My wife and I aren’t big practitioners of tradition. Tradition is fine and all, but being chained or obligated to them limits our ability for enjoying new, or different, experiences.
Aren’t new and different experiences the key to giving extra zest to life?
However, we have been keeping a tradition nearly every August for about the last twenty years, one which has involved sightings of this refreshingly basic Dodge pickup for nearly every one of those years. Like us, this Dodge still looks to be in good shape although the years are starting to exert their influence by means of its appearance.
Since it’s now the middle of winter in North America, discussing summertime activities seems appropriate. One of the few traditions my wife and I have contains an intoxicating cocktail of predictability and unpredictability. What is it? Going to the Missouri State Fair every August. Summer is simply incomplete without doing so.
The state fair has provided plenty of fodder for these pages over the years such as the ancient Ford F-600 that likely witnessed a music festival (some pictures are here) that made Woodstock appear like Sunday school. All are linked at the bottom.
Yet this Dodge has always escaped me. But just what is it, other than being among the best and most lovely Dodge pickups ever built, that makes it so special?
This.
One could look far and wide and never see any bumper sticker that is so well color-coordinated.
At least this bumper sticker didn’t say “Eat More ‘Possum”. I’ve seen those, too. And, no, I haven’t tried opossum (that I can remember), although I see them in my yard quite frequently.
A person needs context as context means everything. We know this is the state fair, which deals with all nearly all industry within the state, but this Dodge is invariably parked near the Agriculture Building. The Ag Building is such a natural setting for a green Dodge In fact, where this Dodge was parked for these pictures is the furthest I’ve ever seen it from the Ag Building – which was about two hundred feet behind from where I took this picture.
Seeing such a blatant call for changing one’s diet, particularly given its setting, got me to wondering and researching, a very healthy reaction. For instance…
Did you know Missouri has around 200,000 acres planted in rice each year, primarily in the Bootheel, making the state the fourth largest rice producer in the nation? As of 2019, the US Department of Agriculture reported Arkansas has more land devoted to rice production than does California (roughly 2:1), with Missouri being right behind Louisiana (third most) in acreage. Texas is behind Missouri in ranking.
Rice production relies heavily on irrigation. The Missouri Bootheel is old swamp that was drained in the early 20th Century, where laborers could earn either a dollar per day or an acre per day. Not only does this make for fertile farmland, it also means the water table in the Missouri Bootheel is quite shallow, around six feet or so.
Sitting on the infamous New Madrid (pronounced Mad-rid) Fault, the ongoing concern is how this shallow water table could prompt the ground in that area to liquify if we have another earthquake. There were a series of quakes along the New Madrid Fault from December 1811 to February 1812; each is estimated to be well over 7.0, some over 8.0, on the Richter scale.
In 2021, the per capita rice consumption in the United States was 11.7 kilograms per person per year. That is up from a low of 2.36 kilograms in 1978.
Bangladesh has the highest per capita rice consumption on the planet at 257 kilograms per person per year.
From Idaho
So do Americans eat a lot more potatoes? Do potatoes make one’s butt big? Well, the average American is taller but has a higher body-mass index (which does not account for differences in people’s frame size) than once upon a time. Is it from eating too many spuds?
Americans consume potatoes at four times the rate of rice, or 48.6 kg per person per year. But in potato eating ranking, the United States is way behind Belarus (170.5 kg, making it the leader) as well as the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and New Zealand. But we are ahead of Australia.
Potato production in Missouri is not a significant thing as our weather is generally too warm. What few potato farms exist are also in the Bootheel area.
What if the owner of this old Dodge lives down in Missouri rice country and makes the trip to the fair in Sedalia every year? If so, it’s 320 miles to the fair from Kennett, the most populated town within the Bootheel proper.
For this unfamiliar, Kennett is way south. Going west gets you to Arkansas and due east gets you to Tennessee. Memphis is much closer than is St. Louis; Little Rock is about as far away as is St. Louis.
Would I set off for that distance in this old Dodge, a true beauty powered by the versatile and rugged 318? Hell yes. I wouldn’t think twice about it. Plus, if I encountered any parking spots dedicated to green vehicles, I would proudly and triumphantly park this green Dodge in its rightful – and reserved – parking spot.
