Dodge has been the perennial distant number three in the pickup market seemingly forever. Nothing like being the underdog to stimulate some fresh thinking. Especially when you can’t quite afford to actually design and tool new trucks as often as the Big Boys. A GM or Ford truck generation might go six, seven, maybe eight years, but Chrysler couldn’t pony up for that, at least not anymore after 1961. This D-Series style was built for eleven years, and its successor racked up what has to be a record, twenty two years. The Ram lost its desire to butt heads, so it tried to outflank the competition with some creative ideas. Even I forgot one or two: diesel engines in 1962? The Dude?
The new D Series arrived in 1961, looking pretty modern for the times. A wee bit odd, in certain respects and angles, especially that distinctive drop in the side window line. But then compared to a lot of the Exneruberance emitting from Chrysler at the time, it was fairly mild-mannered. Good thing; if it had looked like a Valiant or ’62 Dodge, it would never have made it until 1972.
The ’61s were wider, longer and bigger in every way, and offered a wider choice of engines. The smallest engine in the half-ton D-100 was the little 170 cubic inch slant six making 101 gross hp. Yes, things have changed in the pickup world. But then a basic little truck back then didn’t weigh that much over 3000 lbs.
The standard engine across the truck line was the bigger 225 cubic inch slant six, which made a terrific truck engine, with its exceptional torque curve thanks to a long stroke and better breathing than the bigger sixes from the competition. Heavy duty versions of the slant six powered pretty substantially sized “medium” trucks, all the way to the D 500.
And if you wanted a diesel, you could get one too, in 1962. Not commonly known, English-built Perkins diesels had been installed in numerous Chrysler vehicles exported to Europe in the fifties, and even a few in North America. In 1962, it was a standard option for the first time in the domestic Dodge pickups, but only some 1000 were sold.
It was a 354 CID six, not too different in basic configuration to the Cummins six that Dodge pioneered in the eighties. They were just ahead of times, once again! But it just didn’t make sense for Americans to spend extra for a noisy diesel when gas was 29 cents. But Dodge’s other pioneering ways had a bigger and more lasting impact.
Dodge’s big and bold moment came in 1963, when it offered the first standard-production crew cab of the Big Three. International already offered one, but that was still a significant thing indeed, and very forward looking. One could get crew cabs from GM and Ford, but they were cobbled together off the main assembly line, or farmed out. Dodge made it a regular line model, and it carved out a nice little niche for itself. And how many decades did it take for Chevy to finally offer a crew cab? And before we forget, Dodge also pioneered the extended cab (Club Cab) in 1973. When you’re number three, you just have to try harder. And carve out niches.
We had neighbors in Iowa City that bought a big crew cab Dodge Camper special in about ’63 or ’64, with a giant camper on the back. What would look totally common-place now looked positively enormous then, and I was mighty jealous of their growing bumper sticker collection from all of their vacation destinations. “Must have a Dodge Camper someday…”
Dodge pulled off another major coup in 1964, with the Dodge Custom Sports Special. It heralded a whole new concept: the high performance muscle truck. Nobody had thought of that before. Even the 426 wedge with 365 horsepower was available; truck motors back then usually petered out with a mid-size V8 in mild tune, with about 200 horses tops. Now if they had offered the hemi…
Well, in 1964, that question was valid, given the universality of truck bench seats. Kind of stupid of course, to not be able to seat three (or four, in a pinch), given that conventional cabs were still the name of the game. Dodge’s crew cabs were nto all that common, bought mainly for; well, crews. Trucks weren’t bought by suburban families much then either, unless they could swing a camper. The Custom Sport Truck was a (rare) glimpse into the future.
This ’67 Camper Special reflects the growing popularity of the slide in camper in the sixties, the precursor to the whole RV boom. I’m not exactly sure what year each of the Big Three started offering Camper Specials, probably in the mid sixties or so. Before that, one hopefully bought the 3/4 ton version. Way too many folks didn’t, at their peril. Slide in campers on half-ton trucks were an all-too common sight, and they were a dangerous one. A growing number of nasty incidents involving crushed families from rollovers made the industry realize they were at risk, legally and image wise. Thus the Camper Special.
Camper Specials were 3/4 ton trucks with even beefier springs and shocks; the huge rear overhangs from campers and big families easily created dangerous sway and overloading. Add a boat out back; a recipe for disaster. In fact, Dodge specifically lengthened the wheelbase of its 8 foot bed trucks in 1965 for that reason too. In the seventies GM and Ford also offered even longer wheelbase Camper Specials.
