Extraordinary 1932 Plymouth

[Uncle-Pekka]

Long time, no see...

I've been driving my D24, but not much working on it lately, thus been silent here for a couple of years.

 

Just recently I came across the below old photo, taken in July 1932 in Helsinki, Finland;
It shows a racer, built based on 1932 Plymouth PB in Finland or Sweden in early 1932. The lady standing beside of the car took part in Helsinki-Hanko road race "novice-class" in the very day the photo was taken. Later, in 1933 the car was sold to Sweden. I assume it was yet used in several competitions in Sweden and Finland in early 30's.

Have anyone seen Plymouth or Dodge bodied like this one?

[greg g]

Who is the lady?  Don t care who you are, you gotta luv 32s.  That looks sweet.  Nice find.  Can you tell us more about that era, style of racing it and other makes it would compete with! The body was probably custom fabricated.  On this forum there were a vouple posts from Tim Kingsbury with severalicture of a very similar car in George Ashe's work shop.  The posts may be in the blog area of this website if they aren't in regular member posts.  You might want to search Tim's content. 

Here is the car.  

 

I read a novel where the main character has entered his Duesenburg in a long distance road race tin Australia  in the mid thirties.  Apparently the races took the form of the Mille Miglia.running over several days linking distant cities.

Edited June 18, 2024 by greg g

[Uncle-Pekka]

Hi Gregg, 

Thanks for your reply and apologies for the delay in my response; The lady driver is Miss Hasselberg by the original caption. I do not know anything, but obviously she was the daughter of the swedish business man, who commissioned the build of the race car. Unfortunately I do not know much of the race either; supposing it was an early road race at the time when there were no speed limits, nor much traffic in Finland. There were two classes for participants; "Amateur class" (where ms. H. drove) and "Master class" where were also locally famous drivers. Mr. Ebb, who later on won several Scandinavian GP races too part with a Mercedes SSK. The roads were dirt roads for the most part, but also black top and brick paved in the towns. I suppose it was interesting race to drive...

 

I also posted this photo here in Finland and some of the viewers expressed doubts that the car would not be Plymouth PB nor any other US make... The car is strikingly low and the body looks like channeled over the frame. However there was information that the car really was build using mostly Plymouth parts and a bit older Chrysler six engine. It was registered as 1932 Plymouth and raced in Finland and Sweden in the early 30's.

 

It looks very professionally built for racing purpose. Lower that the car in George Ashe's garage. Apart the body itself, there are also other neat details, such as full wheel cover plates over the wooden spoke rims.