We’ve spent time delving into bumper stickers, but not so much this Dodge itself. Such needs to be corrected as this Dodge is from an interesting time in automotive history.
January 7, 1980; Lee has apparently finished his serving of humble pie and nobody looks too enthused.
Forget about the whole government bailout of Chrysler thing (the first one) from two years before this half-ton was built. There were other factors at play which made this an interesting time period. It was during this time there were major economic doldrums within the United States combined with remarkably high fuel prices.
It was in 1982 that General Motors introduced the S-10, a homegrown compact pickup. GM had been peddling the Isuzu built L’UV for a while, but they wanted something they could call their own.
Ford followed suit in 1983 with the Ranger, supplanting the Mazda sourced Courier.
Chrysler, like GM and Ford, had their captive import, using a rebadged Mitsubishi Triton for their compact truck offering.
Unsurprisingly, resources were precious for poor old Chrysler (Bailout 1.0 happened for a reason) and what resources Chrysler had were dedicated to where sales were happening.
This is where the sales were happening for Chrysler in 1982.
As anybody even remotely familiar with the 1970s and 1980s American light truck industry, heavy sales volume was a foreign entity for Dodge truck salesmen. Dodge was in a perpetual, and distant, third place in light truck sales. For years. Decades.
It has often been said necessity is the mother of invention. Or creativity, in this case.
Not having the wherewithal to introduce a compact pickup of their own, Dodge took an idea from their passenger car line and applied it to their pickups. It melded full size utility with compact fuel economy – in theory.
It was called the Miser.
The Miser, an optional package whose name was borrowed from the Omni lineup, was a basic, no frills half-ton powered by the fire breathing 90 horsepower 225 cubic inch slant six. Dodge advertised these heavily, touting their excellent (if delusional) fuel mileage estimates.
It must have worked as it is easy to find these Misers for sale yet today. Although, thinking about it, such is not surprising. Long ago I had ample seat time in an ’87 Ram 150 (non-Miser) powered by that very same slant six. It was an awful experience in the modestly hilly terrain of Southern Illinois; I can only imagine the joy of driving it in truly hilly areas. No wonder so many of them still exist; they were miser-able to drive.
From what can be determined, the Miser ran its course by around 1984, drifting off into the mists of time upon fuel prices lowering.
In all likelihood, somebody at Highland Park said the hell with this fuel economy crap, let’s make trucks that people truly want! Wanting to build aspirational trucks, instead of something one settled for, the Dodge boys went back to building joyous, fun to drive beauties such as these. Such has worked out really well until about the last few months or so. It was a good run.
Or maybe I’m just speculating.
Regardless this old Dodge is a delight to see on my annual and traditional pilgrimage to the Missouri State Fair. May she continue to be present for another forty years, able to keep her butt trim and shapely.
(Author’s Note: If you sensed any enthusiastic bias toward Dodge pickups of this vintage, you are well-tuned to fine nuances. I owned an ’87 Dodge D-250 and currently own a ’91 W-150; these truly are awesome pickups that continue to be an overlooked gem.)
Found August 2023 between the Horticulture and Poultry Buildings at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia.
Related state fair reading:
1959 Dodge Coronet highway patrol car
1968 Mercury highway patrol car
Related Dodge goodness:
I remember the Dodge Ram Miser pickups. IIRC, it coupled the slant six engine with the version of the A833 4-speed manual transmission (known in muscle car circles as the vaunted “Hemi 4-speed”) that featured an ovedrive gear ratio in 4th.
None of the inline sixes were power houses (even Ford’s giant 300), but they were reliable as the sunrise and returned fairly thrifty fuel mileage (compared to V8 engines).
Dodge’s Miser pickup was kind of the same mind set that created the Dodge “Street Van” in the mid ’70’s (for those of us who remember the van craze).
