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We’re a bit late to this radical Plymouth pickup truck powered by a radial aircraft engine—it was covered by other publications last year—but this year’s SEMA show marks our first encounter. Dubbed the Plymouth Air Radial Truck, it was created by the Colorado Auto & Parts wrecking yard near Denver using an old 1939 Plymouth pickup that was sitting around and, more curiously, a ’50s vintage seven-cylinder Jacobs radial engine from a Cessna 195 airplane.
The marriage, of course, is amazing. The entire truck is given an aircraft theme, including rivets and more rivets, a neat dual-pane canopy over the cabin, and dual left- and right-hand controls (steering yokes and a single brake pedal per side); the throttle is manipulated by a central lever. The 757-cubic-inch, 300-hp radial engine is connected to a TH400 automatic transmission via a belt.
Still, it’s the details that set this build apart. There are port and starboard green and red marker lights, “no step” lettering on the pickup bed’s tonneau cover (which also is constructed from hollowed-airfoil-section ribs, like an airplane wing), and the matching ’40s-era tug that drags the Plymouth Air around during taxiing. There’s even more here, so we suggest poring over the images to fully appreciate this unique build!
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Launched in 1960, the Chevrolet C/K-series pickup ushered in a new era of pickup design, styling, and comfort for the bow-tie brand. When the second-generation C/K series arrived in 1967 featuring a revised suspension and now-classic styling, it made the concept of using a single truck for work and play more viable than ever, earning it a well-deserved place in the hearts and minds of a generation. With bona fides like that, it was inevitable that the C/K would play a leading role in Chevy’s centennial truck celebration.
Not content to simply plunk a clean survivor or a well-restored example on its stand at SEMA, Chevrolet sourced a rare ’67 C-10 long-bed pickup equipped with the rare large rear-window option and let its in-house team work its magic. After shortening the frame and cargo box, they applied a coat of Centennial Blue paint and then lowered the suspension with modified front control arms, dropped spindles, and custom springs. A front disc-brake conversion with genuine Chevrolet parts replaced the hoary old drums, and a set of 20-inch forged aluminum wheels (8.5 inches wide in front, 10 inches wide in the rear) replaced the original steelies and were wrapped in 255/40 and 295/40 rubber. Several classic and modern hot-rodding touches finish off the exterior: smoothed and tucked bumpers and tailgate, brushed aluminum trim, LED lighting inside and out, custom gauges in the instrument cluster, an updated bench seat—with a Chevrolet logo, natch—and porcelain white interior trim accents.
As with most restorods, the best parts are found under the hood. In this case, that means a Chevrolet Performance ZZ6 small-block crate engine pumping out 405 horsepower and 430 lb-ft of torque. Gear swaps are handled by a tried and true 4L65-E electronically controlled four-speed automatic transmission. Chosen specifically to illustrate the simplicity of configuring a build with the maker’s Connect & Cruise lineup of factory crate powertrains, the build also utilizes the supplied engine and transmission controllers and installation kit.
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Ringbrothers cars always tend to be showstoppers during SEMA week, tending toward fairly radical takes on whatever vehicle Jim and Mike Ring have set their sights on. Witness the ’66 Chevrolet Chevelle that put them on the map a few years ago, or last year’s ridiculous blown-LS-powered Winnebago. But what do you do with a 1969 Dodge Charger, a car with a body style seared into the consciousness of gearheads over decades via its appearances in Bullitt, The Dukes of Hazzard, and The Fast and the Furious? Why not make it look as if you’ve done next to nothing at all? That’s the brief behind Defector, a 4700-hour project during which most everything was touched, but very little actually looks changed.
Deciding that the Charger’s monstrous rear overhang could use a little shortening, the Rings bobbed the rear of the car by two inches, then added three inches to the Charger’s wheelbase. To do that, despite having hacked length out of the rear, they had to extend the quarters forward to meet the doors. The steelie-look rolling stock come courtesy of HRE wheels, wearing Ringbrothers-produced Mopar-style hubcaps. Tires are 285/35R-19s up front and 345/35R-19s in the ear. Both the wheels and the body are swathed in a custom-mix Glasurit hue called Greener on the Other Side.
Under the subtly massaged body, a hydroformed Detroit Speed front subframe carries rack-and-pinion steering, as well as a modern 6.4-liter Hemi built by Wegner Motorsports. Out back, another Detroit Speed subframe locates the four-link rear suspension, while six-piston Baer brakes drag the beast to a halt.
The interior continues the deceptively simple theme, featuring front seats that are more modern but still look as if they belong in the car, plus modern HVAC courtesy of Vintage Air, sound from an Alpine system, and Classic Instruments gauges. The whole thing just seems built to work. It’s not a tired riff in the key of Lee, there’s no honking blower pushed through the hood, and one wouldn’t necessarily expect to see stuntman Bill Hickman behind the wheel on the streets of San Francisco. It’s a fresh, businesslike take on one of Chrysler’s undeniably great automobiles. Forty-seven years after the second-gen Charger ended production, that’s harder to do than one might think.
