Taking a walk, for me, is a multi-sensory experience. Depending on how far I’ve chosen to venture on foot away from my home, which is subject to change once I’m further into my trek, I’ll usually have my earbuds in as I play my music, but at a medium volume so I can hear a little bit of what’s going on in my environment. The wind feels great on my face, even if I may (or may not) be breathing through a face mask, depending on where I am. The sun warms my skin. I feel physically invigorated by the act of putting one foot in front of the other at a brisk pace. It’s during such long walks that I can become lost in my own thoughts, surroundings, and music library. I also often have my Canon camera strapped over one shoulder in the event something catches my attention.
One of the reasons I’ve been able to photograph so many moving vehicles on the fly is because I have my camera with me so much of the time, and also because I’ve mastered the sequence of motor skills to un-shoulder the strap, remove the lens cap, focus, pan slowly, and click away. Probably just as often, though, I’ve missed photographic opportunities because I was down some other train of thought, photographing something else, or simply not present. Fortunately, this was not the case when this Glacier Blue ’61 Dodge Dart Phoenix convertible came southbound on Sheridan Road next to Calvary Catholic Cemetery near the border of Chicago and Evanston. I might have missed this Dodge droptop if I wasn’t paying attention, as it seemed to come and go in a matter of mere seconds.
At the time I took these photos toward the end of Memorial Day Weekend last year, I had only started by then to relax a little bit more following the shellshock of 2020 and everything related to the pandemic. One thing I had learned during that trying year was that I still had to find ways to live and enjoy life. It wasn’t going to be enough for me to simply put everything on “pause” and refuse to be happy because I wasn’t able to (safely) do everything and anything I wanted, pretty much any time I had wanted to as I was able to do before. Taking longs walks was, and continues to be, one way I have reclaimed some of the simple joys of living where I do. Like the Shakers sing, ’tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free. I can dig it.
The Dart was a new model in 1960, and unlike the vast majority of Dodges that bear this nameplate, the first ones were big cars and not compacts. For ’60 and ’61, the Dart rode on the junior full-size 118-inch wheelbase, while the “senior” Polara (and Matador, for ’60) rode on a longer 122″ wheelbase that was common to the wagon versions of all models. The Dart was available in three trim series, Seneca, Pioneer, and Phoenix, in ascending order, in myriad body styles, including two- and four-door pillared sedans and hardtops, wagons, and convertibles, the latter of which was exclusive to Phoenix.
Total Dart sales for ’61, the model year of our featured car, reached over 183,500 units, though this represented a sharp, 43% drop from the year before. One source listed ’61 Dart Phoenix convertible production at 3,878 units. Standard power for the Phoenix convertible came from a 230-horsepower, 318-cubic inch V8; Starting weight was around 3,600 pounds.
The Dart would be downsized for ’62, and sales would fall further to only around 140,900 cars. Surprisingly, the ’62 Dart doesn’t appear to have been properly profiled here at Curbside Classic, though this excellent article appeared some years back about the related ’62 Plymouth Fury. Suffice it to say that the downsized, full-size cars from Chrysler Corporation were not popular with buyers upon their introduction.
With that said, and referencing the Dart’s continued sales slide between 1960 and ’62, just remember that however you felt about your 2021 (and I’m thankful for mine), things could always get worse… or better. Make an effort to enjoy what’s good about your “right now”. Take walks outside, even during winter months. Be ready and willing for great things like classic Dodge convertible sightings to happen to you, and have your mind’s proverbial “camera” ready to capture these moments. If you’re not present, good things may pass you by without you so much as noticing.
Evanston, Illinois.
Sunday, May 30, 2021.
Memorial Day weekend.
The brochure photo was sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org.
Another really cool car caught in a moment of an open air excursion! I, too, resorted to taking long walks, (some say hikes, LOL!) to relieve the cooped up feelings. I’m always on the lookout to spy out interesting things, automotive and otherwise; it never ceases to amaze me on how much you miss while driving along! I “feel” the atmosphere of your walk, most enjoyable, as always! BTW: My first car was a ’62 Dart 440 hardtop! 🙂
Thank you so much! I think the downsized ’62 Dart looks great in profile, especially in a dark color like your old one against which the chrome accents pop. It’s the front that might take some getting used to for me, but it’s distinctive and I do like it in 2022, far removed from the time period in which it was new. Thanks for sharing your picture of yours.
