After a few years of stumbles, Plymouth was back on track in 1963 with improved styling and a new emphasis on racing and performance.

Fury Hardtop Sedan 

As we’ve documented here at Mac’s Motor City Garage, the Chrysler Corporation encountered a series of nasty bumps in the road in the early 1960s. They included ongoing quality control problems, a scandal that nearly took down the company in 1960, and styling that drove car buyers from the showrooms in 1961 and 1962. As the corporation’s volume leader, the Plymouth division was hardest hit, falling from third to eighth in U.S. sales. But by 1963, Plymouth was climbing out of the ditch with a line of smartly packaged, neatly styled automobiles. From that angle, the brand’s slogan that year, “On the Move,” hits the mark.

Sport Fury Hardtop 

Chrysler design VP Virgil Exner was already well underway with a styling overhaul of the oddball ’62 Plymouth, one of the cars he so memorably called “plucked chickens,” when his replacement Elwood Engel took over the post. The changes included a wider body stance, a three-inch longer deck, and a character line that formed a shoulder from the front fender to the rear. Pleased with the result, Engel made only a few alterations, reportedly. According to one unnamed source  (Collectible Automobile, April 1995), when he saw the ’63 proposals, Engel said, “These are good-looking cars. What’s the big deal?” Today’s collectors of classic ’60s Mopars say amen.

Tom Hoover 

There was another trend brewing at the Chrysler Corporation and the Plymouth division  in 1963: a new emphasis on high performance. For a Motor City OE, the program, led by Chrysler engineer Tom Hoover, was pretty close to over the top. Plymouth and Dodge went from mid-field in NASCAR and drag racing to the front of the pack with a healthy push from Hoover’s ram-tuned 426 cubic-inch V8. Dodge marketed the potent V8 as the Ramcharger while Plymouth called its identical counterpart the Super Stock, but in the pit lanes and garage areas it was simply known as the Max Wedge, and it still is.

There was even a factory Plymouth drag racing team, the Golden Commandos, set up as a counterpart to the Ramchargers at Dodge. Led by engineer Ray Kobe, the team consisted mainly of Chrysler engineering mechanics and technicians, creating a light-hearted blue-collar vs. white-collar rivalry with the Ramchargers’ engineers.

The Commandos came out of nowhere to score a runner-up finish at the NHRA Winternationals in February of 1963, set low ET at the U.S. Nationals in September, and claimed the track record at Detroit Dragway, the Ramchargers’ home track. With the help of the Commandos and a host of others, Plymouth was now a performance brand. When enthusiasts talk about the Plymouths of the 1960s, they’re generally talking about performance.

The Golden Commandos 1963 Plymouth