When I first came across this this four-door Dodge pickup I thought I’d surely found a kind of vehicular unicorn. After all, how many Dodge D200 Crew Cabs with the step-side box can there be? The cherry on top is that this big beast has a slant six engine and a manual gearbox!
One can at least hope that this is the 225 cu in slant six and not the 170-cube version. Note the two master cylinders at the top right of the photo, indicating the presence of manual brakes to complement that manual transmission. I didn’t check to see if it had power steering, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it used the strong-arm system.
Looking under those yellow-painted stripes yields a good clue to who ordered the truck this way. You can can still make out “Blairmore” on the top line. Blairmore is a tiny mining town in the mountains, so perhaps it served the mining industry. On the other hand, it could have belonged to a Park Ranger. Unfortunately, the writing under the middle mark is unreadable, and the well-worn bottom stripe covers only a phone number. A dead end? Not quite.
If I’m correct, the pie-plate style headlight surrounds peg it as a 1965-1967 model.
It’s pretty spartan in here–there’s not even a radio, and sheet metal has been riveted over the glove box. Here you can just make out the top of the clutch pedal.
But what do have here? On this side is different (and more legible) lettering. The top line reads “US Air Force”, which solves the mystery about the original buyer. The USAF used trucks like this to transport air crews around the bases. It’s likely this particular truck was stationed in Montana.
It seems the six-passenger Crew Cab is perfect for transporting a five-person B-52 crew and a driver.
According to information provided by my contact, this truck probably isn’t as rare as I first thought. He even provided me with a photo of a more recent example.
You can spot a similar but more recent vehicle at the 35-second mark.
Did the way this truck was originally equipped make you scratch your head? While we’re on the subject, what’s the most oddly-optioned vehicle you’ve ever seen?
During summers in college I worked for the NJ Department of Agriculture, and a couple of those summers I got to drive twice a week from Trenton to a small town in the far NW corner of the state to hand off some gypsy moth parasites to workers for the NYDA.
It was a pretty sweet gig that got me out of the lab for 5-6 hours including a lunch stop, and the vehicle for this trek was a ’68 or ’69 Dodge crew cab optioned just like this one (Slant Six, no radio, power nothing), except with TorqueFlite instead of three-on-the-tree.
That truck has forever after defined slow for me, and I learned to time the traffic lights on the route (particularly the ones at the bottoms of hills) to minimize the number of times I had to accelerate from a dead stop. The manual steering was challenging for someone whose experience up to that time was with power steering, and braking performance with drums all around was, mmm, theoretical.
Yes- SAC alert crews were issued these, + similar Internationals. They were really tall, the old sort of 4wd with the transfer case hanging down with the driveshafts to the axles. The motor pools were full of rolled-over ones; SAC crews taking the klaxon horns pretty seriously.
During my high school years I had decided I needed a pickup to drive.
I ended up with something like this Dodge, though mine was a 64 D100.
It also had power nothing, with a 4 speed and slant 6.
Didn’t have the truck long as it had some sort of ridiculous 4.11 or lower type gearing on it.
Though the truck ran flawlessly ,I don’t believe I ever did better than 7-9 miles per gallon with it.
The large federal-government-owned ship repair facility where I worked had a fleet of Dodge 4-door pickups like that one. At least some of them had four-speed granny boxes which had a remarkably short throw with that long shift lever. They were slant sixes of course, with no power steering or brakes. Whenever I see a similar one around here – an increasingly infrequent experience – I always check for gray paint underneath if it’s a different color, and often see it.
Man, I have OldTruckitis pretty bad right now, and something like that rig would be about right.
Sadly I’m pretty settled on a Softail for my next purchase.
The strangest combo I’ve run across was a 74 Cutlass sedan with factory Buckets and console.
A friend of my dad nabbed it from the original owner and flipped it pretty quick. I’m still mad at him for not giving me a shot at it. I was pretty deep into Collonades at the time.
There’s a newer version of one of these in Moline. A long-bed Club Cab Dodge, looks like a ’78 or so, two-tone silver and maroon. It looked like a lot of truck for $1450. Here’s a quick shot from a couple nights ago.
That’s pretty tempting.
Sorry you lost out on the Cutlass — was it a Salon possibly?
I stumbled across a ’75 Buick Century Station Wagon at the Pull-A-Part junkyard in Birmingham, AL about ten years ago. It was also factory equipped with Bucket Seats and Console. I was amazed but it was built that way.
It could have been a Salon. The memory is a bit fuzzy.
I would have flipped if I found that wagon!
Yes, that would be a 225
True. The length of the connector hose up front gives it away.
I think 170s were none too common in these; some probably made their way into a few short-bed, regular cabs.
The 225 was used in quite large trucks too. There was a “Premium 225” for medium-large sized commercial trucks, with heavy duty components throughout, including valve rotators and such.
While working in the Denver International Airport fleet shop back in the early nineties, I encountered the polar opposite of these trucks. At the time, DIA was still under construction, and the city acquired a small fleet of Chevy S-10s to use for construction oversight.
