1959 El Savoychero

I have mentioned this car before on this forum but I hadn't seen a photo of it in years. Well, we are moving and lookie what I found: Polaroid evidence of the mythical El Savoychero. I paid around $150 for this thing and drove it off and on for a year and used it like a truck. Flathead 6, 3-on the tree. Ran and drove really well and everything worked, including the cool electroluminescent dash lighting. Shortly after I sold it Captain Mopar (remember him?) pushed his way into my house and insisted I ride with him to where it was so that he could try to buy parts off of it. No way I was going anywhere with that hinkey twitch so I told him the general area that the new owner lived in. Next time I went by every piece of trim ahead of the doors was gone. It sat like that for decades in a carport until one day I got a call from a classic car dealer that had drug the El Savoychero to his dealership and it turned out that the title was still in my name. I went and checked it out...the years had not been kind to the car. I signed the title so he could dispose of it, I figure a few parts were pulled and the rest junked. Too bad, really. It was pretty well built.

I remember Captain Mopar.

The guy had some serious issues from what I've heard.

"the good ol' days"

Captain Mopar, standing on his '59 Fury in the middle of Rt 79. "Issues" doesn't even hint at how nuts he was at the core. I'm the person that banned him for life from National Trail Raceway.

I'm the person that banned him for life from National Trail Raceway.





are you able to tell the story?

Oh, where to begin...there were the things everyone saw, like him jumping on the track in full costume while cars were running, but it goes waaaay further. Like showing up after hours at a bracket race, doing donuts in the pits and getting his butt kicked by some pizzed-off racers. Final straw: The week of the 2016 Nats he is across the street from the track at our barn getting washed at an outside water pipe, buck nekkid. We ran him off. Then at the Nats he got into a argument with a lady helping with parking and then pushed her. That was it. Once he laid hands on my staff I was done with him. I took a sheriff deputy with me and banned him for life. Wow, he was not happy. Going to hunt me down and make my life miserable, etc, etc. Too bad, really, as I found the "Captain Mopar" character an amusing side note to the Nats. Wish it had worked out differently.

Is Captain Mopar and Doc Flappergas the same person?

The first car I purchased in HS was a 1959 Plymouth Savoy - flathead with 3 on the tree - 4 door - in basic black.... Paid $175 ... that was 1969 ...rebuilt the engine, new clutch, odds and ends -- drove it a year and sold it to a young guy for $200.

That car was interesting - the dashboard lighting, tube AM radio....the biggest issue was the transmission shift linkage which could hang up without warning --- had numerous instances where I was stopped at a traffic light on a hill - and I could not get the car into first gear - same issue when shifting from first to second ---- no matter how many time I took apart or adjusted the linkage - it acted up without warning.

I was happy to let it go to a good home and even happier to take delivery of my factory ordered brand new 727 equipped 1970 Plymouth Duster 340 in June 1970!

I was disposing of a pool liner and I had it loaded into the El Savoychero for the trip to a private dump. The dump was at the bottom of a grassy hill. I backed down and unloaded the bed. Looking at the slick grass hill in front of me I knew I would need to "make a run for it". I took off up the hill and damn near made it, losing traction right at the crest. I shoved the clutch and the brake to the floor and blew a brake line....single master cylinder in 1959. Now I have no brakes and I am speeding down the hill backwards. This was no minor dump, it was full of all sorts of trash and demolition debris. I laid across the seat so nothing could come through the back window and hit me as the El Savoychero cleared a path through the dump at full rearward ramming speed. Might still be going backwards if it weren't for the hot water tank I was pushing with the back bumper. The tank finally wedged against something and up went the El Savorychero, perched atop the tank with the rear wheels dangling. I walked out and got a ride home and came back a week later to get it out. It was easy to fix the brake line, as the back of the car was about 2' in the air. I got it fixed, drove it out with the help of a 4x4 pickup and off I went looking for new adventures in the El Savoychero.

i;m pretty sure i read about captain mopar in "mopar action" magazine when that picture was taken.
that was a "couple" of days ago............