The Fury was one of the best-loved (by patrolmen) police cars of all time, though it was the later B-body, R-body, and M-body cars that were immortalized on TV as the “typical squad car.” The New York City police department standardized on Plymouths after the real-life chase that was portrayed in The French Connection, where the detective's own car stayed in one piece while the criminal's disintegrated, so the Fury became ubiquitous in the city...until the Gran Fury and Diplomat replaced it.
Not until the 1990s did GM and Ford take over, and even then, the NYPD waited as long as it could - along with thousands of taxi drivers. (New York also held onto the Caprice as long as it could, finally giving in to the Crown Victoria before trying to go back to the Chevy Impala; we're waiting to see if New York returns to Chrysler with the Dodge Charger.)
Curtis Redgap wrote:
The New York Police Department always got police packages for their cars once they were made available by the manufacturers. The department is divided into two separate groups: a neighborhood patrol and a highway patrol, whose vehicles are all equipped with the pursuit packages.
In the neighborhood division, they got the 225 cubic inch slant six. At that time, the 6 was equipped for police work with dual camshaft drive chains, an extra oil ring on the pistions, dual engine mount rings, and a larger drive for the oil pump.
While the Fury and similar Dodge Monaco shared a roof and had similar front fenders, the grilles were different, as was the sheet metal from the firewall to the tail. The Fury kept Chrysler-like fuselage styling, and the Polara was had more defined creases. The Monaco gained covered headlights around 1971, which the Fury and its Chrysler versions never had; while the Fury gained new low-beam headlamps with better visibility, and brighter backup lights with a larger light pattern.
In 1960, Chrysler introduced the Ram Induction system of tuned intake cross-over manifolds, which increased low end torque for drag racing but reduced high end torque (James C. Tessin); more important, it moved to unit-body construction for greater rigidity and better cornering. The fins dropped off completely, leading to a clean, futuristic rear. The original 318 and 383 were available (not related to the later 318 and 383), along with a 261 and the brand-new slant six, producing 145 hp at 4000 rpm. The 383 produced 330 hp.
1961 brought the 375 hp 413 to the Fury. More visibly, the grille turned into a "frowning face," with rather unusual styling. This was the year of the "alternator test" - when Chrysler introduced the first alternator, it dramatized the event by driving a Fury from Detroit to Chicago, sans battery!
Curtis Redgap wrote about the introduction of the FX Fury at the February Speed Weeks in Daytona:
for the first and only year.As expected the big 1956 Chrysler 300B blew everything else off the beach, including the stock models of the Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Thunderbird. It set a two way record of 139.373 miles an hour. ... Then the driver, Mr. Phil Walters, took the Fury slowly down to the start of the timing lane. ... It was screaming over the sand so fast, that to look at it was almost like a distorted picture. You couldn't quite focus fully on it. It was moving like the wind! ... With a resounding boom and a flash of gold, it was gone, the engine defiantly pounding out its deep belly staccato tune with bass notes better than any musical orchestra. The timers acted like they were in slow motion. Finally ... the numbers rolled over. ... 143.596 miles an hour! The fastest Plymouth ever built in history. And even faster than the 300B.
... Then the big Fury started back. ... About 1/2 way through the run up, approaching the timing lane, the engine started to die. ... It broke the timer at 129.119 miles an hour. ... A defective fuel cap had caused a vacuum in the fuel tank and starved the engine for gas. The next day, with a new cap, and of course without NASCAR sanctioning, the big Fury roared through the timer on a third run at 147.236 miles an hour. On the return trip, it broke the lights at 149.124 miles an hour!
The Fury was a favorite of many police forces, adopted by the tough New York Police Department; the story goes that the city’s Ford squads failed to stay together during a drug chase, immortalized in The French Connection, while a single detective in his personal Plymouth was able to catch the bandit because his car could take the pounding.
The Fury also set a record: Joseph Vaillancourt's 1963 Plymouth Fury, driven as a cab since the mid-1960s, reached 2,609,698 km, when it was struck and totalled by a truck. Vaillancourt was unhurt, and a Quebec actor, Michel Barette (who drove a Prowler at the time) spent roughly $20,000 to restore the Fury, the highest mileage car in North Amer