What a great trip down Memory Lane! It is fortuitous that you caught the driver despite the brief interlude. Ahem, would he be “The Big Noise from Winnetka?” I never understood the proliferation of 1960 Dodge models. It seemed to be too much. It is great, to see one like this still roaming around and being enjoyed.
I know “Big Noise From Winnetka” only because I love the “Ultra Lounge” series of compilations put out by Capitol in the mid-’90s! I’m also a fan of Al Caiola.
I agree that seeing this one in motion made this sighting all the better.
Good song and I catch the reference but a few years earlier it was “Big new, big new Studebaker”
I think I’d rather have the Dodge.
This Studebaker commercial commercial is terrific. I’m also glad I watched it in its entirety. As an insurance underwriter by trade, I’ve never heard of it before where an actual auto insurance policy was bundled with the car as part of the purchase. How would one underwrite for the individual’s driving history? I guess this is where subsequent regulations factored in.
Wow, any day that starts with a 61 Dart is bound to be a good day! To see one in the wild, and a convertible version at that. You sir, have struck CC gold.
Having profiled one of these a couple of years ago, I feel like a real insider when I can ID those round taillights as dealer or late-build add-ons, to augment the tiniest taillights of any car of the 1960s.
I still think these are terribly ugly, but that is what I love about it.
I was a teenager when my someone in my family had given me a paperback book of car factoids when I learned about the ’61 Dart’s optional taillamp pods. At the time, I didn’t understand there had been some hullabaloo about the inadequacy of the original taillights. I only thought it seemed curious that Dodge would skimp on decent taillights in order to make people purchase extra ones – which doesn’t appear to have been the case.
These remind me of the era of B&W “Lawrence Welk Show” episodes, when Dodge was the sponsor. I took my essay in this direction, instead.
I was trying to remember if they were actually taillights or just reflectors. Thanks for clearing that up. I wonder if it wasn’t just the size, but also the lowness of the taillights which was a problem?
The ’61 Dodge taillights were designed with so much horizontal rake to the lenses that it was almost impossible to provide the required intensity in the required distribution. They used fresnel lenses that would have been reasonably well suited if they had been roughly transverse to the car’s longitudinal axis—that is, if an observer directly behind the car had been more or less face-to-face with the lenses. However, these lenses were at extreme angles. The inboard one faced off to one side, and the outboard one faced off to the other side. There were ways of making a taillight like this that works reasonably well; you put an efficient reflector behind the bulb (from the frame of reference of the lamp assembly, not the car’s) and a flat fresnel or other light-distributing lens in front of it, then have more or less clear outer lenses with their steep angular rake. Chrysler did not choose to make the ’61 Dodge taillights this way, however, and so they worked poorly.
And they were small, and dim.
Perfect car to visit a cemetery in.
I’ve got pictures of “Christine’s” doppelganger sitting in my photo archives waiting to be profiled here at CC. More than a few Halloweens have passed, and I still haven’t thought of an essay idea. I want to do it correctly, or not at all.
Were the round tailamps a mid year addition ? The way I heard it, the lower lamps were deemed to be insufficient by themselves, sometime after production started.
The round taillamps were hastily offered as a slap-on option for drivers who (correctly) felt the lower lamps were too small, too dim, and too easily soiled the rest of the way into uselessness.
What’s interesting about the original taillamp design is that on closer inspection, they were really dinky. Tiny things, and set really low on the rear of a car this large. The taillights on the ’61 Plymouth Fury were also small pods, but they were set a bit higher.
The low-mounted, horizontal taillights also made their appearance on the Exner-styled 2nd generation 1963 Valiant.
In one of his design tweeks for the following year, Exner’s replacement, Elwood Engel, wisely moved them up to the vertical finlets (which he also added) and were a great improvement, along with the horizontal bars for the front grille.