Even with the extra load carrying capacity, these trucks were still none to ample in the power and (drum) braking department. Maybe just as well (about the power), to help keep speeds down. Not like today’s hot-rod jacked up diesel mega-cabs barreling down the freeway at eighty with a camper and trailer full of ATVs.
This one also sports big fat tires on the rear. I’m not sure when they first showed up; they didn’t come from the factory. It was a big fad with the camper crowd in the late sixties and seventies; kind of like getting a dually in one wheel and tire. They did help with flotation, and load capacity. But once duals become common, these kind of disappeared, or crumbled away.
Wonder if you can still get replacements? googles…of course; but I see that it’s now also a common size for skid-steer loaders.
This Camper Special packs a 318, de-rated for truck duty to 210 (gross) hp; about 170 or so in today’s net ratings. It feeds the indestructible A-727 Torque-Flite. This is the new-for 1967 LA 318, not the old poly 318, although they shared essentially the same block. Both 318s were by far the most common truck V8 engines of the era, along with the six, but in 1967, the 383 was also available to feed the ever-growing appetite for more power in trucks. Note that this one doesn’t have power steering; that was pretty common still at the time.
Let’s take a look inside, past that distinctive side window. Dodge made a number of small changes to these trucks over its long lifespan, to make them look more contemporary, but that unique detail would have cost too much to change. A decidedly Exnerian touch. And the other thing that never changed was the solid beam axle and leaf-spring front suspension, other than some tweaks along the way. Old school indeed.
Also note Dodge’s odd dash-mounted control for the automatic. Chrysler’s fixation with things like that and the push-button shifter soon gave way to realizing that it made sense to standardize controls. And an odd protruding soft “crash bar” appeared on the passenger side of the dash, which was otherwise a crude steel affair.
Here’s the business end, and the end of our visit with this old rig. But Dodge still had some more tricks up its sleeves, in order to keep us all guessing.
The Dodge Dude, featuring no less than Don Knotts as the Dude of the times. I’d say it’s long overdue to bring back an updated Dude with his Dudeness as the spokesperson. Maybe not…but why didn’t they have him drive one in the movie?
It was International that pioneered the crew cab as a regular production line item available in 1/2 ton and larger ratings. It did start out as a 3 door in the 57s but was a 4dr for 61 and beyond.
Yes; I meant to say among the Big Three. I’ve changed the text to clarify that. Thanks.
Oh wow! I’ve been waiting for an article on one of these. I always thought of these Dodge trucks as the most hideous-designed trucks of all time. It’s as if the Dodge Boys bought an IH pickup and tried to make it prettier. Well, it didn’t work. BTW, the IH looked just fine as it was.
Looking at it now, the design is so quirky, somehow it almost fits in with some of the convoluted vehicle designs out there now.
FWIW, we had Power Wagons in the air force in this style. They were still ugly.
On that interior shot with the bucket seats, that same vintage Chevy also had an option similar to this, except the seats looked like tooled leather. ‘Way cooler than the example above with the western theme and all. I compare the Dodge to a spaghetti western vs. a Chevy or Ford to a John Wayne movie. Almost, but not quite, but kind of weird.
Speaking of John Wayne, the original “Dude” was Dean Martin in “Rio Bravo”. I guess you can’t dig him up, either. Don Knotts? Who were they trying to fool?
I remember the Internationals and Dodges as the only crew cabs I ever saw until well into the 70s. There was a new grille treatement starting about 1968 that prettied the front up a bit, but these were always homely trucks from the beginning. I still occasionally see one on the road around here. No firsthand experience with these, but they always seemed more durable in the body than the 72 on up.
The modern equivalent would be better called “The Stranger”. I could totally see Sam Elliot driving this rig to pick up some good sarsaparilla.
Not no more! Doesn’t ol’ Sam do a Chevy or Ford trucks voiceover?
OMG! According to Wikipedia, he’s been doing the voiceover for the Dodge Ram since 2006!
I remember the part about the overloaded half tons well. A guy my father worked with took his mid 60′s half ton Dodge complete with Slant Six with a small canopy on the back and towed a 25 foot travel trailer from Vancouver B.C. to Lake Wenatchee Washington over the Stevens Pass! They made it too! They may have had some overheating problems if I recall…I do remember they had a few of those canvas bags full of water that people used to hang from the front of their vehicles back then. To add more “weight” to this story…the man, his wife, their teenage daughter and her girlfriend were all huge people also. My how times have changed!
The Dude Abides. (And I agree about Sam Elliott.)
