Behold the mighty Power Wagon! Nothing can stop it, although it did stop here on this corner a few blocks from my house recently. Perhaps only CC can stop it? Even if it moves on, we will freeze its appearance here for…as long as the CC archives still have a home somewhere. Will that still be the case 50 years from now? Will this actual steel and rubber Power Wagon outlast its digital representation?
So much for the questions. Power Wagons are not really about abstractions; they’re as real and palpable as it gets. Let’s run our virtual hands over this one.
The Power Wagon name is of course legendary, thanks to the original, which was heavily based on the Army’s 3/4 ton WW2 truck. Like Jeep, Dodge figured it might as well try to make some more money from their very profitable war-time contracts after the fighting ended. They grafted on a civilian Dodge pickup cab, and built an eight-foot bed specifically for the PW. The 126″ chassis, 4-speed transmission, transfer case and the 230 CID flat head six were essentially carry-overs, and had more than proven themselves.
Although the original Power Wagon was made until 1968, the name was also used on Dodge 4×4 pickups and utilities. It’s of course long become iconic.
It’s not really any different than the typical 4×4 pickup of the era, with a transfer case and solid axles with raised ride height. Of course this generation Dodge pickups still had solid beam front axles on the 2WD versions too, but they were a typical dropped-center axle to give a lower ride height, as was the fashion back then.
I’m not sure what’s under the hood, but more than likely it’s the LA 318 V8, as that seems to be what most of them have. In its time, that was considered to be more than enough motor for the tasks at hand.
And as expected, it has a heavy duty four speed, meaning a very low first gear. And the ubiquitous saddle blanket seat covers. The instruments are a bit different (and duller) than the ones used in the early years of this generation, which started in 1962. But otherwise not much has changed since then, and not much would until the new generation replaced it in 1972.
Looks a bit like the bed in my ’66 F-100, except in slightly better shape. I’m assuming that from that distinctive light green shade of paint, this was a former US Forest Service truck.
There used to be gobs of green former USFS trucks in town, as the service is big out here, and churns through a lot of vehicles. But they switched to white some years back, precisely because the pea green negatively affected resale values. Now it’s impossible to know if it is a former USFS vehicle or not. I’ll be sorry to see the last of them, but if this is anything to go by, that might be a while.
Now that’s a somewhat different hitch than we see nowadays.
It’s late and I’m powerfully tired, having used my old truck to do some various rental property chores. If you can think of anything else, chime in.
Note: a rerun of an older post.
Thanks for the beautiful Power Wagon. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to buy a good used truck because of the color. A friend of mine had a late 70’s Dodge truck a little darker green that he named “Sweet Pea”. He couldn’t hide, where the truck was seen, every one knew where he was. I guess the truck sits so high that a drop hitch was needed to tow a trailer. One thing is for sure, that truck will be around long after those good for nothing LED light bulbs that are on the seat. People around here like those shift levers. I know somebody who got rid of his 1971 Power Wagon. Didn’t like the position of the shift lever on his new truck, he cut the lever off his brand new truck and welded a piece of rod to it to make it like the old shifter.
Yeah, you can see how the dash presents such a big console for the instruments, then they just plopped in the same gauge set they used in the vans at the time…looks positively lost in that frame!
Such an old monster. The rareness and mightiness of the 4WD of the early 60s and 70s over the much more common 2wd of the time was so night and day, My dad was a local celebrity almost for his 70 Highboy F-250 which was dispatched on more than a few rescue missions to McGinty to Lake to retrieve lesser vehicles from snow, ice and mud.
And in one of those things never change in half a century moments
That truck is a symbol of greatness.
X Mode tried it’s very hardest. But there is only so much it can do. Sometimes the old full size is the tool for the job.
Another fine old Dodge workhorse .
It’s funny, just this morning on my way to my WiFi access I was thinking about those old Barney Fife (Don Knotts) TV commercials peddling Dodge trucks big and small, then here is this .
Long may it last with good care .
-Nate
I remember as a child going with my mon and dad (he was a Dodge dealer) to pick up a new television set. We drove a Power Wagon. It had a reputation of going everywhere and thru anything, but it did it with an incredibly rough ride! I was only about 10, but I still remember how rough that Power Wagon rode!
I can imagine that riding three inches off the back bumper of the family truckster while taking the family to pick up the family Christmas Tree. 😂😂
Wow, neat truck. The ’69’s had a redesigned dash and hood, as you pointed out this ’68 example has a somewhat modernized instrument cluster in the early flamboyant dash, which is in keeping with the early hood with the fake louvers (which didn’t match the grille at all). Dodge really tried to ‘calm down’ the styling of these trucks as the years rolled on, but there was only so much that could be done. By 1971 this style was really out of date, having been eclipsed even by International Harvester. The Jeep J-series was nearly as old as the Dodge, but the Jeep’s lines were pleasant and aged very well, at least in my opinion. One feature that these 4X4 Dodge’s shared with contemporary Ford F-250 4X4’s that contributed to their tall ride height was the ‘divorced’ transfer case. The transfer case was mounted independently and to the rear of the transmission, connected with a short driveshaft. This rearward mid-chassis position required more clearance for the low-hanging transfer case to prevent ‘high centering’. I believe Jeep was the first to mount the transfer case right to the back of the transmission, and GM followed suit on their redesigned 1967 light trucks which gave those trucks a lower profile but maintained the same ground clearence. Ford also used direct-mount transfer cases on the Bronco and F-100 4X4’s early on.
Actually this generation started in 61