Seen a Dodge C-body wagon lately? Likely not; Dodge only built 8,900 of these in 1967 between the Polara and Monaco models.
After attrition, you can figure there are about 8 or 9 remaining.
Despite that, this wagon has just the right amount of everything. Well, maybe there is too much, uh, oxidation of the rear rocker panels. This Dodge is too amazing to use that “r” word that rhymes with must. And it’s certainly not stuffing looking.
Even Dodge said as much.
Found November 2016 by GFV near Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Eight or nine? I’d be surprised if there weren’t more in the weeds and behind garages.
Many/most of ’em must have been shipped to the New Orleans, LA area. Perhaps the local Dodge/Plymouth/Chrysler dealer discounted these wagons and sold them like crazy?
I recall this body station wagon was ALL OVER the suburban area I grew up in, during the mid 1960’s thru mid 1970’s.
Only a Ford station wagon was more popular during this time period.
SO long ago…….
What a catch on the road!
Related reading:https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/in-motion-classic/in-motion-classic-1969-dodge-monaco-hardtop-sedan-max-the-manure-barons-monaco/
I don’t think I’ve ever seen one…MoPars were NOT popular in my neighborhood when I was a kid…tons of Oldsmobiles and Buicks, some Fords, a few Mercury, almost no MoPar that I recall. One neighbor had a Dart, then a Volare wagon, that’s pretty much it aside from the ’78 Dodge Omni my dad bought, and that was a weird purchase for a guy who had bought Oldsmobiles for his big cars and VWs for his small cars.
Well that 78 Omni would have had a VW sourced engine, so he was somewhat keeping with tradition.
Apparently, this car is used to tow dragsters, as implied by both the sign on the door and the tag. I guess it takes a nostalgia racer to keep these on the road. Congrats to him!
I like this although I wish they’d address the rust .
-Nate
I have ridden in one! In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when I was living in Bridgeport, CT, a gentleman who I knew named Bob owned one. What a comfortable big rider! His was like the advertised model, blue with the plastic wood grain. This brings back sweet memories.
Are there any that exist in fully-restored, like-new condition?
I think maybe I’ve seen 1 of these in the last 50 years. Or maybe 2, as I seem to remember seeing one like the blue wagon in the brochure…only it was white.
“Only a Ford wagon was more popular during this period. ”
Maybe somewhere in the U. S., but most places I’ve ever been the Ford was THE wagon king, but Chevy gave them a fairly big challenge
If I was looking for a classic wagon and had limited myself to a full-sized 67, I think I would look for a Mercury first, a Chevy second, and one of these Dodges third. .
From what I have read (here and on other sites) the Chevy station wagon was more popular in the north/northeast areas of the USA than it was down here in the deep south.
Must be a “regional thing?”
I grew up in the ’80s but at least from that era there were a lot of Chevy station wagons, especially A-bodies of several generations.
Personally I love the taillights.
Given the torsion bars these were probably some of the better handling wagons to come of Detroit in that era. 440 and Torqueflite would make a stout package.
This car looks like the owner needs to put a wrench on those torsion bar adjusting bolts to bring the ride height up a bit.
I would bet that the owner has already done just the opposite of that. That’s the look he’s after; I see it here on a lot of old iron too. Mildly stanced.
Or maybe he did, and the bolts are too rusted to turn?
Great find! I really like the look of these, especially those taillights!
Brendan, I think I might know why you like the taillights…
A high school friend drove his parents’ 68 Plymouth wagon and I remember quite a few of those out and about but the Dodge was never common.
I recall being tempted years ago by a red 65 Fury wagon that was a really stout runner but the owner wanted more for it than I was prepared to pay. Today my preference (in order) would be for a Chrysler, then the Dodge, then the Plymouth. But I could be happy with any of the three.
How about a Plymouth Suburban wagon just to confuse people? 😉
The first car I can remember my parents buying was a sherwood green ’68 Sport Suburban. My mother hated it – too big for our garage, and a lot of mechanical problems. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen a ’67 or ’68 Dodge wagon in real life. Must have, but as noted they were pretty rare.
It’s beautiful. It’s also the perfect showroom companion to Dan Cluley’s 300.
I liked that color on Dan’s car and love it on the wagon as well. Similar “brown” accents as well.
Nice shot Jim.
Its currently several degrees below freezing and the 300 is tucked into the carport for the winter.
I did manage to get that missing trim piece back on, and replace the rest of the hood letters this summer.
Great catch! Love to see this generation of C-Bodies, and the fact it’s a rare wagon is icing on the cake. I’ve been lucky enough to spot 3 running, driving examples of these in the metal, two fairly clean, one semi-rough, and two others in storage. That’s 5 survivors within a 30-mile radius of the Steel Buckle of the Rust Belt. That’s counting only the Dodges, I know of two Fury wagons as well (near and dear to my heart, as my Mom drove one well into the 1980s, God rest her soul). As for me, I wheel around in ’68 Polara base-model sedan, in the same KK1 Turquoise as our family’s old Fury wagon. Great catch Jason, they’re great cars, and it’s cool to see yet another good ol’ C-Body wagon rumbling down the highway. Thanks for sharing it.
