Not many souls under the guillotine get a reprieve, but this 1955 Plymouth was rescued more than once from a grim future.
“This car has been rescued from a junk yard twice,” said Howard Cassidy, the brave soul who rescued the featured 1955 Plymouth Belvedere convertible from a salvage yard east of Ogilvie, Minn., in 1975 when he was 21 years old.
“I accidentally stumbled on it when I was looking for parts for something else,” the Forest Lake, Minn., resident said. “Recognizing what it was, I was kind of intrigued by it.”
The car had last been registered in 1964, according to the license plates it wore, and Cassidy pictured it on the road again. That summer, 35 years ago, he pulled the rare black-and-white Belvedere, one of just 8,473 convertibles built that year, from the salvage yard — for the first time.
“The yard owner had to cut a tree off of it,” Cassidy said. “Quite a large tree had fallen on it. He also had to move six or eight cars to get it out. It was pretty badly buried in the yard.” Other trees also had to be removed, and for all that labor, the yard owner wasn’t asking for much.
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