The 1939 Plymouth Radial Air Truck Visits Jay Leno’s Garage

When we last wrote about the Plymouth Air Radial Truck aka P.A.R.T it had just finished and was moving under its own power. At the time it was a huge accomplishment for Gary Corns, his two sons and his team at Colorado Auto & Parts. They had spent a lot of time figuring out how to take a huge 757 ci (12.4 L) Jacobs R-755-A2 radial aircraft engine and get it to move a 1939 Plymouth truck. They started with a custom tube chassis that extended the frame several inches in the front to hold the engine. The drivetrain consists of a custom pulley system off the front of the engine down to a boat V-drive. Then the power goes through a custom driveshaft into a Turbo 400 automatic transmission and finally out to a Franklin quick-change rear end. The truck recently made the cover of Hot Rod magazine. You can read more details on the build over at Roadkill or watch Jay Leno discuss it below.

Unfortunately the truck could not go out on the street while at Jay Leno’s Garage but here is some footage of the team driving it.

Source: Jay Leno’s Garage and Plymouth Air Radial Truck FB page (project’s official FB page)