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Cars

His heaven has a Fury, again

A high school passion for a '57 Plymouth blossoms into a search and restoration project.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published April 29, 2005

TAMPA - Back in the mid 1950s, when Tom Lovingood was a student at Plant High School, all his buddies were into Corvettes and Mustangs. Lovingood's tastes were a little different.

He lusted after a 1957 Plymouth Fury. Not the kind of car most teenagers thought was especially cool.

But Lovingood fell in love with a Fury back then, and in nearly a half-century his love has never faded.

He first set eyes on the love of his life while he was working after school at the Magnolia Bar Tavern, a longtime downtown watering hole that his father owned.

Across the street from the Magnolia was a dealership called Hawke Plymouth. When the Fury came out, the dealership came up with a gimmick to call attention to it.

"The Fury had a torsion bar, and the dealer took off one of the front wheels and tires and because of the torsion bar you could drive it like that," Lovingood said. "I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world. And then I saw that the speedometer went up to 150 and I was hooked."

It was touted, he recalls, as a car of the future.

Lovingood had already been driving for a couple of years. You could get a permit when you were 14 back in those days. And Tampa was such a small town that the police didn't care too much about underage drivers as long as they didn't cause wrecks.

Because he worked part-time jobs, he had saved some money. While he was a senior at Plant,he bought his first brand-new car, a '57 Fury.

It was a pretty good year for Lovingood. He met a girl named Abbie who would become his wife. Their first dates were in that Fury, and he discovered another cool feature of the car.

"It has a really big back seat," he said.

He eventually got rid of the Fury, though he and Abbie have hung on to each other for the past 48 years. Plenty of other cars - some pretty cool ones, including a '55 Thunderbird that's now in an automobile museum - have passed through his hands over the decades, but Lovingood never completely got over his love for the Fury.

He looked for another '57 Fury for years, but they've never been especially popular with collectors.

"You go to these car shows and you see '55, '56 and '57 Chevys," he said. "But you never see Furys. You just don't see them."

About five years ago, he finally found a Fury. Not just any Fury, either, but a 1958 Golden Commando. There aren't many Golden Commandos in existence. The car was offered for only part of one model year. It had a 350-cubic-inch engine, as opposed to the 318 in the 1957 and early 1958 Fury. In 1959 Plymouth changed to a 361, and eventually went with a 389.

Lovingood has never been able to figure out exactly how many Golden Commandos were produced, but only about 5,200 Furys were produced in 1958 overall.

Acquiring the Fury was just the beginning. Lovingood spent the next year and a half (and a lot of money) restoring it to pristine condition.

In fact, it's not just pristine, it's Christine. Some of the parts of his Fury came from cars that were used in the movie Christine.

"The mirrors and the ashtray came from the Christine graveyard," Lovingood said. "They used about 12 Plymouths in that movie. Completely totaled them."

(The car in Christine was really a Belvedere, not a Fury, but the cars are virtually identical.)

Lovingood restored everything on his Fury to its original glory. He made sure everything works, even things that don't really matter, like the glove box light and the hand brake indicator light. He had to have threads specially made so the original upholstery could be replicated.

"Everything works and everything is first class," he said. "I got three or four of everything and then I just used the best ones I had. Eventually, if I don't get another car, which I probably won't, I'll just sell what I have left over on eBay."

He has made a few concessions to modernity in the process, but only a very few, and only things that aren't visible. He transistorized the radio and added disc brakes and a more modern clock.

"It isn't a trailer queen," he said. "I don't even own a trailer. Some of these guys wrap the tires and then roll the car off a trailer and cut the paper off so the tires don't get dirty. To me a car is something to drive. There's no point in having it if you can't enjoy it."

The work and expense has paid off. Lovingood has entered his car in 12 shows and has taken home 12 awards, including two first-place awards and six best-of-shows. He took the mayor's award at the Festival of States show in St. Petersburg recently, the President's award at the big annual show in Plant City and best of show at the West Coast Mopar show in Tampa.

"It's just a beautiful car and it really attracts a lot of attention," Lovingood said.

[Last modified April 28, 2005, 08:32:07]