congratulations on your 48 year marriage !
we will celebrate 44 years on the 20th of this month, after being together 45 years.

Thank you. Yes, marring my wife was one of my smartest moves I made, as I was leaving my teenage years.

Just to throw more mud into your clean pond of a project...The 3.8 was available in a front engine-rear drive arrangement in like '07-'10 Wranglers.
The 3.3 was also available as a north-south arrangement but still with a front wheel drive transaxle in some Intrepid/Concorde models and I believe the early 3.5 was a variation of the 3.3/3.8.
3.3/3.8 engines disappeared around 2011. Exactly how long do you expect to be able to get things other than water pumps or timing chains? What if your computer or fuel rail goes bad?
Where are you finding these 13-30 year old donors with low mileage that don't have rotted cradles/suspension/etc. in the midwest?
Allpar is a good source of info for that era of all things Mopar. As with your previous projects, I have no doubt it will be cool.

Funny you should post about the 3.3s in the Intrepid. Around 5 years ago I sent what was a good 3.3 motor & trans to the scrap pile. It had been sitting for nearly 10 years at that point, still have the entire wire harness with everything still attached to it hanging on the wall in my lower garage! It was a nice low miles car that got side swiped in the very early 2000s. Over the years parts of it have been used and other parts scrapped. We had several Intrepids. I likely would not have used an Intrepid as a donor for a hot rod, things were not in compatible locations, I looked into that years ago. A minivan /PT Cruiser have the drive train more compact and would be easier donors.

You all are still missing the point my wife LIKES to drive those front wheel drive vehicles, and has been doing so for the last 30 years. I'm building it for HER, I intend to build something she is going to like.

The average age of vehicles on the roads today is 12-15 years old. Its not hard to find 15-20 year old donors with mechanical issues or crash damage with the parts I need still intact. I can be pretty selective on which donor to buy, and if the price is right, I'm not past buying two, one for the drive train, and one for the undercarriage, probably still be cheaper then buying just a motor from a pick a part. If I buy 2 donors, I'll have a source of parts on the shelf at home.

With the average cars still being used as long as they are, a lot of parts are still going to be around for another 10-15 years. That will put my wife and myself in the 80-85 age group. This stuff doesn't have to last 20 + years for us, and it probably won't see more then another 50,000 miles.

I'll look into Allpar.

the one thing about cars of today, drivetrains last for hundreds of thousands of miles, and finding a front drive chrysler product with a rotted off body but perfectly good drivetrain, cheap, is fairly easy to accomplish.
building what your wife WANTS is a good thing, [and i know you are WAY more than capable of doing just that] and if she wants front wheel drive, great ! myself, i think that would simplify things considerably, being able to use a "packaged assembly" that includes everything.
i'm looking forward to see how this project progresses if you decide to undertake it.

For a long time on FBM in the central WI area, there had been a 55 Dodge pickup on a Dodge front drive minivan chassis for sale. Kinda looked ok from 20' away, though the minivan dash in the cab looked totally out of place. That, the steel expanded mesh grill insert and the Chrysler V6 for me kept it being an interesting oddity. Probably pretty functional.

Well,my 49 Dodge pickup has a Dakota dash in it, and the 3 chrome bars that are supposed to be the grille trim was over a grand for the only used set I've seen, and I haven't seen that set posted for a while. If you can't find the factory parts, and you want to drive it, you have to do something. 50's Dodge truck parts are not hanging on trees.

You all are still hung up on the resale value. If my wife likes it, I won't care, if she doesn't, I'll sell it off as the parts car it currently is. If I can get 3/4 of my investment back, I'm OK with that.

We have ran into a bit of a delay on my part, a computer crash, and the passing of my mother this week. I was suppose to be in contact with him on Monday. I'm not sure the car is still available.

so sorry for your loss.

Thank you.
Her passing was so much better then it could have been, she had about a year and a half of dementia but she had a bleeding stroke in her sleep last Friday morning, and passed 6 days later, she never regained consciousnesses. She did not have to experience her farther dementia decline, and neither did our family. Just the same, its been a rough week.

