Up front, you get your standard big fenders, custom bumper, and long 1930’s grille, just like all the other street customs you usually see loafing down the road this time of year. There’s also a very strange growth sticking off the roof with a very 1980’s Pentastar, just in case you thought this was another customized Ford or Chevy. Honestly, I can do without that cyclops-esque Penta-Tumor, but to each his own.

Nothing out of the ordinary going on out back, aside from what I believe is a third brake light protruding from the trunk. If you look hard enough at cruise nights across the land, you’ll see stuff that was built in the 80’s and early 90’s with aftermarket third brake lights. I saw one on a 1960 Ford Fairlane that looked like E.T. extending his neck off the package tray recently, and I had a chuckle. It’s just what guys were doing back then, so I can’t fault them.

There are louvers on the trunk, and 80’s Toyota MR2 side vents behind the doors. A custom 80’s touch perhaps? And yes, it’s wearing polished big-and-little Torq-Thrusts like most Street Rods do. And yes, Torq-Thrusts look great on just about everything. Ask Dave Nutting.

Inside, you can tell this was built in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. There’s a steering wheel from a then-current Mopar, a digital dash, and more. The wood seems to have been cribbed from a discarded coffee table from that era. Seriously, I had a hand-me-down wood and brass coffee table from that era when I first moved away from home, and it looked a lot like the stuff in here! I sure hope they took the airbag out of that wheel…

This glove box is 100% a modified drawer from that coffee table I just mentioned.

Here, we have evidence of a 1.5 DIN Chrysler radio formerly occupying this space (now replaced with a more modern single-DIN Sony unit with Bluetooth). That silver-faced thing up top is a 12-button Chrysler Traveler trip computer. 80’s Dodge guys love these things.

Another 80’s cue is the hacking in of a sunroof. Man, back then every one wanted a sunroof, and they haphazardly made their way into all sorts of vehicles that never got them, and some (like this thing) that just shouldn’t have them.

This overhead compass/thermometer module was definitely cribbed from an 80’s Mopar of some sort, and I remember them being in everything from Caravans to Lasers. Having a digital compass and temperature reading in your vehicle was from THE FUTURE, man!

And those seats… Those are definitely from a mid-80’s Lebaron or even a Chrysler Laser. Same with that door armrest. And those seat belts.

Let’s step back out of this thing and look at those vents again. They are 100% from a AW11 MR2. Toyota MR2’s are mid-engine-equipped wedges that need those vents for cooling. Wait a minute….

You guessed it: this 1933 Plymouth has a mid-mounted Turbo I four cylinder out of a mid-80’s Chrysler New Yorker! Those side vents are functional, and serve to help cool down the 2.2 liters of Mopar fury lurking where a trunk should be! My guess is that the builder had a New Yorker kicking around the yard to cannibalize, and he decided to build one of the most 80’s street rods of all time.

The non-intercooled Turbo I cars generally came with between 145-150hp. While it’s a lot less than your typical small block V8 of choice, it can be built to make a lot of power with the right parts and tuning. Plus, it’s in the back of a 1933 Plymouth, which has to count for something, right? Some of the guys in the Turbo Mopar scene are cutting into the single digits in the quarter with these mills in minivans, so the sky’s the limit.

A quick word about the builder: His name was Bob Selix, and he was a car customizer from way back. Apparently, he built the car you see here, the Bob Selix Special, which won the Portland Roadster Show in 1957 and 1958. The thing was supposedly styled after the Mercedes Gullwing cars on the 1950’s, but built from an array of American car parts ranging from Chevrolets to Packards. It weighed in at a hefty 4200lbs! The Plymouth may have been one of the last cars he built, but who knows.