When a 51-year-old engineer named Stepan Kalachev heard through an American-car enthusiasts' chat in 2018 that an old coupe was for sale near Moscow, he went to look — and found a 1971 Plymouth Fury Gran Coupe, apparently the only one of that model year in the country. It had come in from Kazan, where the previous owners managed only body and paint work before abandoning their restoration plans, and Kalachev paid 1.1 million rubles for the privilege of finishing the job.
The car's early Russian history is murky. By the late 1980s, someone unable to repair the drivetrain had fitted a 2.4-liter ZMZ-402 engine and gearbox from a GAZ Volga in place of the original 5.2-liter V8 — and had the swap officially recorded in the papers. Undoing that meant a relentless hunt for US parts, with, by the owner's account, more metal arriving in parcels and containers than the car itself weighed when he found it.
Beneath the black respray (over the original brown) and shaved side moldings sits Chrysler's unibody C-body platform, with torsion-bar front suspension and a leaf-sprung live rear axle. The reinstated carbureted V8 makes roughly 250 hp at the crank, channeled through the famously durable TorqueFlite A727 three-speed automatic.
Quirks abound: covered quad headlights that open via an electric motor, motorized headlight brushes, and lamp units borrowed from a Lada 2106 — a legitimate bolt-on thanks to the shared 5.75-inch sizing standards of the era. American Racing wheels wear Cooper Cobra rubber, while the largely original interior features paisley-pattern upholstery; the front bench is being re-trimmed, with temporary buckets from a 1978 Honda Accord filling in.