She’s bloodthirsty, jealous and vindictive — everything you don’t want in a woman — but her beautiful “Silver Dart” styling from Plymouth’s Forward Look era made her irresistible to Arnie Cunningham, her co-star in John Carpenter’s 1983 horror film “Christine.”
She, of course, is Christine, the 1958 Plymouth Fury in the starring role. In the film, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, young Arnie instantly takes an otherworldly liking to the dilapidated Plymouth. Arnie’s passion for Christine leads him to restoring her and in the process, Christine develops a reciprocal obsession with Arnie to the point that she kills to protect their bond. Christine’s powers even allow her to repair herself back to the condition in which she left the assembly line which, coincidentally, is the scene of her first kill.
Although not greatly successful upon its initial theatrical release, the film and Christine herself have since developed a cult following. Today, a red-and-white 1958 Plymouth and “Christine” are synonymous with one another. And for a few people and Plymouths, that Christine-and-Arnie bond is alive and well, perhaps nowhere so strongly as between Bill Gibson and his Christine.
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