This was literally the bottom-of-the-line, “stripper” van that one could then modify to their heart’s desire. Dodge just met the customizer half way by not installing any options whatsoever. I think some were even sold sans a passenger seat, because they knew the customizer was probably going to install some kind of custom swivel “Captain’s” seat. PV4 magazine tested on of those Sreet Vans in the mid 70’s with a 318, 4-speed overdrive manual tranny and 3.21 gears in the rear end (which I think denotes an 8 3/4″ rear axle). I remember 0-60 in 11 seconds and the 1/4 mile was traversed in like 16 or 17 seconds. That was pretty good performance for the time. It also returned something like 20 mpg in combined city/freeway driving, which was REALLY good for a full-size vehicle back then.
The govenment fuel mileage ratings back then were done on a treadmill where the vehicle never exceeded 50 mph and “city” conditions were performed as several gradual accelerations to 35 mph, then the vehicle was gradually slowed to a stop.
Test vehicles were often tuned for mileage, rather than power, during these tests.
It seems that the area around rural or agricultural events is the best place to spot older Dodge Rams in their natural habitat. A few times a year, for instance, we attend a rodeo in Central Virginia, and there’s usually several good specimens in the (muddy) parking lot. But with “Eat Beef” bumper stickers rather than “Eat Rice.”
I’ll second your recommendation of Missouri’s State Fair. I love attending, especially on the weekdays if possible where there’s more agricultural events. It’s great entertainment.
Now, possums. When I was a teenager, I learned the hard ways that possums “play possum” when mom told me that one of our dogs killed one and brought its body to the back porch. I put on some gloves and picked it up to fling its body over the fence, when it “woke up,” hissed at me with a mouth full of little teeth, and then ran off. I think I jumped about six feet up in the air.
As for these Dodge trucks, they’ve grown on me. In the 1980s and early ’90s, I thought they were ridiculously outdated, but like many outdated things, I’ve grown to appreciate their qualities over time. And for those who denounce these trucks as poorly built, it’s still running all over the state at age 40+. So there.
Glad you finally caught up with this example.
Possum, I had never heard of that word/animal until I got myself an R.L. Burnside CD in the nineties (yes, we’re getting old), as in ‘Fat Possum Records’. Too bad Jim!
Great article Jason. The mix of agriculture, food consumption trends, state fairs, and of course a wonderful Dodge truck is delightful. And now the Ozark Music Festival from 1974 is on my reading list to learn more about.
One thing that I do know about is that Miser range of Dodge trucks. I believe that the branding was used for an options package on Omni cars at about that time as well. In the late 1980s into the early 1990s I was the program manager of a research institute at the state University called “MISER” (Massachusetts Institute for Social and Economic Research). Our faculty director – a big fun-loving agricultural economist who drove a great late 80s square body Chevy pickup in blue and white – really really wanted one of those MISER windshield stickers that you’d sometimes see on Dodge pickups or Omnis. His intent of course was to put one on his C10 and also for us staff to apply them to our cars as well.
Naturally, it fell to me to try to locate those stickers some 10 years after they were originally used by Dodge. Not being quite as resourceful finding things automotive back then as I am now, I never succeeded in locating any MISER stickers. Now I could probably just have them made…but back in 1990 that would be a lot harder than it would be now.
But I still think about that every time I hear about the Miser line of Dodges.
We had a COAL on an Omni Miser last March:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-flashback-the-cars-of-my-childhood-2-1981-dodge-omni-miser-the-modern-model-t/
Cool! I’m not sure how I missed that one.
There were also MISER light bulbs. Suffice to say that I decided that it was going to be preferable to make calls to Dodge dealers versus the GE light bulb factory. And as far as I knew, there weren’t any light bulb stickers to begin with. 😉
There was the 1976 Mazda Mizer (“Z”-“Z”), a small RX-3 coupe with a 1.3 liter piston engine, 35 mpg, and a 20 second 0-60. They sold a few, as a stopgap product line filler, until the GLC came out.
It seems that Stellanatis is suffering from the same sales malady that Chrysler had in the late ’70s. The economy has made things particularly tough on the company’s target market, which is slightly lower-end buyers who prefer traditional styling, big engines and RWD, but who can’t currently swing the car payments or fuel costs. Just like 45 years ago (has it been that long?), I am not sure how they turn their product line on a dime, or appeal to buyers outside their traditional customers.
