(welcome our new COALman, 83LeBaron) Chrysler fans will know that there was a 440 CID engine, but they know about a 1963 Dodge sedan named 440? Did it have a 440 engine? We’ll soon find out. Note: none of the pictures that follow are of the actual car, since photos of my early cars was not a high priority or actually any priority. Therefore, I have availed myself of the web to find representative pictures for this article.
My Dodge 440 started out in life as a corporate fleet vehicle at Chrysler. My folks bought it from a local dealer to become our family car, replacing a well worn and totally unreliable 1957 Plymouth Belvedere nicknamed “Lucifer.”. Options included a 318 CID V8 and a TorqueFlite transmission. No air conditioning or back up lights, but it did have power steering , power brakes, front seat belts, a carpeted floor, AND a transistorized AM radio. Compared to the tube radio in the 57, this was heaven. No more signal fading as you went through an underpass on the highway. The picture below is the same color combo as our Dodge, just with standard wheels and dog dish hubcaps. Since it didn’t have factory air, it did have “440” air conditioning. 4 windows open at 40 MPH.
The 1963 Dodge 440 had its wheelbase increased from 116″ in 1962 to 119″, which technically made it a legitimate full-sized car after the downsized ’62s, which were more like mid-sized. The 330 was the base stripper model and the 440 was the mid-market level. The Polara capped the lineup as the top entry. The picture of the Polara shows the additional trim and included standard backup lights. I guess you didn’t need them if all you could afford was either the 330 or 440.
As a comparison, I have raided the model car box in the attic for a 1962 Dodge Dart 440, a 1964 Dodge Polara, and a 1963 Plymouth Fury. Don’t ask why I didn’t have a model of the 1963 Dodge. Dad had originally wanted to buy a 1963 Fury, but the dealer played games with the price and Dad walked away.
The push button transmission, also commonly known as a “typewriter transmission,” was a novelty that I appreciated. Anyone who rode in the car would always ask what I was doing when I selected a gear. The whole world was used to a gear selector on the column and couldn’t fathom what Chrysler had done. To me, it made logical sense and never gave any problems. At least in the 1963 models, there was a locking detent in the transmission that engaged when you moved the lever below the buttons to park. In earlier models, the detent was absent and you had to engage the parking brake to keep the vehicle from moving. Here’s more on the Chrysler, pushbutton shift.
There were several feature of this car that made it stand out from the multitudes of GM and Ford cars I grew up with. The doors had to be locked with a key. You couldn’t just push the button and close the door. The left wheels had left handed studs, so when you removed wheels on the left side, you had to be aware or you weren’t going to be successful. It also had a windshield washer bag under the hood with the foot-operated pump lever on the left side floor under the dash. It quit pumping fluid after a couple of years, but you could still activate the wipers with both hands on the steering wheel while driving. In the days before delayed wipers, it often confused and amazed your passengers!
The Dodge was relatively trouble free during its stint as the primary family mover. All of us kids really appreciated a car with four doors. That meant we could come and go as we pleased without disrupting or having to ask permission of the front seat passenger. It was also the first family car with carpet, we kids could take our shoes off on long trips and enjoy the cut pile carpeting.
After a couple of years as the primary family car, Dad went to work for Chrysler and purchased a 1969 Chrysler Newport in 1970, relegating the 440 to extra car status. After a while, Dad decided that he would give the car to myself and my sister so that we could commute more easily to college instead of taking the city bus. Only problem was that the car had been sitting for seven months and the battery was beyond help. I took over the task of trying to get the car started, but had limited funds.
After a couple of months of trying to resurrect the lost cause battery, I finally arranged to have a local towing service push start the car. Yes, I had them push start an automatic! That was something that you could still do in the late 60s. The push start was successful and after a large cloud of smoke dissipated, the car ran well. Just needed plugs, points, and condenser. At least the 318’s distributor was located at the back of the intake manifold in the straight up position, unlike the famous Slant 6. The only tools needed were a set of feeler gages to set the points gap and a split shaft screwdriver to hold the screw for the points. It was necessary so that you could start the screw properly without dropping it into the distributor.
