CLASSIC CLASSICS: 1968 Plymouth Satellite: Nice car for NASA employee | Business
With her university degree in hand, Jeanie Hughes was scheduled to commence function following graduation, but she had no transportation. Which is when her mother saved the day by loaning her daughter her individual individual driver — a 1968 Plymouth Satellite two-doorway hardtop.
Jeanie was amused to be driving a motor vehicle named “Satellite” to her position at the Countrywide Aeronautics and Area Administration.
The Plymouth arrived with vinyl trimmed bench seats, a 318-cubic-inch V-8 engine with a two-barrel carburetor. The 230-horsepower motor was moderately inexpensive and effective enough to easily go the 3,070-pound automobile. The well-appointed Plymouth also had a torqueflite automatic transmission, a sign-in search of AM radio, electric power steering, tinted windshield, a heater and deluxe 14-inch wheel addresses. The two-door hardtop with a curvaceous rear window was by far the most popular Satellite product. It rides comfortably on a 116-inch wheelbase.
Hughes before long bought a motor vehicle of her very own and returned the Plymouth to her mother, who ongoing to drive it extremely sparingly.
“My mother most popular the Satellite to a new car or truck,” Hughes explains, “so we arranged to have it restored mechanically.” Thereafter, her mother savored her roadworthy Plymouth Satellite right until her death.
Sooner or later, Jeanie Hughes inherited the Plymouth. Seeing that the auto was continue to in wonderful mechanical problem and in a not-also-horrible beauty shape, Hughes determined to restore her mother’s auto.
“I like the simplicity,” she states.
Initially points initial, on the other hand. She experienced a garage built so the quickly-to-be restored motor vehicle would have a put to occur property to. With that job achieved, and with the odometer examining only 77,090 miles, the Plymouth was sent off to be rejuvenated.
The gathered dings and dents were erased, each bumpers have been replated and the rusted out floor pan in the trunk was changed. The two-tone green vinyl upholstery was changed with materials matching the authentic, though Hughes provides, “I think I favored the pale authentic vinyl improved.” Lastly, the identical mist green coloration paint as the first was utilized to return the motor vehicle to like-new appearance.
With the restoration complete, the auto was pushed property on new radial tires. “It scoots alongside on the freeway,” Hughes suggests, though driving at the rear of the acquainted 3-spoke steering wheel and the 120-mph speedometer, experiencing the air coming from the open wing vent home windows — irrespective of the truth her mother most popular air conditioning.
The like-new Plymouth Satellite ventures out for pleasure and upkeep drives. “If you do not push them,” Hughes’ spouse suggests, “you might be shopping for difficulties.”
— Vern Parker, Motor Matters