After college graduation and awaiting my entry into the academy, I drove delivery/pickup for an auto parts store. They had nearly identical ’78 D-100s as our delivery vehicles; one yellow, the other light blue. 225/auto/ps/pb and that was it. No radio, no ac, nothin’. While I was a tad wild back then, I couldn’t hold a candle to the other driver who was hell on wheels. That slant six probably kept me alive, and as slow and emissions strangled as it was, got the job done under tough traffic and weather conditions. Good times.
I moved on to the State, and in my 6 month training program was first issued a Chevette, then an Omni and finally a Concord. Perfectly serviceable.
Excellent find and observations! Post 1971 Dodge pickups, and later from the Dodge Ram era, were always competitive and well represented in major fleets across Canada. Popular for their affordability, dependability, and low operating costs.
Yep ;
A good article and clear about those great old Dodge light trucks .
When new I didn’t like their styling but they were and remain far stouter than the equivalent Ford or GM products plus they were very good drivers .
I still miss the 1979 D100 shortie I had that had factory AC (ice cold), dual fuel tanks, a tow package and more, the Leaning Tower Of Power ( 225CID ?) i6 was just fine in more or less flat So. Cal. and it ran the same empty or fully loaded to the gunnels with Concrete or cinder blocks etc….
This one green one look like it’d be an easy resto and well worth the effort .
I love rice and spuds both .
-Nate
Dodge advertised these heavily, touting their excellent (if delusional) fuel mileage estimates.
Well, they are Canadian mileage numbers, and Canada used the imperial gallon back then, so that 35 mpg highway number = 28.7 US mpg, and the 30 mpg city number = 24.8 US mpg.
But that’s still pretty optimistic. They are from a Transport Canada publication. Who knows what their methodology was?
I am enlightened about rice production in Missouri. Who knew? Not me.
We also grow cotton and tobacco, although one of those is likely declining in popularity.
I had noticed the publication being from Canada but the Imperial gallon component didn’t click. Their methodology had to be interesting.
We have a neighbor that used to do lawn care, and he drove one just like this, down to the paint color. It had a 225 /6 and automatic. They live on a pretty steep hill, and I used to hear it straining in the morning with a full load of equipment in the back. But it always made it!
That’s the thing about straight-sixes. They might not get you there in a hurry, but they will get you there (the secret appears to be typically prodigious torque at low to medium engine speeds).
Nose and grille designs evolved on the D Series and Ram pickups, looking increasingly more modern, until the arrival of the groundbreaking ’94 design. At the time, I rather liked the quad headlight design adopted in ’79 and ’80. A transitional design between the soft-edged traditional loop appearance, and a more modern look.
Nice truck and sticker. I had no idea about rice in the bootheel, perhaps I was too tired to notice or perhaps was looking out more for old cars than interesting crops.
The last time I went to New MAD rid was over 10 years ago now.
The possum reminded me, how did your experiments with gophers end up? Did you resort to blowing the little buggers up with propane?
Brilliant – classic Jason Shafer. It actually doesn’t seem that far fetched to me that the Miser has existed, given the bulletproof reliability of the 225 Slant-Six. Maybe for people hauling plants that needed more cargo hauling capacity than the Ram 50 could provide? I’m still unclear on the target market, but that’s neither here nor there.
I like both rice and potatoes. Rice is a west African food staple (my dad’s side), and though my mother is as White / Midwestern as they come, we almost always had rice for dinner and almost never potatoes. On occasion, we’d have potatoes with roast beef, or sometimes when we’d have guests. I never really thought about it when I was a kid that we ate rice where many others ate potatoes.
President Carter’s facial expression in that photo is priceless.
Nothing wrong if Baby got a little Back…maybe she’s keeping Idaho afloat.
I’ve been eyeballing (from the highway only as I pass by every week) an older D-series truck that’s sitting in the second row of a big rig dealer’s inventory but isn’t listed online in their inventory. It’s been sitting for a while, has a flat tire that’s visible from the highway, but looks to be a 4×4 version with a single cab and faded blue paint. Perfect, in other words.
Keep writing about these trucks, you can’t say enough.
