Plymouth Cars: Farm Twine Name, Hydraulic Brakes, Road Runner and Voyager

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Walter P. Chrysler launched Plymouth at Madison Square Garden in 1928 to challenge Ford and Chevrolet. The name, pitched by executive Joe Frazer, came from a binder twine brand trusted by farmers, although the Mayflower badge suggested the Pilgrims. The Model Q cost slightly more than rivals but had hydraulic brakes while Ford and Chevy still used mechanical ones, and the 1931 Floating Power rubber engine mounts smoothed out a four cylinder. During the Depression, Plymouth became the third best selling car in America by 1931 and kept Chrysler afloat. In 1954 Chrysler fitted an experimental gas turbine into a Plymouth Belvedere.

Virgil Exner's 1957 Forward Look styling, sold as "Suddenly it's 1960," pushed production past 726,000, but poor build quality and rust hurt the brand. The 1964 Barracuda beat the Mustang to market by a couple of weeks, and the 1968 Road Runner paired a bare interior with options like the 426 Hemi. Fuel crises, emissions rules and insurers ended that era, and the Barracuda died April 1, 1974. The K-car Reliant helped pull Chrysler back in the 1980s, and the 1984 Voyager became the original mass-produced minivan. By the 1990s Plymouths were rebadged Dodges and Mitsubishis, the PT Cruiser went to Chrysler after the Daimler merger, and the last Plymouth, a silver Neon, was built in June 2001.

• Plymouth paid Warner Bros. to use the Road Runner name and developed a "beep beep" horn.
• The high performance lineup was marketed as the Rapid Transit System, with Richard Petty winning NASCAR races.
• The Reliant's flat floor let a small front-drive car seat six.
• The Voyager was among the first mass-produced vehicles with built-in cup holders.
• Voyager ads featured illusionist Doug Henning, Tina Turner and Céline Dion.