All old cars have their stories, but they often reluctant to reveal them. I'll add a little background to the car's story. I bought it a little over a year ago from a person in the far north of Queensland, Australia, living in a city called Cairns. How it got there is a little mysterious. I live in Adelaide, South Australia which is on the center, south coast of the continent and about 2000 miles away. What interested me, apart from how rare this model and body type is in Australia, was that it had South Australian license plates and while researching Plymouth Cranbrooks on Wikipedia, found a picture of the very same car on the Wikipedia page, as an example of this model and body type. It had the same South Australian plates. If you look at the entry, scroll down about half way and you'll see it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Cranbrook
Anyway, I had some discussions and asked a few questions about its migrations. I didn't get a straight answer but it seems as though someone may have won it in a card game or some other sort of wager; somehow she arrived in tropical Australia. Whatever, we agreed on a deal and I bought her. I had to get her trucked down south in a hurry as there was a tropical cyclone ( hurricane ) on the way but we beat the weather and came down through the outback. I still don't know how long the car has been in Australia. I have a feeling it was shipped out from the USA some time in the early 2000s but I have not yet tracked down the previous owners to find out for sure.
I have had episodes of driving her and then having her worked on, whenever I get back from my job in China. She has been re upholstered and given a new coat of paint and some bright work done and now, is having steering, suspension and brakes improved.
As to the convertible roof. It stopped working just before I left so I left it in the hands of my trusty restorers. They have just got back to me to say that the motor is open circuited, and what's more, that the raising mechanism is cable, not hydraulic. Can anyone of you experienced restorers comment on this? I always thought even the late 40s Plymouths convertibles had electro-hydraulic mechanisms. I have a workshop manual on the way from the USA but it had not arrived by the time I had to go back to work so I'm none the wiser. I'd appreciate any observations or thoughts on this.