During my last year of high school, I was able to use the car for extra-curricular activities. Couldn’t drive it to school as I only lived 6 blocks away and couldn’t get the folks to agree. They said walking was good for the soul and the body. Plus, given the Michigan left turns I would have had to make, it was quicker to walk.
The Dodge was sold in 1971 after I had received another car as a graduation present. The Dodge provided good service with no major repairs and with no major tin worm infection. Of course, hindsight told me that I should have kept it. The replacement car would be known as one that only did two things well.
440 was also the title given to the four door Ford Cortina in Aussie, they had a four banger, The Dart was badged Phoenix for downunder markets.
didn’t AMC also have a 440 model designation for some of it’s trim offerings?
I think they only had 550, 660,770, 880 and 990.
The top Rambler American sometimes was named 440.
American: 220, 330 and 440
Classic: 550, 660 and 770
Ambassador: 880 and 990
Just as well they didn’t want to take the Ambassador further upmarket!
My parents handed down to me a ‘68 Rebel. Can’t recall if it was referred to as an “AMC” or a “Rambler” in ‘68; we just called it a Rambler. I seem to remember the trim designation was “770”. I distinctly recall seeing a same year Rebel designated a “440”. Ours was pretty spartan, with a 232-6 and 3 on the tree, and poverty caps. No radio…no nothing. So it was a surprise to run across the 440 designation. Ours did have plaid cloth insert seats, and a chrome molding running the length of the top of the body. I think the 440 didn’t have the chrome, the interior was probably different, but I don’t recall. It was purchased as a replacement for their commuter car, a ‘72 Vega. When purchased, it was already ten years old with only 35k miles. It was assumed to have sat for a while, likely under a tree. The fabric quickly disintegrated upon regular use; and as I was the official household car washer, I found that when rinsing the car off, particles of debris would escape from underneath that chrome trim, which was mounted upon the horizontal surface of the car, rather than the vertical. I never, ever got all the debris to stop rinsing out, even after three years.
The Rebel was officially a Rambler for 1967, and then an AMC for 1968. The Ambassador and Marlin were officially AMCs after 1965.
Were they “AMC”s or were they “AM”s? I don’t remember the AMC name/insignia before 1970. A quick look at a couple of ads and they all seemed to just refer to themselves as American Motors, putting all the emphasis on the model name. “AMC” as a brand name didn’t seem to get going until the mid 70s.
From what I can tell, the new logo was phased in for the 1970 model year. It is featured on the 1970 brochures.
The first reference I can find to an “AMC” vehicle is in the 1973 full-line brochure. The section describing how the Buyer Protection Plan works refers to “AMC” cars.
AMC brand started to be phased in with the 67 Ambassador/Marlin, ’68 Javelin/AMX, and the last ’69 AMC Rambler. 1970 brought out the red, white and blue logo, and AMC was all in.
“440” was also a Coronet model. We had a 1967 Coronet wagon growing up. It had a 273, and ONE power window. On the tailgate. Also had dealer installed A/C, under the dash.
Coronet designation started in 65. Previous 440’s were sort of a mid level Polara, Polaras being the top of the line designation- not a number. More chrome, better interior than the 330s or 440s
There was a Dodge 440 based on the Coronet made in Mexico, but it used the hidden-headlight Charger grille. Something different for your next Mopar meet.
Good Gravy! I never thought of such a thing, but that rocks!
Mexico, along with Australia, is another alternate Mopar (and AMC) world, at least to me…
That looks so good. I have long felt the 66 Charger nose was attractive, but that it would look better on the standard Coronet body. This is proof of concept, even in 4 doors I love it!
Probably the only instance where the model name of a car was also a possible engine displacement in that car? Or at least in the U. S.?
