Although I was only ten years old at the time, I can still remember the first time I set eyes on a 1956 Plymouth Fury.

My parents had taken me to dinner with our good friends and former neighbors, George, Marie and Diane Washaw, to one of their favorite hangouts, Lombardo's on the corner of Riverview Drive and West Florissant Avenues on the 'north side'. This was years before the new building was constructed... the same one that stands on the site today, but with a different business. The old bar and restaurant, owned and operated by Gus Lombardo, was on the corner, and just one door to the east was Lombardo's Market, a small produce stand opened years before by Gus' father.

Diane and I would go to the front section, where the restaurant tables were located, and dance to the pop songs of the day, emminating from the bubbling Wurlitzer juke box, while our parents sat at the bar in the back of the building, imbibing in their favorite spirits and chatting with Gus, who always had a smile on his face and a big ol' stogie in the corner of his mouth. Diane's father George was a police sketch artist for the St. Louis P.D. who had a great sense of humor. He always had a new joke to share with Gus and my dad— generally not the kind that Diane and I were privy to!

This particular afternoon, Gus had just purchased a brand new 1956 Plymouth Fury from Ray Rixman Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth in nearby Baden. He was one of the fortunate few (4,485) to score a Fury, the flashy new, full-size hot rod Plymouth — the first to bear the Fury moniker.

So, this particular night, dancing with Diane would have to wait until I had a chance to thoroughly look over Gus' new Fury from top-to-bottom, over-and-under, inside-and-out and front-to-back. Perhaps this was the car that began my fascination with fins, for those high rise examples on the Fury looked sharp enough to slice tomatoes for a Lombardos' salad. The Fury was certainly stylish, with it's lower profile and swept-back appearance, a trademark of Chrysler's new "Forward Look", a design theme employed by famed automotive stylist Virgil Exner in styling the 1955 through 1961 Chrysler Corporation line of cars. Mopar cars of the period included what would become a familiar identifier, the Forward Look emblem, a pair of intersecting arrows of different angles.

Prior to Exner being hired on at Chrysler, design was handled by the engineering department and the look had become dated and stodgy as the fab fifties was ramping up. Exner changed all that with his affection for fins which dominated his styling throughout the Forward Look period. When fins finally lost favor, at the turn of the decade, Exner fought corporate directives with ferver, but eventually had to give in to marketing pressure. He sarcastically referred to the early sixties auto designs as "plucked chickens".

Furys soon became favorites on the tracks and drag strips. Cantankerous Tom McCahill, the popular automotive reviewer for Mechanix Illustrated magazine said (Sept. 1956 issue), "Five years ago, if performance figures such as these were published for a full-sized Plymouth, I'd have been whipped into a straightjacket and mailed to the nearest head shrinker's convention!"

So just what did the Fury do with it's unique 303 cubic inch (that's 4.9 liters for your gen-xers and later) cast iron V-8? Curtis Redgap, former cop, son of a Chrysler Plymouth dealer and regular contributing writer to www.allpar.com once wrote, "The driver, Mr. Phil Walters, took the Fury slowly down to the start of the timing lane. ... It was screaming over the sand so fast, that to look at it was almost like a distorted picture. You couldn't quite focus fully on it. It was moving like the wind! ... With a resounding boom and a flash of gold, it was gone, the engine defiantly pounding out its deep belly staccato tune with bass notes better than any musical orchestra. The timers acted like they were in slow motion. Finally ... the numbers rolled over. ... 143.596 miles an hour! The fastest Plymouth ever built in history. And even faster than the 300B!"— referring to the revered Chrysler 300B.

Fury had it all, great looks, sporting performance, room for six adults and a reasonable price tag— $2,807 factory suggested base price, plus delivery and dealer prep. That comes equates to just under $24,000 in 2011 dollars.

There was just one drawback to the Fury and it was a minor one to the 4,000 plus who purchased the cars. If Henry Ford had you convinced that the only color you should car about was black, you were in big trouble, as the Fury was available in just one color, Eggshell White. Maybe Exner decided that was the best color to enhance the gold anodized trim that adorned the car from all four sides. The sweepspear included an embossed gold pattern and even the large, aero-styled hood ornament was plated in gold tone. Exner may have had something there, but personally, I think a black one would look pretty "bad". And I mean "good bad".

•

Check out my web site at www.thefinman.com to see more pics of the '56 Fury including a nicely restored He-Fire V-8, plus interior shots and more.

I hope those of you who came to the Christmas party at Creative Customs Friday evening enjoyed yourselves.

Watch for upcoming car events here. Meanwhile, we'll see you at the new car show in January.

Trivia Answer: The final Fury was a mid-size model for the 1978 model year.