My Beloved 1974 Plymouth Fury: A Car’s Legacy

Someone said that “You don’t choose a car. The car Chooses you.”

If that true, then the first car that actually choose me, was a car I didn’t even own. It was a 1974 Plymouth Fury with a 440 under the hood and a four-barrel carb. The speedometer ended at 150 Miles per Hour. It was fully capable of doing it and I’d shut down ‘Vettes in it more than once.

The car could pass everything except a gas station and got a whopping fifteen miles to the gallon.

The car fit me perfectly and in many ways, we were simply extensions of each other. I called it Trigger after another legendary mount.

Trigger was owned by the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office and I write about that old car in my books.

Conejos County, Colorado is one of the poorer counties in the state. That meant tight operating budgets and almost every police cruiser we had was a hand me down from the Colorado State Patrol. The State gives law enforcement first crack at purchasing equipment that is being replaced and when they purchased Trigger, she already had had over eighty thousand miles on her.

I’d add another eighty thousand before I left the department.

I went all over the county in that car. I went high up in the mountains and down by the Rio Grande River. It was the vehicle that got me to crime scenes and helped me to watch over the smaller communities. It protected me at accident scenes and was a fortress during tense standoffs.

Now for the question, where did it get its name?

Well, Antonito PD had gotten in a chase with some locals who eluded them (They were driving the older Ford LTD – A car not exactly known for its ability to warp time and space) and the car had left them like they were standing still. They asked me to keep an eye open, and warned that if I tried to contact it, they’d try to outrun me.

I was in a cocky mood that day and responded, “Outrun Trigger! Never!” The name was a reference to Roy Rogers faithful steed.

When I left, the car was still operational.

But while I was off saving the world another administration came in and sold off the old cars. I’d like to think that had I known, I’d have purchased her myself. I’d have stored her someplace and then restored her to her former glory.

But I didn’t know. Besides, a young soldier with a family doesn’t have a lot of money, and she would have been something I just couldn’t afford.

I saw one of our decommissioned cars from the time period once in Garcia, Colorado. It was parked alongside a garage. The tires were off, the hood removed, and the engine was out. A tumbleweed was up against it.

It wasn’t Trigger.

I’ve no idea what her fate was. Perhaps she went to a local junkyard, was stripped of anything useful, and the carcass crushed into a metal brick. Perhaps the metal has found itself into newer cars.

Or dare I hope, someone bought it, restored it, and today it’s a show piece in a parade someplace.

Maybe it’s best that I don’t know because that car and I shared adventures and it’s the link I had with it that lives in on my stories.