You know what’s good? Diced (big dice) potatoes (2 or 3 medium russets), cut up 1.5-2 pounds of chicken (breast or loin, boneles), one green bell pepper cut into small pieces, and half a yellow onion, also cut up. Brown the chicken slightly then add the rest for a couple of minutes and mix it on high heat, then add a yellow curry mix (Trader Joe’s has a good one in a small bottle/jar), and the same amount of water. Bring to boil, them cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over a big plate of rice. Enough for 3-4 with leftovers as well.
Alright, you can’t just drop that reference without offering the full multimedia experience for those who might not be familiar. (I think I had this included in some article I wrote a few months ago, but pulled the video link at the last minute. That clearly was a self-editorial mistake. 🙂 )
Thanks for the recipe. It’ll be on the menu next week.
That reminds me I should introduce myself to the neighbor up the street who just got a 1970s (pre Ram) Dodge W200 with a big PTO driven winch and odd holes in the side of the bed. I think it had some kind of bed mounted accessory.
The dry climate and salt free roads of Central Oregon keep a lot of Dodges alive and working and even the rainier side doesn’t have much rust since we saw a circa 1992 Ram Cummins belonging to the Linn County Parks Department at Foster Lake last summer
The Washington state DOT had a fleet of 1981 through 1984 Dodge Ram pickups, most painted a very bright yellow (kinda like the old Dodge ‘Lemon Yellow’ High Impact paint color from 1970-71, but with a little bit of fluorescent mixed in). My personal favorite one (as seen at a State of Washington surplus auction in the early 1990s) was a 1983 D150 long bed Utiline with a 318/4-speed OD powertrain. I’d like to find one.
For a short period of time, I had a 1984 D150 regular cab/long bed with the Slant 6/4 speed OD drivetrain. Not a Miser-it had the Prospector package and a cheesy-looking canopy. It definitely was not a powerhouse, but it did get the job done. One takeaway was that the A833 OD had a steep gap between first & second gear-you definitely did not want to short shift, unless you wanted to stop any semblance of forward motion, 95 horsepower of 1984 Slant Six and a full-sized long bed truck was not going to win any races, for sure.
Cool survivor Dodge truck! I still see quite a few D100/D150s of the era still toiling away here in western Washington.
I’ve owned a slant six 1982 D150 short bed for the past 6 or 7 years. After an extended flurry of work in the initial 2 or 3 years, I’ve stalled out. I can confirm the big jump from first gear to second with the A833 OD. While nothing as low as the true “grannie” first gear on the A435 transmission (4wd and heavier duty slant trucks), it is quite low. So glad for it on the few times I’ve carried loads of about a half ton. Third gear, which is actually a 1:1 ratio, is quite useful on mine. It will tolerate 36-38 mph on a flat road, but still do 65 mph if needed. My Dodge has a 3:21/1 final drive. The camshaft profile on the 1981 to 1987 hydraulic lash slant trucks is extremely mild. The only good of that is the useable low-end torque.
The PA. DOT road crews also had mostly crew cab Dodge and Dodge Ram trucks in the 1960’s to 1980’s. With the possible exception of IHC, I believe Dodge was the first with crew cab trucks. All these were also painted yellow, but not so bright. A popular insensitive joke in the 1970’s was “What’s yellow and black and sleeps six? Answer: a PennDOT truck.
We had the same joke at the C.O.L.A. vehicle auctions…..
I once saw a 1949 Chevy Advance Design crew cab truck , it was massive and I always wondered who’d made it .
-Nate
It is a shame you couldn’t get your own Dodge pickup into the frame with this one, for a family photo.
I recall while doing some research for a piece here that Chrysler’s truck division in the late 70s or early 80s had become a dumping ground for problem or substandard employees in the management and engineering ranks, which made Dodge’s perpetual also-ran status make some sense. But the unintended benefit was that they took a decent product and pretty well left it alone for a long time.
As one with quite a bit of Irish in my background, we tend to be potato people, but I like rice too. And, in the spirit of the wide-ranging topics of your piece, my mind wanders to the fact that the dark green 1964 Cutlass my family owned was purchased new at Rice Oldsmobile in Fort Wayne.