Start with what the Plymouth Cranbrook is: a 4-door sedan / 2-door coupe / 2-door hardtop coupe / 2-door convertible / 3-door wagon / 2-door coupe utility (Australia) with 217.8 cuin Plymouth Flathead Straight six, built from 1951 to 1953, at the height of the post-war boom. What it meant takes a little longer.
The background
The Plymouth Cranbrook is an automobile which was built by Plymouth for the model years 1951 through 1953. It replaced the Special Deluxe when Plymouth changed its naming scheme and was essentially the same as the Plymouth Concord and Cambridge.
In period TV commercials, the cars were all introduced as "the new Plymouth" and then followed by the model year; the ads made no mention of the nameplate, which merely indicated a trim package with standard and optional features. The Cranbrook model name was, however, featured in contemporary sales brochures.
The engineering
The engine is 217.8 cuin Plymouth Flathead Straight six. On the scales it comes to 3200-3400 lb. Drive goes through a 3-speed manual standard(1951-1953), "Hy-Drive" semi-automatic Automatic with Overdrive. The wheelbase is 1951-52: 111 in / 118.5 in / 1953: 114 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
In the Plymouth line-up the Plymouth Cranbrook has a clear place: it replaced the Plymouth Special Deluxe; it handed the line to the Plymouth Savoy / Plymouth Belvedere (higher trim); the factory was Lynch Road Assembly, Highland Park, MI, United States. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Toyota Land Cruiser, the Cadillac Eldorado, the Chevrolet Bel Air. Its Plymouth stablemates include the Plymouth XNR and the Plymouth Laser.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Plymouth Cranbrook — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.