For 1963, Plymouth advertising featured the tagline, “On the move!” And for the rest of the ’60s, Mopar would be second to none on the horsepower front.

Nineteen sixty-three was a rebuilding year at Plymouth, following the hastily planned and executed downsizing of the year before. Based partly on bad intelligence about what the competition at GM was doing, the Dodge and Plymouth full-sized cars were shrunk down to nearly intermediate size for ’62, onto a stretched Valiant platform.

That wasn’t a terrible idea in itself, but the new styling (performed at breakneck speed) drew little praise. Even styling chief Virgil  Exner referred to the ’62 cars as “plucked chickens.”  The ’63 redesign, created under the direction of Exner and finished up under his successor Elwood Engel, was far more conventional in appearance and better received. Still,  it would take a few years for sales to fully recover.

There were four trim levels in the Plymouth full-size line for 1963, in ascending order: Savoy, Belvedere, Fury, and Sport Fury. While the mid-range Belvedere was the top seller. the glamorous Sport Fury gets the glory in our video below. However, one important item isn’t mentioned here at all. Chrysler was at that moment assembling an armada of powerful engines, led in ’63 by the mighty Max Wedge V8, soon to be followed by the mighty 426 Hemi in ’64. For the rest of the ’60s and through the peak of the muscle car era, Mopar horsepower was second to none. As if to foreshadow, Plymouth’s tagline for ’63 was “on the move!” Video below.