Text by Patrick Bell.
The 1960’s and 1970’s were good years overall for Dodge, as they (like many others) went after the youth market brought on by the baby boomer generation. We have good variety to view today, so let’s check them out.
Our lead image was a cute girl posing with a 1964 Polara 2 door hardtop and a person at the wheel. It had a license plate that was issued to U.S. Forces in Germany, so that may have been the location in this image. The license frame was from Moss Motors, but the location is not readable.
The 1964 models were a reskin of the unfortunate 1962 design, and they finally had a nice looking car.
Here was a 1960 Dart Pioneer 2 door hardtop. The hub caps look stock, but the wheels appear to have been painted black. It had a California license plate, and that looks like the location as well. Parked in the street was a 1954 Plymouth 4 door sedan.
The Dart was a new model for 1960, and was what they called “budget-priced”. It had a four inch shorter wheelbase that the premium Dodges, and was sold in three series, with the featured Pioneer in the middle. It did very well, with the Dart consisting of over 86% of sales that year.
This was a 1961 Dart Seneca 4 door sedan that was taking a photo break with Niagara Falls in the background.
Styles were changing quickly in the new decade as fins were fading in popularity. That called for a reskin as you can see. Sales were down overall, but over 92% of full size sales were Darts that year.
The compact Lancer debuted in 1961, and shown here was a 1962 Lancer 770 4 door sedan from Colorado that was towing a camp trailer. It was parked at a picnic area or campground with a scenic view.
Every manufacturer jumped on the compact bandwagon to fight the imports, and Dodge got their version of the Valiant. There were two trim series, four body styles, and two sizes of the Slant Six were available for power.
The 1963 model year brought a restyled compact car, and a name shuffle as well. Shown here was a 1963 Dart 170 4 door sedan from New York. It was dirty from winter driving, and had a parking permit on the bumper. The Dart name had returned to the budget priced Dodge, while the Lancer name was retired.
There was some interesting iron in the background; to the left may have been the tail of a 1965 Pontiac LeMans or GTO convertible, to the right a dark colored 1966 Ford Mustang, a blue 1964 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport convertible, and behind the cloud of exhaust looks like another convertible, though that is all I can tell about it.
A 1964 Custom 880 4 door sedan had a load of passengers, as well as a canoe on top and a pop up camp trailer bringing up the rear. The license plate looked like a New Jersey issue, with a 1965 sticker on the windshield.
The 880 was added to the line in late 1962 to replace the full size car lost in the downsize. Customers complained and dealers squawked so they quickly reskinned a Chrysler Newport and they had a big car again.
And a 1964 440 4 door sedan from California out in a grove of some sort.
The 440 was the middle trim series of three, with the Polara (1st image) on top, and the 330 in the entry level spot. Though this was mid sized in Dodge’s offerings, it was actually a full size car with the same wheelbase and overall length as the contemporary full size Chevrolet and Ford.
This one was a newly restyled 1965 Polara 4 door sedan with a New Jersey license plate. Another name shuffle took place as the Polara was now back in the full size line as the entry level, and the Custom 880 was the premium Dodge that year.
To the right a man was washing a 1966 Chevrolet Bel Air wagon and had an assortment of chemicals on the sidewalk. Towards the end of the street was a 1966 Pontiac LeMans Hardtop Coupe with a vinyl roof.
A happy lady was posing by a 1968 Coronet 440 hardtop on a warm day. The 440 was the mid level trim series of five. It was the best selling series for the year, and was available in four body styles.
The Coronet nameplate was brought out of retirement for the 1965 mid size cars as part of that year’s name shuffle. A new restyle debuted for the 1968 model year, as shown above. It was an attractive car and did very well in the sales race.
And another lady was posing with a 1968 Dart GTS Hardtop with one of those “fixer-upper” houses in the background.
The Dart was reskinned for the 1967 model year, and the GTS was the new for 1968 top of the line performance model that was also available as a convertible. It had a 340 cubic inch V8 as standard equipment, with a 383 ci V8 optional. Both were exclusive to the GTS in the Dart line.
Here was a man posing with a 1968 Dart GT Hardtop from California. I wonder if the bent lower lip was his handiwork. It looks like the license frame said “Ralph Williams”.
The GT was all trim, and was the sporty model with a bucket seat interior. But it had the same engine availability as all the rest of the Darts.
A 1970 Dart GT was parked in a driveway in a warm looking climate. The license plate details were faded out in the glare which makes it hard to ID. And there was a sticker in the windshield I don’t recognize.
The Dart line had been simplified with no 2 door sedans after 1968, and no convertibles after 1969. And by 1970 the names had been modified to the entry level Dart, Dart Custom, and Swinger 340. The GT was a trim option that was available on the Custom Hardtop, and included a bucket seat interior, as well as other trim bits.
And back to the full size models, here was a 1971 Monaco 4 door hardtop. It looked like it had been around a while with possibly some rust in the bottom of the doors.
The Monaco became the premium full size Dodge in 1965. This 1971 model was the third year of the fuselage style, which was around for two more years with some badly needed updates.
This one was an all black 1973 or 1974 Charger SE that was towing a speedboat and had aftermarket wheels and tires. The SE was the Mopar personal luxury coupe until it was upstaged by the Chrysler Cordoba.
The Charger debuted as a fastback model in 1966 to a lukewarm reception. A 1968 restyle was a hit, and all of a sudden the Charger was a popular car. 1973 was the best year ever, and the only year to break 100,000 in sales. 1974’s sales dropped quite a bit due to the gas crisis.
