When we pulled the radial airplane-engine 1939 Plymouth story for the cover of our October 2016 issue, it was clear from the Corns family background that this would be no normal feature — if there was anything normal to be expected from a 757 ci, seven-cylinder Jacobs radial-powered hot rod. Built from the family junkyard, Gary Corns and his sons, along with a group of Wednesday night buddies, built this Plymouth after the Corns paid $500 for it 30 years ago.
“One day, my dad said we needed another project,” Adam Corns said. “He went over to an airplane wrecking yard and the next thing you know, this 1950s seaplane shows up on a trailer, and he says we’re gonna use the 300hp Jacobs radial engine for the truck. Growing up around metal, you never question if it will work, you just start welding.”
And it shows: from the dual-control interior, to the aircraft updraft carb with manual mixture controls, the Corns completely meld the 1950s Cessna 195’s hardware and Plymouth pickup’s form into one of the most radical machines we’ve ever seen. How often do you find an aircraft radial spinning a supercharger belt that’s attached to a V-drive sending all seven cylinders’ 300 hp through a Turbo 400?
Probably not that often, we’d bet. Check out Elana Scherr’s feature on the Corn’s radically radial 1939 Plymouth pickup.
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