The ’61 Dodge taillights were poorly designed. They barely met the minimum intensity requirements, so they were marginal even when clean, and their vee-shaped design meant accumulating dirt and winter slush dimmed their output faster and worse. There was no such conspicuity problem with the ’63 Valiant’s taillights, which were adequately bright and visible and didn’t get obscured by dirt and slush.
I agree with you the ’64 Valiant’s taillights were more attractive than the cheap-looking ugly ones on the ’63, but they did not provide a function or safety improvement. And the Australian ’63-’65 Valiant (AP5-AP6) taillights were better and more attractive than either US design.
(I also agree with you in re the ’64 vs. ’63 Valiant face, but here again, the Australian AP5 completely stomps the US ’63 and at the very least gives the US ’64 a run for its money)
Great catch and terrific shots. It almost look surreal. There’s no way for me to try to remember the last time I saw a full size Dart convertible.
Thanks, Paul. Speaking of “surreal”, it was a jaw-dropping moment for sure when I saw this car approaching. I could have done without the Lexus SUV blocking my view in some of the shots, but I’ve come to think of this metaphorically. No more big, brash convertibles. They’ve all been eclipsed by vehicles like the Lexus… fittingly shot next to a cemetery.
Nice ! .
I think this light blue looks better than the red one .
I 1974 I was gifted a 1961 Dodge Phoenix two door, the master cylinder was bad and cost me $16 .
A few weeks later the under dash wiring caught fire so I sold it to some BH, PH used car lot in El Monte for $32 .
I recall it was very roomy and quiet .
-Nate
100% profit! Nice! I also really like the Glacier Blue color of this Dart Phoenix. It seems very period-correct, and cheerful.
The round taillights were, indeed, a mid-year addition to augment the rectangular lights. Customers complained the original lights were too low and too small to be easily seen.
Although Chicago’s most famous cemetery ghost is Resurrection Mary from the southwest suburbs, Calvary has one of its own. He’s “Seaweed Charlie,” who supposedly perished in a Lake Michigan wreck. He climbs up from the water to relax in the cemetery. Covered in seaweed, of course. But there really isn’t a lot of the stuff floating off Sheridan Road.
Seaweed Charlie sounds like a great Halloween costume idea for next year! I should start doing research on this idea.
Love this car and in this color, but please, get rid of the fender skirts!
While I remember lots of convertibles from the 1960s, relatively few seemed to carry a Mopar nameplate. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a convertible from this generation of Dodges or Plymouths. This was a great catch!
Fender skirts are usually not my favorite accessory, either, but for me, they work on this car. Because of the light paint color, I can still see the off-kilter sculpting of the rear wheel well, so it works for me.
I can’t recall to be 100% positive, but I’m pretty sure this is the first ’61 Dodge Dart Phoenix convertible I’ve ever seen. With under 4,000 produced, this could be completely plausible.
I just learned this week that the new 1960 unibody Mopars were really just built on a revised platform from the ’57-59 cars, with the 1960 model’s front subframe intact from previous models and the same basic body and structure as before, now welded to the “frame”. That explains why the ’60 to ’64 full-size Dodges look so much like the ’57-59 cars. So Dodge ran this body for 8 years, an eternity in an era when big American cars were expected to look different every year. By 1961 they were left with trying to make a 1957 body look as current as a Chevrolet that had been completely redesigned three times over that period, and this Dart was the result. The ’61 styling would be cleaned up and improved over the next three years, but by then leftover 1957 vestiges like the fishbowl windshield betrayed efforts to make the car look fresh.
I’m fortunate to live near some nice trails for walking, and take along my headphones or Airpods if I’m alone, but I have trouble coaxing myself out for a walk in this frigid weather. As usual, I’ve become out of shape this time of year, and will again probably bounce back in the spring when the warm weather beckons. Walking on trails means little chance of running into old cars on the two blocks between house and trail though, save for someone with a Mercedes W123 and Citroen 2CV in their driveway.
