Last night Lily and I were enjoying an episode of “The Crown”, an outstanding Netflix series which is a biography of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, played in Season 3 by Oscar best actress Olivia Colman. Part of its appeal to this Anglophile is all the neat local cars and trucks from each period of her life on display. In episode 4 we go to Athens at the time of the 1967 military coup, and of all things a Dodge Dart pops up! But what’s that script on the trunk lid? It clearly doesn’t say “Dart”, it looks a lot more like “Barracuda”! A Dodge Barracuda? What the what?
Here’s the next shot, with a grille badge that looks an awful lot like it says “Barracuda”. After the show was over I had to investigate, was there ever a Dodge in Greece branded Barracuda? A Dart with a big V8 perhaps? Stranger things have happened.
Internet searching for “Dodge Barracuda” immediately flooded my screen with speculation about a midsize 2020 Barracuda, heavily rumored to be based on an Alfa Romeo platform, branded either Dodge or Chrysler. “Dodge Barracuda Greece” was no help. Nor was the IMCDB page on “The Crown”. So I dug into Greek Chryslers of the sixties, and just found various sub-compacts based on Rootes or Simca models. No luck.
But wait, who says this street scene was actually shot in Greece? Spain instead perhaps? Closer to the UK-based production team and popular for Mediterranean movie and TV shooting. Bingo. It turns out Chrysler licensed out the Dart to a Spanish truck builder called Barreiros from 1965 to 1970. Not B-A-R-R-acuda, B-A-R-R-eiros. Mystery solved.
I played it on my computer to get screen caps for this post, and zoomed in on that grille badge. You have to look hard, but it does identify its manufacturer, Barreiros.
Finally a perfect match is this shot way down at the bottom of the Wikipedia article on the Dodge Dart. What’s more, it says this car had a diesel version! Quoting from the article, “A diesel Dart (named “Barreiros diesel”) was also produced. These models, mainly intended for taxi use, were very basic and very slow. They have 7-inch round headlamps rather than the large oblong units on fancier Spanish Darts, and use the round taillights from the first generation Simca 1000. The engine was the Barreiros C65, a 2,007 cc (122.5 cu in) inline-four with 65 PS (48 kW) at 4,500 rpm. Top speed was claimed to be 124 km/h (77 mph).” The TV car has the American-style taillights, maybe they changed to the round Simca ones later.
A diesel Dart! But certainly no Barracuda. The things you find when you dig into details.
Mike, you have better eyes, or a bigger tv, because I did not notice the script on the Dart.
On our TV, I thought that the nameplate was just a hole cut in the grille for some reason. Nice work, Mike, and thanks for sharing your discovery.
This sure is an interesting group of cars shown in this series.
Yup, it’s Barreiros, a Spanish maker of trucks and diesel engines who, starting in 1965, built Dodge Darts from CKD kits. The ’66-’69 cars were based on the American ’66 Dart body, with varying degrees of modification to cater for European regulations (amber rear turn signals, side turn signal repeaters…) and local market positioning. The Spanish Dart was available as everything from a low-and-slow-spec diesel-powered taxicab to a highly de luxe sedan (leather bucket seats, etc) for diplomats and VIPs, to a sporty car (4-speed, etc) for enthusiasts; station wagons were also available. The non-diesel versions had the 225 Slant-6, either with a 1bbl or a 2bbl carburetor depending on the specs of the rest of the vehicle.
For ’70 Barreiros put out a new car called the 3700GT, based on the Argentinian Dodge Coronado, which in turn was based on the pre-’67 narrow American Dart/Valiant, but with completely different sheetmetal.
See a whole bunch of these cars in this 2-minute YouTube vid. The first car’s a 3700GT, second one’s a ’66-’69 Dart. A little more info in English here and a lot more in Spanish here. And there’s excellent footage of the Barreiros Darts being assembled in this history of Barreiros (also in Spanish).
How coincidental about Spanish Mopars. I just read that on Allpar about Chrysler’s operations in Spain, and indeed, Barreiros assembled Dodge Darts there (the bottom photo shows one with a Madrid license tag).
They were relatively big, expensive and thirsty for fuel there so a lot of them were used by politicians.
Hey, no spoilers! We’re still on Season 1. I’m liking the cars too. I think it’s very British – and I suspect accurate – that Prince Phillip drives a discreet MG TD and not a Jaguar or Alvis or something fancier. Though some of the Land Rovers in early episodes look (and sound, diesel?) like they were built at least a decade in the future.
He’s in a Lagonda 3 litre in season 2 (which he did drive IRL back in the mid-’50s).
The one in the Crown doesn’t have the round Simca tail lights but rather the facelift American compact dart ones. (It looks like there has been some damage resulting in everything misaligned, but then US Chrysler always had a lot of trouble getting tail lights/trim that went from the body to a trunk lid or in particular a station wagon tail gate straight. They should never have even tried.)
I see from one of the Daniel Stern videos that they were putting out Simcas right next to the Darts, so not too hard to find the round tail lights. Here’s one with the round tail lights. It’s different from the original round tail light compact Dart. The tail lights are larger and vertical, and the trunk lid and fenders adapted to that.
In the episode where the queen visits Kentucky racehorse country, circa 1966, I thought i observed that the Lincoln limo she was in was a later edition from the mid-70’s, complete with the gonzo bumpers.
Yes Ron, good spotting. I was mystified: usually The Crown producers have been so accurate with their cars and eras. The worst I’ve spotted before that was a 1962 Farina Morris Oxford with Billy Graham in 1958. Although the lead Wolseley 15/60 was right. But that deliberately vulgar Lincoln Town Car in the episode “Coup” (late ‘67) must have been wrong by a good ten years.
Yes, I noticed it right away. Sticks out like a sore thumb.
THIS is one of the main reasons that I LOVE CC! Information on automotive curiosities never before seen, from outside of the USA; continually expanding my automotive knowledge base! 🙂
What an interesting and quirky car. While perhaps not accurate for Greece I am glad they included it in the show so you could feature it here.