To close today we have a 1974 Dart Swinger hardtop that was a resident of France. You can see the French style yellow headlamps and license plate. The car was nicely equipped with a vinyl roof and Road Wheels.
Even though the design and style was old, sales held up during the early and mid 1970’s due to the gas crises. It maintained it’s reputation as a reliable and economical car.
Thanks for joining us and have a great day!
I love the lead picture of the Polara with US Forces in Germany plates. The “W” prefix indicates the owner was stationed to Wiesbaden Air Base. Moss Motors Dodge was located in Riverside, California, which was home to March Air Force Base, so there’s a natural connection between the two cities.
Moss is still in business, at the same location – now called Moss Brothers Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep.
Thanks for the great memories! My father was a Dodge fan, primarily due to the fact that the Dodge dealer in our small Chicago area suburb, Bob Koller Dodge, had a reputation for honesty and a good service department when most car dealers had a terrible reputation! So, we had a ’64 Dodge 330 wagon (225 six/3 on the tree), 68 Polara Wagon (383/TorqueFlite), 72 Dodge Dart sedan (225/TorqueFlite), and a 75 Charger SE (360/TorqueFlite). I learned to drive in the Dart; my parents had the Charger at that time also. If I didn’t do anything stupid in the Dart, I was allowed to drive the Charger! By the way, Darts/Valiants of the 60s and 70s were really great cars. Not exciting, but great powertrains and really versatile, Roomy, huge trunks, and decent fuel mileage. And the Duster/Demon versions looked good. Everyone seemed to own a Dart or Valiant at some point.
I thought the Dart was very competent at the time, too.
Having looked at them subsequently, my view hasn’t changed.
It was sort of a US equivalent of the sort of rational cars FIAT were making then, albeit better-looking and more durable!
The Dart in the snow brings back bad memories. My dad had the same Dart 170. Useless in snow or mud. I was pretty good at snow driving, but the skill didn’t help with the Dart.
The 71 Monaco is photobombed by a fuselage cat!
Had a few from those years…1969 Dodge Polara convertible…
1972 Dodge Polara…
And a 1973 Dodge Swinger.
Awful, lot a blue cars here! That “Dart” in “France” looks pretty nicely, trimmed out. Really like the “70, GT”, variation. (before those cumbersome, bumpers)
Picture #5 (1963 Dart in the snow) seems to have been located in the hamlet of West Sand Lake, New York, about 10 miles east of Albany.
The gun shop building and the adjoining house/building are still standing, though a bit modified. The supermarket building to the left has been demolished, but there’s still a supermarket on the site.
Google StreetView link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/mg8Eanc26P4zemvRA
I think the dart in the snow is at the corner of rt 43 and 150 in west sand lake ny. The gun shop is a subway. The house is still there. The grocery store is Millers Market, now a Hanafords in the same building. The Millers Grocery Store signage would have been the same cursive script as Millers on the gun shop. The buildings to the left are long gone.
I thought that looked familiar. I used to have a delivery route ( 2000 or so ) that turned South toward Hudson about this point
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I drove a 1960 Dodge Dart Pioneer 4 door sedan (my Mother’s new car) during High School. Just the base 318 V-8 coupled with TorqueFlite, but it was surprisingly fast. The trouble was it did not have positraction, and the right rear tire would go up in smoke pretty quickly. In fact, the right rear was bald by 4,500 miles. The other 3 tires were still in pretty good shape, so 16 year old me tried to tell my Mom that it must have been a defective tire, and I would take it to the tire shop to get a new one for her. Unfortunately, she decided to go to the tire shop. The tire dealer said “No Mrs Miller, that tire isn’t defective, it has been abused”. I was in trouble…………..
I still think that the 1960 Dart, especially the 2 door hardtop models are arguably the best looking cars of the era.
There are several Ralph Williams dealerships, but the license plate frame in the picture of the man with his 1968 Dart GT appears to be from Ralph Williams Ford in Encino. That dealership had the Ford logo after dealer’s name on their license plate frames, and you barely make it out on the vintage shot:
Love the 1968 Dodge Coronet 440. The 1974 Dart Swinger has a misalignment on the trim above the right headlight. Those pieces sometimes didn’t fit in with each other.
The black Charger towing the boat has to be my favourite of these.
”A happy lady was posing by a 1968 Dodge Coronet 440 hardtop”
I would be happy too if it were mine.
The tires on the 68 Dart GTS look like a bit oversized compared to what was usually seen on those back in the day, like the next pic of the 68 GT for example.
I played with Google Flow AI with a picture of a 1960 Dart, I gone a step further besides imagining it keeping the 1957-59 Dodge 4-door sedan roofline and I also removed a bit the tailfins to see how the 1961 rear end might have look without the tailfins and the “elephants ears”.
Still, we could wonder what if Dodge have kept the Coronet and Royal/Custom Royal nameplates for 1960-61 instead of using Polara and Matador? Although then Dodge fixed partially that mistake for dusting off the Coronet monicker when the 1962 full-size “plucked chicken” evolved into the mid-size/intermediate model for the 1965 model year.
So many lovely Dodges and happy owners =8-) .
I missed the style and quality, road ability of those fine cars at the time, mores the pity .
IMO all “A” body MoPars are excellent and easily up graded into fine long distance tourers using factory parts .
-Nate
I’m a fan of the 64 Dodges, especially with a HEMI under the hood!