I drove my mother’s Aunt Teresa’s 64 Plymouth Belvedere a few times and that “PARK” lever always confused me. Was it in park when it was pushed to the left or to the right?
The 440 engine didn’t come out until 1966, so perhaps then but not this one. As for that park lever on the pushbutton shift, park was engaged by pushing the lever in the direction of the little arrow on the knob. The only ones I ever had were vertical in orientation and park was down on those.
Mmmm…no, sir. Your memory is playing tricks on you. The park lever on a ’64 Plymouth threw vertically, not horizontally (see here), so there was no to-the-left or to-the-right about it. It also had a prominent down-arrow below the PARK legend on the face of the knob; like all vertical-throw Park levers on Chrysler products, it was down for Park, up for not-Park (horizontal-throw levers all were right for Park, left for not-Park).
The ’61-’62 Dodge Lancer 170 and ’63-’66 Dart 170 came with the 170-cube Slant Six engine as standard equipment, but could be had with any of the optional engines as well (225 or 273 in a variety of configurations). There was no 440 engine option in any Chrysler product until 1966.
This one was moved from left to right in order to lock the transmission. It simultaneously put the transmission in Neutral. The word “Park” and a right arrow were part of the lever.
Yep, the ’63 Dodge park lever was horizontal-throw. I was commenting on DanEKay’s memories of a ’64 Plymouth.
Probably the only instance where the model name of a car was also a possible engine displacement in that car? Or at least in the U. S.?
Firebird 400. Also Chevy’s SS 396 and the like were considered part of the model name. Oh and of course Boss 302/351/429. These denote submodels of course, so maybe they don’t count
Well, you have the Oldsmobile 442 – which wasn’t the engine displacement but I bet a quite a few people thought it was.
As for foreign makes, both BMW and Infiniti had the engine displacement in the name of the car (using liters, not cubic inches), though they’ve both moved away from that.
I am looking forward to this COAL series.
The 63 Dodge represents one of my near misses. I test drove one that was really out of place at a multi-dealer tent sale being held in the parking lot of one of the malls in Indianapolis. I went there looking for another car but stumbled on the Dodge – which I cannot now recall if it was a 330 or a 440. I do recall it was a slant six and a three speed, painted that non-metallic beige that was to early 60s Mopars as that metallic olive green was to late 60s Mopars.
I was strangely attracted to it and it seemed to run and drive OK (at least as far as I could tell in a brief drive around the mall) and looked good inside and out. But those guys had it priced in crackpipe territory for a beige six cylinder four door. I offered something on the low end of reasonable and they would not budge, so I walked and bought the car I had come looking for (86 Marquis wagon). I would have liked that Dodge, though I think Mrs. JPC was relieved that I didn’t get it.
Then Olds came along with 442
But this stood four, I mean for:
4 bbl. carb.
4 on the floor.
2 exhausts.
Yay, a ’63 Dodge! Welcome to the COAL mines, 83LeBaron.
The second, actually. 1962 was the first year for the downsized cars.
True…except in Canada, where there was an el-strippo (la-strippe?) 220 model below the 330.
The ’65 Torqueflites were the last ones that could be push-started; more info here.
What the author was pointing out is that the ’63 Dodge had its wheelbase increased from a mid-sized 116″ in 1962 to a full-sized 119″ in 1963. I’ve amended the text to clarify that.
Ahh! Thanks, I missed that.
In the pic of your 3 models, there’s a yummy looking pie about half way down the kitchen counter. What time is dessert tonite?
