Plymouth Air Radial truck at SEMA 2017

 

 

The Covercraft booth at the 2017 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show in Las Vegas featured the Plymouth Air Radial truck built as a promotional tool by Colorado Auto Parts, a U-Pick yard near Denver.

 

 

 

The Plymouth division of the Chrysler Corporation had a commercial division that built and sold commercial body cars as well as half-ton pickup trucks known as the PT105 from 1937 until production halted in 1941, as the trucks were never very high-volume sellers.

The owners of Colorado Auto Parts owned this particular pickup for over 30 years but it wasn’t until they also obtained a Cessna C195 airplane for scrap that this concept came together. The crew removed the cab and bed, chopped the top and built a custom tube frame chassis to cradle the 505-pound 575-cubic inch Jacobs Aircraft Engine Company R-755-A2 7-cylinder radial engine.  

 

 

The biggest problem for the build was how to transmit the steel cylinders with twin-plug aluminum-alloy cylinder head engine’s 300 horsepower. The crew attached a toothed 3-inch wide rubber drive belt to the engine’s propeller shaft and used the belt to turn a pulley attached to the V-drive (as used in boats) mounted ahead of the engine. The V-drive’s output shaft is connected to a GM Turbo 400 automatic transmission which transmits the power and torque to the Franklin quick change rear end.

Colorado Auto Parts intended to race the truck at the Bonneville Salt Flats but learned that the Southern California Timing Association did not have a class for radial engines and that the SCAT didn’t consider the truck’s roll cage as safe, but still allowed the crew to drive the truck to run it alongside the course. Unfortunately the radial engine smokes a lot and overheats after about ten minutes, so this truck is not for commuting, just for show and exhibitions, and has been featured in Hot Rod and Autoweek magazines and on Jay Leno’s Garage.

Shown alongside the Plymouth Air Radial truck was a hot-rodded version of a Clark CK20 aircraft tug from the same era as the truck and engine. The original tug was powered by a 122-cubic inch 4-cylinder Continental flathead engine which allowed the tug to pull up to 20,000 pounds.

Covercraft Industries in business since 1965 offers a full line of automotive covers – from car covers, seat covers, dash pads, sunscreens, front ends bras, and floor mats for cars trucks, boats. Covercraft says they provide “protection for whatever you drive.” You can reach them on the internet at https://www.covercraft.com/us/en

all photos by the author