Around 1980 my family took over the Mistletoe Express delivery service ( kind of an intrastate UPS ) in a small Oklahoma town, and purchased a 1963 3/4-ton Dodge pickup. Pretty sure it was the camper special; and it even came with a camper which my uncle’s farmhand then lived in for a few years.
My dad built a steel-framed, canvas-covered shell for for the pickup ( for cargo protection ) very nearly as big as the camper shown in the image above. And man, did we ever haul some cargo — I know there were times we had three factory rolls of carpet in it. Which made it ride a lot better as the suspension was rather, uhmm, stiff. It was one tough truck. Nothing like a big pickup for just driving over stuff you don’t wanna go around.
I don’t recall what engine it had, but the brakes were unlike those in any vehicle I’d driven before — or since. The slightest tap on the pedal and you’d stop. Which made the soft “crash bar” quite nice to have.
Power assisted drums. Drum brakes hardly needed power assist, as they were somewhat self-energizing, unlike discs. The power assist on American cars back then was typically way-over boosted, and they all did that until you got used to them, using a feather touch.
Of course, that didn’t make them any better in resisting fade if you had to make more than one or two strong braking actions, or a long downgrade without shifting down. The 3/4 ton trucks did have bigger drums, though; the half-tonners used the same drums as passenger cars. I know all too well…
Yup! I had a 1968 Fury with 4-wheel power-assisted drum brakes, and at low speeds the car nosedived whenever the brake pedal sensed impending foot contact. At highway speeds, however, it was fade, fade, fade!
I’ve never understood this truck. I can see making a plain truck, a work vehicle not intended to sell for style; but why in the name of all that’s sacred, did they set out to make something intentionally HIDEOUS?
Everything about that truck is jarring. The odd swept-back lean of the forward grille panel, not matched by the hood or supported by the grill position. The door-window treatment…that cut-down notch is only the start. You have the curved-back window frame, as if to allow the roof to slope back (not a good idea in a two-place vehicle…but then, the roofline continues parallel; and then the back-window panel is angled BACK, to the REAR!
The thing is about as awkward as Clark Griswold’s Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Nothing goes smooth…NOTHING! It’s one noisy war of lines and clashing themes…and this as the pickup began selling as a personal vehicle.
IMO, Dodge cheated itself out of a LOT of private sales before finally, belatedly, junking that design. Hell, they’d have done better to make a 2WD version of the Power Wagon…at least that had function to dictate design…
I like the look of the front-end when it had two headlights, but not the ones with quad headlights. The step between the base of the vent window and the rollup window is awkward, but looks to be done so that the vent window was at the same height as the windshield and the rollup window sill could be lower. Other than that, I like it. To my eye, it looks more stylish than ’67 pickups from F or GM.
I hope you’re kidding on that last.
You’ll never hear me defend GM…but the 1967 trucks’ styling is timeless and still looks fresh today, in a sort of retro way.
Dodge had the engineering…and the brawn for work. But the styling was a gagger.
Whaever happened to Exner? Did he get horsewhipped and run out of Highland Park on a rail?
Sorry no jike, I like this truck. I’ll take one with a big block or the Perkins inline-6 diesel (and then I’d turbo the diesel).
Why? Virgil Exner!
Like I said, it could have been worse. And many of those styling themes you describe were quite common at the time.
The black and white picture of the camper special looks like a houseboat trying to have sex with an el camino
You just missed making me spit coffee all over my keyboard.
LOL!!! That’s awesome!
What would their offspring look like? An Aztek?
They’re not nearly as attractive as the Fords or Chevies of the time but they are attractive in their own way. Overall though they do come off as a bit awkward.
What I never understood was the Don Knotts advertisements. Why Don Knotts?
Same reason for the styling.
Maybe drug and alcohol use on the job is not a “new” Chrysler Corp. problem. Seems like the truck styling and marketing people needed to be given a “whiz quiz.”
It was the 60s..
Ma Mopar being a little off her rocker doesn’t hurt either. They were more about engineering than design.
The Dude! One of my favorite names for a appearance package! So odd ball. Most of the odd styling elements had been smoothed out of the truck by the time The Dude came along in 1970. I managed to see one last year at a car show.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/4781344883/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/4781983000/in/photostream/
Geez, and yet another foreshadowing of things to come.A version of the ‘Dude’s’ rip-off of the 1970 Super Bee ‘C’ side-stripe would later reappear in 2004-2005, only this time it would be with the rear-deck, bumble-bee stripe. The ‘Rumble Bee’ could even be had in a crew-cab, as well.
