Group,
If you read the Jim Benjaminson book, you'll know that those cars were made
in Belgium by the Chrysler factory in Antwerp in cooperation with Perkins
and one Hunter company from the Netherlands.
I went to a swap meet this week-end in Belgium, and bought some Chrysler
dealer network communication magazine from '55 to '58. I found a lot of
interesting things in those on which I'll come back later on. Upon the
October 1956 issue, I found a small article on those diesel Plymouth. There
is a photo showing the back of a '56 Plymouth in Lisbon (Portugal) covered
with inscriptions : "PLYMOUTH DIESEL 1956 - a mais recente creacao da
CRYSLER" (the most recent creation from CHRYSLER - I don't know why the 'H'
is missing).
The article goes : "This picture has been taken in Lisboa shortly after the
arrival of the first diesel Plymouth imported from Belgium. Our agents in
Lisboa, Sociedade Comercial Guerin SARL in Lisbon and AM Da Rocha Brito Lda
in Porto were immediately interested by diesel cars, this type of car being
very popular in their country. The diesel Plymouth and DeSoto require a
maximum of 10 liters of diesel every 100 km and they have a cruising speed
between 80 and 100 kph. Their Perkins engine have a remarquable longevity".
I suppose that when they are talking of DeSoto, they mean the DeSoto
Diplomat, which was really a Plymouth with a DeSoto front clip. The
interesting thing is that the car in the picture is missing the Perkins
emblem found on the canadian car that is for sale on eBay. According to the
Jim Benjaminson book, those diesel conversions started on some '55 models.
No one knows when they stopped doing it but I saw last year in a belgian
swap meet a '59 Dodge Kingsway (Plymouth with Dodge front clip) with a
Perkins diesel engine.
Why such a conversion ? Jim Benjaminson is right when he states that
american cars were falling out of favor in the european market at that time.
It was due to their size which was growing since the early '50s and was not
adapted to european road conditions, but also because of the gas price
increases and their low gas mileage. V-8 engines which were the craze in the
US were seen here as a useless way of gulping more gas.
Regards,
Vincent Van Humbeeck (France, 120 miles north of Paris)
'58 Plymouth Belvedere Sport Coupe
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