Christine, is that you?

Dear Classic American,

I was of course very interested in the 1958 Plymouth article in October's edition.

The article talks of four-door sedans but the picture above is of course titled correctly as a four-door hardtop. The figure quoted is for sedans at 49,124 built, but of course hardtops are far rarer of all the body styles and fared poorly in the survival stakes due to lack of rigidity

– it is said that only 18,194 four-door hardtops were produced originally according to Don Butler’s book from 1978, The Plymouth and DeSoto Story. For comparison the Belvedere two-door hardtop sold 36,043, making it much more common.

Noticing the missing rear valance on the featured car reminded me of a time when I reversed my 1957 Savoy Club Sedan (it was 1985 and yes, she was red and white!) into a low post, damaging the valance; a long battle with insurers to claim repair costs paid out eventually and the body shop started work. Sadly they did a lazy, incorrect fabrication that looked nothing like the original had – I was gutted! Looking at pictures of my 1957 Savoy Sedan and Barney Vettiger’s 1958 hardtop which had been used in London and Paris for the launch of the movie Christine I realised his 1958 car for some reason has 1957 ‘V’ markings on the front wings plus 1957 and 1958 trim on the trunk lid!

Chris Drucker Via email

Well Chris, it’s probably worth pointing out that in the book Christine was a four-door (the film used a two-door – 23 of them) and the one in the CA feature has been lowered. The UK Christine promo car was hurriedly restored from a modified example – it had a panelled-in smaller rear window since rear glass wasn’t available until the film company budget paid for it – so no doubt bits of ’57 trim found their way on too!