I was in my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana a few weeks ago and saw this vehicle while driving. I was able to catch just a single windshield shot of this not-very-common Dodge Town Wagon Power Wagon.
Michael Freeman’s Travelall story got me in a SUV kind of mood, and I remembered this photo. Unfortunately, I was not able to give chase to this one, but will keep my eye out for one to do a full CC on in the future. It is a fascinating vehicle with a long production run (about 1954 through 1966) that is very rarely seen. Until now.
Man, I don’t see any rustout at all on that rig, amazing for an Indiana car.
One of the 300 club guys back in the day had one of these that had come out of a government auction. Of course he stuck a 1957 392 hemi into it. We were all surprised at how well the thing handled, and decided that the hemi contributed to a relatively low center of gravity. Hmmm….
Strange name for a vehicle that seem to be ill at ease around town…
Oh how I have lusted after those!
The only one of these I ever saw was the post office version with right hand drive, a rare beast indeed. It must have been one of the last ones made, since it had the same dash mounted Torqueflite shifter as my 1966 A-100 van.
Saw one once I thought it was a custom also RHD.
One of the other families that emigrated over from the ‘old country’ with us, all three of their sons became ardent motorheads. One had a real fixation on these old Dodge Town Wagons, he had about four of them, in various configurations. His prize possession was the Power Wagon version. He really amped up the power by wedging in (and I do mean ‘wedging’) a 440 big block Mopar.
This was back in the mid-70’s during the height of the van craze. He fixed up the interior of the PW to look like sin bins of the time, only his was better, because it had 4WD. Apparently he could go farther into the woods before he got stuck… 🙂
Good job shooting through the windshield. I have seen one those things on the road in about 30+ years. The road salt was murder on the bodies.
If you ever watch the HGTV series “Cash and Cari”, you’ll see a well-restored yellow one like this that is used as a rolling ad for Cari’s business of estate sales. It is one fine-looking rig. The only thing is that they want you to think Cari uses it as a daily driver, yet when she’s talking to the camera while driving, she’s obviously driving something much more modern. The lack of a dogleg windshield frame behind her is a dead giveaway.
I noticed that very same thing, but had forgotten that it was a Town Wagon. Good eye.
I found it intriguing then Dodge didn’t attempted to update the Town Sedan with an updated version derived from the Sweptline era (1961-71). I spotted this Spanish site who show a picture of a D200 1969 in a “Town Sedan” version who was sold in Argentina, it could bring a interesting “what if?”. Picture from http://www.cocheargentino.com.ar/d/dodge_pick_up.htm