I wonder if a reproduction version of The Dude’s stripe is available to fit a new Ram? Given the popularity of the cult-classic The Big Lebowski, I’m quite surprised that Chrysler didn’t jump all over that one. It would have been entirely fitting.
Hell, they might even have been able to get Jeff Bridges for the commercials…
“The Dude,” too, puzzles me. “Dude” was not a complement in the Old West.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude
“A dude is an individual, typically male, particularly somebody well dressed or who has never lived outside a big city….
…One of the earliest books to use the word was The Home and Farm Manual, written by Jonathan Periam in 1883. In that work, Periam used the term “dude” several times to denote an ill-bred and ignorant, but ostentatious, man from the city. The term was also used as a job description such as “bush hook dude” [6] as a position on a railroad in the 1880s.”
Similar to the term, “pilgrim.” When some old cowpoke called you that in a saloon…it was time to put the drink down, grab your holster from the barkeep, and saunter out to the OK Corral.
In 1969 my 6 years older brother strarted a scrap car/truck towing buisness. My dad extended the financing. A thousand dollars bought a 1966 Fargo {Canadian Dodge sold at Plymouth dealers} with a wide block 318 under the hood, and an “A” frame welded in the bed, that and a block and tackle atached to a clevis on the top of the A frame. She was pretty primitive.
He would drive the old Fargo through the country side buying up scrap vehicles, picking a few parts and selling the carcass to the local junk yard.
Today ..he owns the junk yard or” Auto Recycling facility” as he calls it,and is a very wealthy man.
A framed, enlarged photo of the old Fargo hangs above his desk.
Never mind the looks these were a good truck A friend on the fruit run pulled a 22foot caravan with one of these for years all over Aussie His had the 225 Valiant motor originally but later swapped in a 265cube Hemi6 for more grunt on hills.
I can’t imagine wanting a 426 Hemi in a pickup truck, unless it were just to be perverse (okay, I see your point). Finicky, high-revving, comparatively soft at low speeds, very thirsty, octane sensitive — these are not good attributes for a truck engine. I would assume that a lot of the detuning of the truck engines was less about reducing power and more about changing the cam profile (and possibly carburetion and valves, depending on the engine) to emphasize low-end grunt. That, and since a lot of trucks were still going to professional and commercial users, I assume the typical buyer’s willingness to buy an engine requiring premium fuel was not high.
A low-compression 440 with a two-barrel carburetor and a mild cam would be more like it; still thirsty, but with locomotive torque.
I was thinking the same thing. A high-strung, maintenance-intensive, race-engine in a truck would have been just about the worst thing possible.
This woud be proven decades later when the SRT-10 with its Viper V10 engine was released in 2004. Wasn’t much good for truck use. The mileage rating of 9/15 mpg (the Quad Cab version was even worse with 9/12) and no available automatic on the regular cab didn’t help matters, either. They were expensive, sold poorly, and many sat on dealer’s lots for years.
But the stout 440 wedge? That’s another matter, entirely.
A low-compression 440 with a two-barrel carburetor and a mild cam would be more like it; still thirsty, but with locomotive torque.
A 2-barrel 440?! No such thing as a 2-barrel manifold for the 413 or 440. I think there was a 2-barrel manifold on the RB-383 in 1960 or 61, which would technically fit the 440, but why?! Just use a carb with vacuum secondaries!
As for your comments on the 426 Hemi, most of the traits you describe were a function of the cam profile that was used in those engines.
245&265 cube Hemi 6 were factory fitted the old slant6 got replaced in the 70s same time as the Valiant cars ditched it for the more powerful modern Hemi6.
Looking at the photos for the fourth time today, I was focused on the camper special photo with that obnoxious slide-in unit.
When in the air force, the officers in my outfit started a keep-up-with-the-joneses attitude; when one officer bought something new, most of the others began to follow. Pickup trucks with campers was the rage – even though I had no idea if any of them ever went camping. Then it was boats, then Ford Pintos(!) and finally Datsun 240Z’s! Simply amazing, as I, being only a sergeant, an E-4, spent 90% of my money supporting my car above!
I left the service in 1973. Whew!
You know what, I LOVE the styling on these. The oversize surrounds around the headlights and the curve of the doorframe. Uh-oh, now I’ve spent an hour looking at Dodge, Fargo and International pickups on Kijiji. They’re so cheap, that’s one of the disadvantages of having bad taste in cars: They are so achievable, most guys who are into Ferraris only have to worry about having too many hats or T-shirts.
Must…Not…Buy…Another…Project…
How many project cars you have Doug? I only remember you mentioning a VW.