The first car I actually bought (as opposed to having gotten or long-term-borrowed from my parents) was a ’63 Dodge 330 in that Mopar puppy-poo beige — the stripper model of the model above. I made all the classic mistakes of a young idiot car buyer — looked at the car in the dark, with friends who didn’t know anything, ignored the ‘easy to repair’ rust on the body and, of course, ignoring that large plume of white smoke the came out of the rear when it started. Sure, that’s just condensate on this cold autumn evening. But I liked the cleaned-up looks of the Exner/Elwood body and liked the way they tried to normalize the upside-down look of the ’62 Dart grille with the one shown above. So I paid my hard-earned, summer’s job savings of two hundred and fifty dollars and then another $50 to have it towed home to my apartment building, which had a large, empty, dirt lot behind it where we were allowed to park our cars.
Alas, I never really got to register the thing — in Maryland you had to (you still do!) get the car through this major inspection at title transfer. You can have no rust, the brakes all need to be perfect, the exhaust not leaking, you know, basic safety stuff. Well, this beast I bought missed on all of the above. And I hadn’t yet developed the skill set, the tool inventory, nor even the basic know-how to deal with any of it.
And the friend I was emulating, who’d driven himself from Colorado to Baltimore in a 1961 Lime-Green Dodge Lancer, and kept it running despite its deplorable condition, had driven himself and his Dodge to Boston for Graduate school the spring before. I had no way to get the thing into shape to get it registered, and no funds to pay anyone to do it.
I drove it on an ‘inspection tag’ for six months, tho’. I really enjoyed the vacuum-motor
vents that popped up out of the top of the dash when you pressed the ‘vent’ button. That 318 V8 was plenty peppy, especially with the rotted-out y-pipe that really let the neighborhood know you were trying to accelerate. My first full time experience with that push-button transmission was wonderful. I still can’t forgive the nefarious forces that moved shifters into the column instead.
We tried to use it as a trade-in when my roommate needed to buy a car to commute from Baltimore to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. The Datsun dealer screwed him by selling the demonstrator B210-hatchback to another buyer while waiting for his loan approval. Going back from that dealership, I was finally stopped by a Towson policeman for driving on the inspection tags unlawfully. Luckily, we had the useless receipt from the dealership showing we had just tried to trade it in!
I left it parked behind my apartment building for a year, until the City Inspectors condemned the house on the other side of the lot and discovered my car and threatened my landlord. I had two days to move it, didn’t have anywhere to put it, and no way to sell it (a quick On-Line ad on craigslist was still thirty-plus years in the future).
So I gave it to the janitor of the Apartment Building I lived in, and he promptly moved it into the garage of the other building he tended down the street. Tho’ I lived in the building for another year, I never saw that Dodge again. I still think of it tho’, and have it’s ignition key.
In 1963 my third grade friends and I argued endlessly over what size engine our teacher’s new Dodge had under the hood.
I tried to tell ’em it was a 318; but the other guys kept pointing to the “440” insignia and doubting me.
FINALLY I am vindicated, 55 years later!
The ‘other guys’ in your 3rd grade class probably thought the Dodge Custom 880 had an “880 ci motor”! WOW! 😉
Well, I learned something new in this post. I’ve NEVER heard the term “typewriter transmission” for a push button trans until now.
I’ll have to drop this on the folks at packardinfo.com in regard to the ’56 Ultramatic push button shift.
I didn’t grow up in Michigan; maybe it’s a MI thing?
I learned about LH thread wheel studs/nuts when I worked for an auto parts store in the late 70’s.
I knew about the handed wheel nuts/studs, but out here on the left coast we only ever heard or used the term “push button transmission”. And though I’m not exactly an expert on Mopar trivia (or even basic facts, let alone trivia), since others mentioned AMC’s 880 I thought I’d point out that Dodge also offered an 880, though I think until for a few years after the 440.
Dodge’s Custom 880 was 1962-65.
I once heard someone refer to the three available transmission choices in Mopars of this era as: “3-on-the-tree, 4-on-the-floor, or mash-on-the-dash”. 🙂
Dad always referred to it as “255” air conditioning. I guess he wasn’t considering the rear door windows, or maybe it’s that the predecessor of the car possessing said 255 A/C was a 2-door.