This is one of those cars that only comes around once a year, if even that often. It’s a 1935 Plymouth done in the vision and style of Ruffian Cars, an up-and-coming shop in Fountain Valley, California. Ruffian’s owner and founder, Chris Ashton, certainly has a unique vision, and it would be easy to describe it as polarizing, except for the fact that every car that’s come out of his shop so far is a stunning piece of art.
That’s too reductive of a statement, however, because this Plymouth and the two previous cars Ruffian has built are far more than surface-level beauty. Ruffian’s cars combine a unique sense of style with a tremendous amount of technology and innovation, and they do it in a way that works far better than you think it would.
The best case-in-point is this Plymouth. Chris and his crew unveiled the car last October at the Audrain Concours and Motor Week in Newport, Rhode Island. He pulled the cover off the car a second time to a vastly different audience at the 2025 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. At each event, the response was overwhelmingly positive, yet this is a car that defies an easy description. I certainly struggled with what to call it as I gazed upon it at the SEMA Show. What is it? A Legends car on steroids? Its proportions are almost cartoonish, with the wide fenders and undercar aero bits, but somehow, it’s insanely beautiful at the same time. You can’t take your eyes off the car, and that’s a huge complement for Chris and his crew.
How does this car even come into existence? Ironically, it was all by chance. “None of this was stuff we had planned,” Chris says. “We just wanted to put a big engine into something and make it cool. I wanted to have a V-10 in something and drive it around. I had a Viper engine on the shelf over there, so I started searching for a car. I found out when you search ‘Plymouth,’ you tend to get older stuff. If you search ‘Dodge’, you get everything. I found this Plymouth for sale locally on OfferUp. Josh Winderman [the shop foreman] and I went out to look at it. We measured the engine compartment and bought the car just to put the Viper engine in it.”
With the car now at his shop and an engine and transmission ready to go into it, Chris turned his attention to a chassis. Timing became an issue, because aftermarket chassis were backordered for nearly a year. He began discussing the idea of buying a used race car to cut up and use the underpinnings as the foundation for the Plymouth…