To handle the rough conditions of Colorado construction sights, the S-10s came with a maxed out driveline- 4.3 L V-6, 4 speed automatic, and 4 wheel drive (which technically made them Chevy T-10s). To save taxpayer dollars, the rest of the truck was as minimal as possible- standard cab, short bed, no A/C and radio delete.
I drove one a couple of times, and while the little truck really jumped out, the short wheelbase and vinyl bench seat made for a very uncomfortable ride. In addition, the city installed a CNG conversion kit, and two CNG tanks in the bed cut the already skimpy hauling capacity in half. Sort of like the GMC Typhoon- All driveline, zero truck.
Dodge really pioneered the double-cab pickup as a regular production model. Perhaps IH had one at the same time, but Ford and Chevy didn’t, and the Dodge popularized that style then. Not that it was very common. But if you wanted one, they were the ones to go to.
We had neighbors in Iowa City that bought a big, long-bed double cab Dodge with a giant cab-over camper in about 1963 or ’64. It seemed gigantic at the time; now it’s par for the course. I know theirs had the V8, which would have been the 318. Awesome rig; it inspired me!
Actually Ford made some 4dr crew cabs for the railroads in 1956. They made them more commonly in the 60’s and early 70’s again on the larger trucks. It took until the 70’s until they offered them in pickup size though.
IH had the first crew cabs that a retail buyer could get. They started in 1957 but only had 3 doors until 1961. IH even offered them to 1/2 ton buyers and like today’s 1/2 ton crews they were available with the short, short bed ~5′. In 1961 they added the 4th door and 8′ beds though most were the 6 1/2′ bed.
A120 Travelette.
Even better shot of a first gen Travelette, since it includes a lot of other period cars. From IMCDB
Hey. I own an A-120 4×4 Travelette. Do you have any other photos of this truck? I would like to see an if you do. I am hunting down the remaining of them. Only 17 A-120 4×4 Travelettes were ever made.
I spotted on this Spanish site, a picture of a different double-cab pickup or perhap an extended cab of the Sweptline Dodge sold in Argentina (and keeped the Sweptline design until Chrysler sold its South American activities in Argentina and Brazil to VW) along with a Town Sedan version and a Perkins diesel powered version http://www.cocheargentino.com.ar/d/dodge_pick_up.htm
It doesn’t surprise me that this truck only has the slant 6. Being an Air Force truck it may have never left base, it’s duty being carrying crews and their equipment to the flight line. So no real need for any serious power.
The option configuration on my truck is pretty weird. 1989 F350. It’s an XLT Lariat, so power windows, locks, and steering, A/C, CC, two-tone paint, and cloth interior.
But it’s also got a heavy-duty 5-speed instead of an automatic. 7.3L diesel, not 4×4, and not dually. It’s a crew cab, AND a long bed: nearly 22′ long. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another crewcab F350 that wasn’t 4×4, dually, or both. When I went looking for a work truck a couple of years ago, this was exaclty what I wanted, except for the manual transmission. I found this one in less than a week. I didn’t realize how unusual the configuration was until I couldn’t find another one.
My 84 F350 is a 2wd SRW Crew Cab with an 8′ bed. Though it’s got the 460 C-6 power train which is exactly what I wanted. The unusual thing is it is an XL with the two tone, it came with cruise control but no radio.
Dunno if mine came with a radio or not. There’s a cheap aftermarket one in there now, that was there when I got it.
When I was shopping, I was most specifically interested in the 7.3 Navistar diesel. IMO it’s the best one that was going to be available in my price range. No way I was going to buy a GM diesel from that era.
The crew cab was a bonus. I expected I would have to settle for a regular cab or at best, the 2-door extended cab.
I’m curious as to the choice of a pickup to transport flight crew – wouldn’t a van be more practical? What did the ground crews use?
I expect the reason might be 4×4 availability, esp. in Montana. Also 65-67 is a bit early for the ‘good’ vans (eg Dodge B100 or Ford Econoline) – or were there any better vans than the earlier compact car-based Big 3 vans available at the time?
Hard to say why they wouldn’t have used Club Wagons, the passenger version of the Econoline. This one does appear to only be 2wd. On the IH forums I’ve seen lots of 60’s and 70’s International Travelettes (their name for their crew cab) that were stationed in places like California as well as Montana, and many of them were 2wd too. It could be so they could do double duty as cargo haulers when they weren’t hauling a crew.
I’m totally guessing here but seeing as it is only a five man crew the four door crewcab offers the more doors and faster in and out access than a van.
As as Air Force vet, the color of the truck jumped out at me immediately. Another thing to note is the placard on the dashboard in front of the passenger most likely indicating protocol on crossing an active runway.
As an USAF dependent of the sixties, I also knew it was a USAF crew truck right away also.
Saw a lot of these and think they were mostly the slant six. Always think USAF first when I see that shade of blue. Have also seen that engine in a stretched van, farm truck and a school bus. Guess if you gear it low enough it can move anything.
