Hear Petula Clark sing the praises of the ’69 Plymouth Sport Fury in this original 1969 television spot.
British singer Petula Clark has enjoyed a long and prolific career. In the USA she’s best known for her gigantic radio hits including “Downtown” and “A Sign of the Times,” but she’s even bigger in Europe, where she performs and records in multiple languages—and she continues to perform today, now well into her 80s. As one of the best-known voices of the ’60s, she appeared for Coca Cola, Burlington Industries, and the featured attraction of this 1969 spot, the Plymouth division of the Chrysler Corporation.
The 1969 Plymouth full-sized cars were the best and biggest in the brand’s history, riding on a 120-inch wheelbase and sharing their smooth fuselage styling theme with Dodge, Chrysler, and Imperial. (Read about the 1969-73 Chrysler fuselage look here.) The generously populated model lineup included Fury I, Fury II, Fury III, and at the top of the heap, the Sport Fury and VIP. Sport Fury features included a distinctive die-cast grille (shared with the VIP) and hybrid bench/bucket seating, and there were three body styles to be had: convertible, sport coupe, and formal coupe. (One quirky item: if you ordered a two-door VIP, Sport Fury, or Fury III with air conditioning, the front vent windows were deleted.) And now here’s Petula Clark to sell you a new Plymouth.
These were great along with the Chrysler Your Next Car commercials. Love to fuselage era Chrysler products!
In 1972, I hired on with my state’s dept. of transportation. My boss’s state-issued ride was a ’69 Fury I sedan. Worn down and ragged out, it ran like a demon – not sure of the engine, but I’m thinking it was the 318 V8. When it would rain, every window on that car leaked like a sieve, and it would stink inside until it dried out. Boy, did that car ever catch the abuse. I always thought it was a really nice-driving car, in spite of what it had been through.
The jingle was kinda based on “Sunday Will Never Be The Same”
That was sort of a Vietnam-war era draft protest song, wasn’t it?
Never likes the styling: but now that I know there is a name for it (fuselage) it sorta makes sense, and I sort of (almost) like it!