1935 Plymouth PJ - Reader Ride

By: Guy Allen

Date: 24.06.2019

The old flathead six is long gone from this '30s Plymouth

Brad McMahon's 1935 Plymouth PJ

I bought it a couple of months ago. It’s got all Ford running gear underneath, including four-wheel disc brakes, and rear end. It’s got a 351 Cleveland that’s been tunnel-rammed and had the carbies on it. The donor car was a 1980 Fairlane.

Since I got it, it’s had the finned rocker covers, the bug-catcher, tidied up the wiring, changed the steering wheel, cleaned it up a bit – a few personal touches.

There is always some complication when you work on something like this. For example, to get the finned rocker covers in, we had to change the brake vacuum booster and master cylinder. However that worked quite well, as the replacements gave us better power and feel.

We’ve gone through fixing the bugs that were in it, plus we’ve gone over the body work to get it looking better.

I think it’s been on the road, more or less in its current state, for about 15 years. It seems each owner along the way has made changes. The one I bought it from was in NSW and was about to start a new project, so I came along at the right time.

I’d been looking for one for a while – everything from ’37 Fords through ’35s and ’36s. I’ve had ’35s before, but I figured a Plymouth was something different. It’s a bit of a weird combination – designed by Chrysler, assembled locally by Holden and it’s now powered by Ford. So it’s got a bit of everything in it!

It’s good to drive – like driving a Falcon, surprisingly enough. It sits on the road, doesn’t roll around, though it is a little bouncy, which is typical hotrod.

Valuation guide: Difficult to value – suggest in $50,000 ballpark

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