Thanks for asking! I’ve got the 63 VW (Painted & front glass in, next it needs interior), and two motorcycles (93 Kawi Concours & 85 Honda Interceptor 500) plus daily drivers 2007 Caravan and 1991 Focus ZTS. With a single car garage and a great wife & two kids things are crowded enough at the DougD home. Another key issue is time, with family & doing the two career thing it severly limits the amount of free time available for fixing cars. I had a 62 TR4 project for ages which was quite hopeless and the VW was bought in running condition so we could actually drive our old car. Well, I took it apart and that was 4 years ago, which is pushing the limits of spousal support for the project. I could very easily fill my driveway and street with <$5k oddball project cars trucks and motorcycles, but must continually remind myself that it would probably not be a good idea.
A friend of mine’s dad had a 1968, short-bed, 4×4, maroon with the Power Wagon appearance package. Don’t remember if it had the 318 or 383, but it did have a 4-speed manual and a 2 lever transfer case, which I guess must have been the New Process 201. I remember being amazed by the two-lever case, because my grandfather had a 1972 Chevy 4×4, it being the first 4-by I had ever ridden in, and it only had one lever. There was a large sticker on the dash giving shift instructions for the case, too.
We had a couple of these at work, 1964 6-cylinder 3-speed short wide boxes. They were generally pretty sturdy, but the door and window hardware was chancy – one rig in particular we had to always leave the window open because both outside door handles were broken.
Many years later I had a highly modified ’71 short narrow box pickup. This rig was essentially a 1974 Chrysler Custom Newport – all that was still Dodge was the body and the back two-thirds of the frame. I’m sure it was about the only one of these around with a 400 4-barrel, full power and cruise control. With stock suspension it sat a lot lower than it did on its old running gear. It weighed less than the Newport originally did, so it had plenty of power, remarkably good handling, and could carry a good load. When we moved it carried all our stuff (except the piano and a couple of big furniture pieces that we had moved) including ten loads of old license plates (my main hobby is license plate collecting).
I had the Dodge for quite a few years, and would probably still have it except for the fact that my wife hated it. It’s hard enough to find money to spend on a toy like that if everybody in the house approves….
I happened to be in Peru for the last week and these things are everywhere, outnumbered among old iron only by Bugs and 70s Dodge trucks.
As a youngster in the mid 70′s I bought (for the princely sum of $600!) a ’67 with the 225 and 3 on the tree combo. I bought it from an old man who was divesting himself of uneccessary items prior to moving to a small apartment, and he just wanted the truck gone. It was white with blue accents and a blue interior, with a matching cap. Only 8 years old when I bought it, with just over 40K miles on the odo, and it was already “OLD”. Even as late as the mid 80′s, people of that vintage with money (born around WW1 and into the early 20′s) rarely kept vehicles longer than a few years, and never to 100,000 miles, so to him the truck wasn’t worth much. I only kept it a short time, like most of my other purchases in the 70′s, and I made a tidy profit on it, minus the gas I used moving friends, seemingly every weekend!
Maybe because it was one of my first series of vehicles I owned, or perhaps because my Dad was a Mopar guy, I always preferred the Dodge (and Fargos) to Ford and GM pick-ups. I think these are timeless – and the Dodge pick-ups have proven to be far more durable than the contemporary GM products. There are still many of these in daily use in western Canada – the GM trucks were rust buckets compared to Ford and Chrysler offerings.
With the truck unladened, the Slant Six hauled ass, and was easily able to haul way over it’s rated weight. You can keep your SBC’s; I’ll take a 225 with a manual OR Torque-Flite any day. I personally believe that the Slanty was the best engine ever to come from Detroit, certainly from Auburn Hills.
I just picked up a 1967 w200 camper speacial power wagon 4×4 3/4 ton with a 383 4 speed manual. It has never been touched. All stock. It’s in great shape. No cancer. It dose need a resto but even the bumpers don’t have a scratch. Dose anyone know what it would be worth? It has drum brake front end. Would it hurt the value if I ditched that?
My dad bought a new ’68 D100 Adventurer with the slant six. The hood would open past 90 degrees, and the front inner fenders formed shelves for putting your tools on while servicing it (you can get a glimpse of these in the view of the 318 above). I don’t miss the gas tank in the cab, though.
I’ve got a ’90 W250 plow truck now, so that old truck must have made a good impression.
I have a Dodge D200 1967. What is it worth?
the Perkins 6.354 engine photo is from my 1964 PW300 Crew Cab….ugly of not, neither Ford nor Chevy had anything to compete in this class of 1 ton 4x4s.
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