Here’s the’67 Monaco and Polara Standard and Optional Equipment brochure page, below.
The front end is shot. That left front wheel is definitely leaning in at the top.
I’ve seen several old Chrysler products running like that.
A co-worker had a fuselage Chrysler wagon that he was driving in the same condition and eventually, the thing just let go.
At least he was parked at the time.
Of course it is, because it’s been lowered. Any SLA suspension creates more negative camber at its upper and lower travel ranges. It doesn’t mean it’s shot. FWIW, Chrysler front ends were considered pretty tough.
+1
And Thank You, Paul..
By the time I composed my very similar response, you had already posted yours.
BTW, and speaking in general terms of course (as not to attack a fellow commentor), but have you noticed how whenever there’s a post that generates a flow of Mopar appreciation (as this great old Dodge wagon is, and deservedly so), some folks can’t seem to let others enjoy themselves, and they feel compelled to throw a spike strip in the path of the rolling party wagon for some strange reason. Very unsocialable (and of course it has to be right after my heartfelt praise of this great old wagon). So thanks again for your timely and accurate response, Paul.
@Rocko ;
That’s normally because they’ve never seriously driven one .
In the 1960’s the ‘Hamtramk Hummingbird’ starter sound drove me bonkers and I decided that if they coudn’t make a decent starter, Mopar must all be junk . typical failure to look at the big picture .
Over the years I have discovered that older MoPars are stout and IMO usually very good cars .
My Stepfather (R.I.P. Lawrence, you were a man amongst men) bought a new base model 1965 Plymouth in light metallic blue, slant six and Torqueflite slush box, AM radio and not much else, to haul his Cat Boat’s sail bags ~ he was still driving it when he married my Mother (Told you he was a saint) and it soldiered on for decades, hauling them , groceries, kids, boat stuff (sail boats require amazing amounts of stuff)
and apart from three tail gates (Manual wind up window of course) all those salty New England winters didn’t phase it one bit .
Eventually they gave it to my Sister who ran it a few years and I doubt ever changed the oil once .
Good cars indeed ! .
-Nate
Thanks Nate, Cool story. I always enjoy hearing about other folks getting years and years of dependable service out their good ol’ Mopars. But did you know that the distinctive high-pitched “Highland Park Hummingbird” starter sound wasn’t because they were chintzy, they sounded that way because Chrysler starters were of a high-torque design, engineered to spin faster (and with more power) than the slower, lower-pitched, grumbling starters of other cars. It’s an easy swap to install a quieter Denso starter from a later-model Dodge truck onto my classic Mopars (the ones with smallblocks, not the bigblocks) but I won’t do it, I’d hate to lose that distinctive, high, fast (and loud lol) “Rrinn-ninn-ninn-ninn-ninn” sound that I can remember hearing since I was a little kid lol.
@Rocko ;
‘chintzy’ ? you must be Down East =8-) .
Yes, I know that distinctive sound is because of the reduction gears .
In 1974 or so I bought a 1969 Chrysler wagon cheaply because it had very bad U-Joints and a fuel pump with a sticky (? worn out ?) valve that made it occasionally stop pumping, for $150, replaced them and ran it hard for several years including fully loaded up trips into the mountains for the snow ~ it handled well and never missed a beat .
Sold it on for $350 to the very first guy who came to look at it .
Personally I prefer the ‘A’ bodies but when you’re young and poor you take whatever comes and work with it .
-Nate
any idea as to what AA FUEL means? is it a tip to the drag racing this owner also does?
AA/FD (AA Fuel Dragster) was the top class for special dragsters; currently, NHRA calls the class Top Fuel.
The alphabetical prefix (A, B, C etc) indicates the weight class that the car is in. The weight class usually is based on weight divided by displacement or divided by rated horsepower.
NHRA used the double letter for classes that permitted supercharging.
That is awesome. Apparently that’s a thing with nostalgia drags, to have a way cool nostalgia tow car as well.
I think the taillights work even better on the wagon then on the sedan.
And it explains the license plate. I had noticed that, but didn’t make the connection. Doh!
I’ve always loved wagons, I grew up in a 64 Bel Air wagon and the choice of tail lights for wagons were interesting. In 64 Chevy had different tail lights for the wagon, then went back to the same lights as the rest after that. Ford seems to have usually had different lights for their wagons as well. I’m guessing the reason for that would be to avoid running wiring through the tailgate.
A ’66 Polara wagon was the main family car when I was a kid – I hoped my parents would give it to me or sell it for cheap when I was a high school senior in 1983, but a major engine failure saw it get junked just before that could happen. It was a terrific car – reliable, incredibly roomy (especially compared to the downsized cars of my early adolescence) and despite its size, easy to see out of with all that glass and thin pillars. The fuselage wagons were a major step backward in those last two aspects. I think it had the 383 that was the standard engine on wagons, but it seemed incredibly powerful to teenaged me compared to the malaise-era cars of the early ’80s.