To keep this on topic, I am the executor of mom's estate (its pretty simple), so I will likely be tied up with that for another week or so. The car is still listed, so my wife and I will likely make the 400 mile trip to have a look at it, and make a decision after that. I will be communicating with the seller.

Sorry for your loss. My mom made it to 96 Jan 12th of last year. Her mind was still near perfect sharp, but the body was finally failing fast. She survived her teens in German occupied Holland in WW2, then moving to the US with husband and two kids (me being one of them) at 32 years old and $90 in their pockets landing Hoboken NJ in June of 59. Not more than a week or two after her 96th birthday she fell out of bed and head the back of her head on the wood frame. I suspect too that she had a few micro-strokes before her 96th birthday. The last week of her living was tough, seeing her finally releasing to life, but also having no answer to her question, "why can't you help me?"

Yet, she went quicker, with most of her mind intact, in less than a year. Compared to those loosing a parent to mental disease over months, years and more is far more stressfull.

my wife is suffering memory loss, and yes, that is VERY stressful for me, but i have vowed that as long as i'm still kickin', she is NOT going into a home !

That simply was not an option with my mom. She needed 24 hour care, My older sister and I did not have the ability to take care of her, and my younger sister and her hubby are living in a motor home.
Now, if it comes to that with my wife, that is a different story.

You're right! You're crazy!

But this is the kind of crazy that's intriguing.

So my 4 cents worth, since mama bear is familiar with the PT, likes it and you have one, I'd seriously look into a body swap plan.

Basically getting a PT,, cutting it down to a basic skateboard. Cut the floor and firewall out of the Plymouth and set it down on top.

I don't think there's going to be a big difference in vehicle weight. You will have to figure out a ways to solidly connect the upper structure of the Plymouth to the now flimsy PT. Unibody construction issues. The through rail design of the PT helps here and it may be possible to keep some of the PT superstructure intact.

If you're absolutely intent on a v6 minivan, I'd still look at the skateboard idea just keeping in mind one may have to shorten and narrow much more stuff. K based might be a better starting point.

I've had similar crazy ideas, mainly with a 62 Galaxie and putting it on a Panther chassis.

Being crazy is sometimes what makes life fun.
I actually have considered the PT (or mini van platform) as the base to build from, I have certainly had enough experience concerning the unibody structure with the 60s & 70s Mopar dirt track cars. This car does have a full frame that is suppose to be good.

Unfortunately, at this point things are looking less and less likely of happening. The car is still available (it is a 49 Plymouth 2 door Suburban station wagon). The car looks really solid and comes complete with a few extra parts (like a 2nd complete dash,an extra tailgate, and extra fenders). The car is a rolling chassis he says should run to get up on a trailer (he says it ran a couple years ago and has been sitting inside since). There are parts that are dissembled, some of the glass has been removed (all suppose to be there), and the interior is just sitting in the car and the original dash has been dissembled for painting. Hence the reason we were going to go look at it. We were suppose to go look at the car (400 miles away) the week my mom ended up in the hospital, and at this point, its going to be at least another month before we are going to have a chance to go look at it now. I no longer have a car trailer, so transportation here also becomes a larger expense. The fact that the car is on the other side of Chicago and Lake Michigan doesn't help.

This has been a fun adventure, and we were pretty serious (and have the funding). The timing has not been good at all. With everything that has come up in the last month or so, maybe it isn't suppose to happen. When we get on the other side of our current mess, we will reevaluate.

whatever comes to pass will be what it's supposed to be.
as everyone knows, "that's life" as Frank Sinatra would say...............
if you ever get back to thinking about this concept, please post more about it, as i for one, would like to see something like this.

Many years ago, I saw an early 50's Ford 2 dr with a 2.2 Turbo FWD unit swapped in. They did a nice job, but it sat a little high in the front.