Jim Kennedy’s Car Collection

Serial No.: 1684448

Engine: PB 7041 (4-cylinder)

Exterior Color: Yellow with Scarlet fenders and belt striping

Interior Color: Tan 

Assembly Plant: Detroit, Michigan

Assembly Date: March 14, 1932

Ship Date: March 16, 1932

Dealership: H.O. Harrison Co., San Francisco, California/Davison Motor Co. (agent), Palo Alto, California 

Original Purchase Date: April 9, 1932

Backstory

Plymouth introduced its “New Finer” models (the last four-cylinder engine cars Plymouth would offer in the United States until 1971) on April 3, 1932. Six days later, Robert D. Rhodes, a Stanford University graduate student and San Jose high school teacher, celebrated the completion of his Master’s Degree program in Education by purchasing this rumble seat convertible from Davison Motors at the Cardinal Garage, the Palo Alto, California, Chrysler-Plymouth agent. The car had been shipped from Detroit to H.O. Harrison Co., the Northern California distributor for Chrysler and Plymouth, in San Francisco. Mr. Rhodes intended to use the car in San Jose, where he lived, but life and employment led him to Menlo Park, California, and later to Garden Grove in Southern California, where he eventually served as Dean of Instruction at Long Beach State College.

After Dr. Rhodes’s untimely demise in 1963, his family kept the Plymouth until 1979. The convertible then passed through several owners before I purchased it in 2015.

Shortly after this Plymouth left the H.O. Harrison Co.’s premises, Henry O. Harrison exited the distributorship, replaced by his former partner James W. McAlister, who promptly renamed the business in his own honor. Maynard Pomeroy Davison (“Dave” to his family and friends), the proprietor of Davison Motor Sales and Cardinal Garage, relinquished his Chrysler and Plymouth affiliation in 1933, although he later became the local DeSoto and Plymouth agent (the Depression had thwarted Chrysler’s efforts to establish separate Plymouth dealerships, so by 1932 Plymouths were offered by dealerships for each of Chrysler’s other brands: Chrysler, Dodge, and DeSoto). When the U.S. entry into World War II halted new auto sales, Mr. Davison departed both the car business and Palo Alto, joining his wife’s family fruit packing business, Bonner Packing Co., in Fresno, California, as an executive. He died in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1991. 

In the worst year of the Great Depression, Plymouth was the only auto brand in the industry to register a sales gain. Three years after its launch, Plymouth landed in third place, behind Ford and Chevrolet.