The ’67 refresh did this car no favors. It seems not a single piece of sheetmetal survived from our ’66 except the roof, yet it doesn’t look all that different, much less better or newer. Likewise inside – the ’65/’66 dashboard with the largest round speedometer ever was revamped, and though nicer in some ways, was less distinctive.
And no, I haven’t seen a Mopar wagon of this generation about a decade, although someone nearby who I’ve talked with a few times has a ’66 Polara hardtop coupe I see often, and whose engine/exhaust sound is EXACTLY how I remember ours sounding. Likewise the distinctive starter sound. The Standard Catalog of American Cars shows about 30,000 full-size 1966 wagons were built. What happened in ’67?
It’s hard to believe that there would have been that significant a production drop in one year. I wonder if this is a case where the bulk of production was in Canada and is not accounted for in the quoted figure – this is a common problem in some of the “Standard Catalog” type books. 1967 was the first year that a significant proportion of Canadian auto production was for the US market, after the signing of the “Auto Pact” in 1965.
That’s bring me the memory of the Arnolds car in the Wonder Years, in the first season, Jack Arnold drived a 1963 model who was replaced with no fanfare by a 1968 Dodge Polara wagon who played a old beaten 5-year old car when Jack Arnold buyed later a 1969 Ford Custom 500. http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_216802-Dodge-Polara-1968.html
http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_216802-Dodge-Polara-1968.html
I remember that episode of “Wonder Years”, the For Sale sign on the wagon said “1962 Dodge”. Was definitely not that old. Was supposedly taking the place of their 1962 Chevy from the pilot episode?
They had a ’69 Mustang on a turn table at the dealer the family visited, but the show played an instrumental version of “See the USA in your Chevrolet!”.
But what was real was even if a family got a plain Custom 500, if car was brand new, was still a neighborhood event.
My parents had one of these in canary yellow, bought with 23,000 miles on it – sales rep’s car.
What a beast! 383 2bbl, ran like a locomotive, unstoppable in snow. Quiet, smooth, Mopar was at the top of their game then.
While the body did not rust like the one in the pic in the article, it rusted severely in the tailgate. Tin worm just ate it alive.
The one in this article’s pic also has the dog dish hub caps on 15″ rims; my parent’s did too. It was made in Canada. I wonder if this one was, as well.
To me, the most remarkable thing about this picture is the sign advertising gas at $1.879 per gallon just last year! I knew gas is cheap in Missouri, but jeez!
Negative 1/4 to 1/2 degree camber, with plenty of positive caster and a little toe in goes a long to improving the handling of these easy steer cars.
I vaguely recall my dad test driving a new wagon like this in 67. We lived on a lot of country roads back then and he decided it was too loud and dusty. Bought a Meteor instead but not a wagon.
Nice find!
Great find. I’ve always liked these big Mopar wagons, and there’s a gold Chrysler wagon of this vintage near us in Toronto. It’s in pretty nice shape, though I imagine it’s probably stored for the winter by now.
I’ll take everything but the door logo. Those. Wagons. Are. So. Frigging. Wonderful.
There’s one of these in the very first scene of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I just saw tonight for the first time in decades. Here is an image from IMCDB:
Lots of interesting comments. I for one noticed the low gas prices, too. That caused me to blow up the pic (using my iPhone) to see if I could possibly make out an expiration date on the tag, which I couldn’t. Noticing the vanity tag and the driver’s door logo, not mention all the stickers on the glass and the patina, I figured the owner to be a rat-rodder. The subsequent pic of the car towing a vintage dragster sort of confirmed my thoughts. However, looking back at the original pic, I fail to see any sort of hitch? Am I missing something?
That rear end looks awesome! The taillights are so very contemporary to modern eyes, being of that Kia Optima-trapezoid design.
Would love to see one restored in white or black with some sort of LED-fiber optic retrofit outlining the shape.
This reminds me of a blue Plymouth Fury wagon that Hot Rod Garage built a while back. Similar aesthetics so I wonder if this one has big power like that too?
I am the owner of the wagon in the pictures. Other than the lack of a front suspension rebuild (ran out of money) the under side and engine compartment of this car is totally restored. Rebuilt 383, 727 and 8 3/4″. Everything under hood is painted and factory stickered. The entire floor pan is also painted the original gold. Stainless exhaust. Cold air, blue tooth radio. There is a receiver hitch hidden under the rear plate for towing my front engine dragsters.(google King Chassis) I am not a “rat rodder” but a nostalgia drag racing buff. I found the car with this paint. Factory gold that someone brush painted red over years ago. In the 1960s most dragsters were hauled by station wagons. Windows filled with manufactures stickers. And usually spare dragster slicks on the roof. So this is supposed to be a throw back to that era. When I pull into a nostalgia race , with a sea of diesel dually trucks pulling modern enclosed trailers. My set up stands out. True nostalgia. Some get it some don’t. And sorry about leaving the rust on the quarter panel. Who cares. It is what it is.