a donor car for the first; the end result, that Pat now has a drivable two-door Belvedere sedan and four-door limousine (stretched in Belgium, before its arrival in Dublin). As full time Restorationist-in-Residence at Castle Oliver in Limerick, Ireland (and more about that later), many of Pat’s pictures of his cars are taken on the Castle grounds. Here’s a wonderful sampling of the two vehicles together, before we jump into the stories.
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 Down” (CKD) units for assembly at the plant.) In 1960, a dozen left-hand drive limousines were also assembled at Summerfield, the Canadian manufacturing plant that sourced them having switched over to LHD; still, using the 1959 body shell. These were the last Plymouths produced at Summerfield.
Some time in the 1970’s, an enterprising funeral director converted a 1959 four-door sedan into a hearse, and in the process had the rear doors welded shut to make a two-door:
The hearse even made Dean Reader’s pictoral history!
The vehicle passed hands and came to Pat’s attention in 1990, and he decided he had to have it; with the full intention of returning it to a car. He removed the hearse addition, and disassembled down to the frame to commence restoration activity - all the while on the lookout for a donor car, to contribute the rear roof section, rear window, trunk and trunk surround which had all been lost in the hearse conversion.
As luck would have it, one of the '59 LHD limousines (assembled in 1960) became available! For years in the eighties it had sat outside “Crazy Joe’s” nightclub in Dublin, painted a lovely shade of pink.
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 with that friend, Pat thought perhaps the car was now long gone. At a chance encounter with the friend at a family funeral in 2016, however, he learned that not only was the vehicle still around - it was exactly where he had parked it in 1990! Now employed full time in residence at Castle Oliver, he brought the rusting hulk home with him in September of that year.
In 2019, Pat commented, "3 years ago today I dragged this wreck out of that there shed ‘where it sat for 26 years. Stopped for a snap, didn’t delay… on the road again!!"
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 work on the sedan could begin in earnest - and soon it did. Here are some shots of the restoration under way (apologies to Pat, if these appear out of sequence).
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 publication Retro Classics, to be posted here. Please visit their website to purchase copies of back issues of these fine magazines.
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, the gent who sold Pat the hearse in 1990! The picture had been taken in the early nineties, but Colin had a bead on the current owner, and soon Pat was talking with him. There’s plenty of detail I am skipping over here, but read all about it in the May 2019 issue of Irish Vintage Magazine, posted here courtesy of the publisher.
When Pat first laid eyes on the car, it was covered in a mountain of debris. But after he dug away at it, he realized what a treasure he had found - and how wrong it would be to use the car as a donor. How much better, and nobler, to bring this bit of Irish history back to life and put it on the road again.
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.
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 was able to cut through the red tape, and soon the limousine was street legal. With Richard’s aspirations to become a Teachta Dála in the Dáil Éireann (a representative in the Irish Assembly), Pat campaigned in the limo in support of his friend.
And Richard won! Was the limousine responsible? We will never know for sure, but it seems likely!
And in order to provide Richard with a grand entrance to the Dáil, Pat made the trek in the limousine from Limerick to Dublin - but, not without incident. Because he needed to be in Dublin by mid-morning, he had to start out in the wee hours in the dark; and the stop and go in proximity to Dublin taxed the charging system with the lights on, and discharged the battery. The engine died, and could not be restarted! The ceremonious entry seemed imperiled while the car sat for an hour, until a Good Samaritan provided a jump, and the observation that the headlights had likely taken their toll. With the lights no longer needed, Pat was again underway in time to meet up with Richard, and stage the triumphant arrival.
Pat is both an artist, and a craftsman. Besides his passion for cars, Pat has an intense interest in the castles of Ireland, and in both their restoration and preservation. Of particular interest is Castle Oliver, and I quote from their website:
Significant time and effort has gone into the restoration and renovation of Castle Oliver. Following it’s decline into near ruin, several recent owners of the Castle have commissioned various restoration works. Spearheading the effort is local Pat Conroy, whose knowledge and dedication to the Castle has been invaluable in the effort to return the Castle to its previous glory.
Pat had ample opportunity to demonstrate his artistic skills in restoring numerous stencils throughout the castle, the process of which you can view here on YouTube.
Pat now works full time in residence at Castle Oliver. He documented the restoration in a hauntingly beautiful slide show, which you can view here on YouTube. And while you’re at it, check out some of Pat’s amazing pencil drawings of Castle Oliver, among many other drawings which can be found here.
I nearly forgot! Pat recently did a morning talk show interview on “Country Life with Morgan o’Flaherty”, radio station Limerick 102. Pat discusses numerous details with Morgan about the restoration of his two '59 Plymouths. Enjoy the banter!