A family friend, when she was in college, drove her grandmother’s hand-me-down ’79 or so Malibu with air conditioning and an AM/FM radio and maybe cloth seat facings (I can’t remember) but seemingly no other options – V6, 3-speed (!) manual, unassisted brakes, not even tinted glass. The combination of one-finger power steering and he-man brake pedal was an odd one.
Interesting Malibu. Since you brought up G-bodies, I used to own a 1979 GrandAm that had to be a customer order.
It was black/gold two tone with black cloth bucket seat interior. Options were 301 4bbl, 4-speed manual transmission, tinted glass, power locks, power trunk, power driver bucket seat, all body moldings, sport mirrors, snowflake rims, limited slip rear, console, A/C, tachometer, tilt, power moonroof, sport steering wheel, & light package. I think it may have even had cornering lamps and rear defogger but my memory is fuzzy. The radio had been removed prior to my ownership & I don’t remember if it had cruise control or not.
What made it really strange is that the car was not ordered with power windows or the digital clock which mounted over the glove box. (Remember the tach replaced the “normal” clock). It’s possible the original stereo may have been a super-early ETR unit which had the clock built-in.
Either way, the lack of power windows was weird!
I would bet your car was one of the very limited production (233 total) WS6 Hurst Grand Am’s. This article (http://www.pontiacpower.net/spotlight0402.html) is the only place on the internet I can find mention of it, but I’ve seen 4 or 5 ’79 Grand Am 301/4-speed cars over the years and they were all identical with the snowflake wheels and black/gold two-tone paint. AFAIK 1979 was the only year the 301 was available with a manual transmission in the G-body cars… it was optional on the Grand Prix too.
Forgot the picture…
My brother-in-law had a Doge truck a few years older than that with the 225 slant six. We had found it for sale in a nearby subdivision. It was indeed exceedingly rugged. It was a single cab. It also had 2 master cylinders, one for the brakes and the other for the clutch. The thing shifted like a dream.
I picked up this oddball 1981 shorty G10 cargo van up at the biweekly City of Birmingham Impound Auction probably 10-12 years ago for $120. It obviously had not run in years and was full of garbage, stinky clothes, needles and one very nasty mattress.
This thing was ordered with the 305 four barrel engine and A/C but no power steering, brakes, or automatic transmission. Other than a passenger’s seat & door glass, the van has no other options.
While going through the hellish process of making it legally mine, I discovered the van was still titled in the original purchaser’s name, a Birmingham-based tire store that had been out of business for several years. I thought it was interesting & it helped explain why the cargo area had zero holes drilled into it for shelves/etc. The original purchaser probably figured the tire-throwing drivers would be strong enough to live without any power assists.
Oddly optioned…that could include my current 1997 C35 Nissan Laurel. Engine-wise it’s bottom-spec RD28 diesel (73.5 thrusting kilowatts!), yet interior-wise it has the top-spec in-dash touch-screen TV/satnav/CD/aircon. Lots of C35 Laurels in NZ, lots with the RD28, lots with the TV/etc option, but none with both. Mind you the TV comes in handy while waiting for it to reach the speed limit! I always wondered why it was specced that way from the factory (it has a few other top-spec options too), but then I found out it’s just the 153rd one built, so I’m guessing it was a dealer demonstrator.
It’s not quite the same as an oddly-optioned vehicle, but the oddest option I’ve seen by far is a 1990 Nissan Cima with wipers on the rear-view mirrors. Why?
Dang! Can one still order individual options on cars in NZ? That’s interesting.
Tengo una camioneta Dodge 100 modelo 1966 igual, solo que tiene 3 puertas, ahora investigo su origen, me parece que son fantásticas, la que tengo me lleva a muchos lugares de pesca en mi país.
German, en que pais vives? No puedo ver la placa.
En Colombia, Valle del Cauca
I actually own TWO of these myself. One Army, one USAF. Both came with the 225, granny 4 speed, two wheel drive, Dana 60 rear differential with 4.10 gears. No radio, no power anything, bare essentials. I’ve upgraded the Army truck with a 440, 727 automatic trans, SureGrip 3.91 rear diff, tunnel ram with dual Edelbrock carbs, headers, Weld Draglite Wheels, Hoosier slicks, and some internal stuff to make it very healthy. My USAF truck will remain stock though, retaining the 226 slant 6, but I’m going to install an automatic trans so my wife can drive it.
Very different, and cool, trucks to own. Heads turn every time we drive ’em.
That truck is in the crowsnest pass in Alberta, Canada. The company is called drain brothers, have never been in that lot but every time I drive by I stare into it and I recognized all the red trucks and that red dodge stepside in the back ground. I live in a town 10 mins away from here called pincher creek
I met a guy with a single cab version of this truck. It had the same slant 6 and manual brakes. Turns out it was part of the fire/rescue fleet for Da nang AFB during the Vietnam war. The placards on the dash are in both english and vietnamese.