I had always assumed there was some kind of structural kinship between big Mopars of the era you described, and was reminded that 1960 brought unibody. To me, they all look like they share the same cowl, windshield, etc., which is usually a clue that more is shared underneath.
It has finally warmed up in Chicago to the mid-30s, which is doable for walking. We were down to single-digits for a little bit (not a complaint, but an observation), and so I waited until recently to do my grocery shopping. I won’t be out walking, to your point, when its *really* cold.
What a terrific find. I wonder if spontaneous photographers are like gunslingers of the Old West in their ability to whip out a camera in time to get a great shot.
With that said, while Chrysler gets a lot of grief for the 1962 downsizing debacle, when one looks at what they offered in 1961 compared to GM (and even Ford), it’s easy to understand why Newberg thought he had to do something radical to stay relevant.
And, to be honest, if the 1962 Mopar downsizing had been done right, it might have worked, too. Exner was capable of of moving on from tailfins and weird asymmetry experiments as shown by the clean, second generation Valiant.
Thank you. And this is me with my camera.
A charming car in a great color, great find! I have a suspicion I like it more now than I would have if I was in the market in 1961. Comparing this to a ’61 Chev Impala convertible, I think GM kept a tight reign on their designers and made sure the product was much more commercially aligned to the rest of their range and to their customers expectations than anything coming out of Chrysler, who seemed to say to their designers “Go crazy, do what you want..”
I very much agree that in 2022, it’s probably easier for me to see this car’s charms than it might have been in 1961. I like the unorthodox stylistic choices its stylists made, but to your point, the ’61 Chevrolet Impala is such an impossibly pretty design that from a purely aesthetic standpoint, there’s no contest. I can find something to love, though, about both cars.
I am more of a ’60 Dodge Dart fan than a fan of the ’61. That opinion is somewhat biased though, as my Dad had a ’60 Dodge Dart Seneca in a light blue like this when I was a little kid.
But as controversial as the style on these may be, I have softened my stance on a car that I used to consider ugly. I really like this one in its light blue livery.
But then again, I love the ’62, and those are not very well liked. I never could understand why. Their unusualness is what made them so cool!
Great find, Joseph, and well done (as usual) on the quick draw with your camera.
Oh, no, sir! The design superiority of the ’60 Dart over the ’61 is no opinion—biased or otherwise. It’s objective, uppercase-F Fact!
I agree with you that the light blue color really suits the exuberance of this car’s design really well.
Well spotted, presented, and told, Joseph!
Thank you, Daniel, and I also agree that the ’60 Dart is a really cool-looking machine.
Hey! Even Elvis drove one…(From Blue Hawaii)
I’ve seen snippets of this movie when rerunning on one of the vintage movie cable channels. I think the next time I come across it, I’m definitely going to be paying more attention to the Dart convertible (and also whether or not it has the optional, high-mounted taillamp pods on the trunk)!
I can’t find evidence of it on IMCDB or elsewhere on the internet, but wasn’t there one of these in the chaotic parade scenes at the end of “Animal House”?
Daniel Simpson Day 1962…..Whereabouts unknown.
1960 operators were still used to watching for people using hand signals to turn and brake.
Wow – good perspective. I remember having to learn hand-signals during drivers’ ed. I wonder if students are still taught hand-signals today.
I remember a Rock Hudson -Doris Day movie where she drove a convertible like this. I think it was called “Lover come back.” I got to drive a two door sedan of this model back in the mid 70’s. My Dad bought a stripper model, a Seneca. I polished and waxed the shine back into the paint. I thought that it was ugly and combined with the sound of the Slant Six I dubbed it “The Pig.”
After a little research I found I was wrong, Miss Day drove a ’61 Plymouth, not much of an improvement, if any!
When I look at the front of this ’61 Plymouth, all I can think of is the Sea Captain from The Simpsons muttering, “Yarrr… I’m not attractive.”
https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/49d7b3db-1086-44f9-95d9-35406dc425ce
HEY MISTER! YOUR FINS ARE ON BACKWARDS!!
Hi Joseph. Just spotted your photos of my 61 Phoenix. Great shots! Nice write up too!
This has been my daily driver for the last 23 years