Although I was not around during the ’70s, from watching The Rockford Files and other TV shows of the era, it seemed like there were two basic colors on automobiles at the time: ’70s Green and ’70s Brown. Last fall I saw what appeared to be a stock ’70s Dart Swinger.
Upon getting closer, I saw it was anything but stock, with narrow front tires, VERY wide rear tires, and a big honking engine–no Slant Six here, folks. But I still was attracted to it, with that neat green color, black bumblebee stripe, and original dealer tag on the back. Somewhere, at some car show, there is a matching brown one–I am sure of it.
Lots of green in the late 60’s – early 70’s.
Camaro rallye green, Pontiac olive green, GM across-the-board green mist, same for Ford and Chrysler.
Pick your shade of browns, too.
I’m sure if someone could consult a color chart for those years, the choices would be stunning. Ditto for interior colors as well.
…ahhh…memories!
My Father owned McBride Dodge Inc. 429 2nd St. Gretna, La. then 1660 Westbank Exp.Harvey, La I still have that name plate.
Well, I was around in the 70s, and I am quite sure that 45% of everything Chrysler Corp made in those years was this color. The other 45% was that gold-ish brown, and then it was 10% everything else. I exited the ’70s swearing that I would never purposely choose another earth-toned car ever again.
I felt the same way. But nostalgia always wins out, this January we bought a mocha brown Jetta Sportwagen.
Its funny how that brown has come back now that people of a certain age have become prime buyers, Buick Enclaves come to mind, most are brown, we might even see an updated version of that sick green come back.
Heh. Gotta love those malaise-era Earth-tones. Makes me think how fourty years from now someone will write in an automotive blog somewhere, “Anybody Remember ‘Y2K silver’?”
When I moved out to the Oakanagon Valley of B.C in 95 a kid had a 69 dart gts in this color. His had the stock rally wheels withtrim rings and a very healthy sounding 340 under its hood. Since then I have always wanted one. Then they where just starting to appreciate in value and I can only imagine what they are worth now. IThe good thing is there are still a ton of base darts out there to build one out of.
I sold my very beat up but 99,000 mile Scamp for $200 in 1987. 1995 or so, I was seeing similar ones with $3,000 asking prices. I think they’ve stabilized since. 2nd generation Chargers only seem to go up though, and I guess 340 2-doors of any stripe are in the teens for okay driver condition cars.
I sold my ’71 slant 6/auto Scamp with 145K in spring of 1985 for $500. It was a decent looking car and a nice driver. I had wished that mine had been a 340 (or even a 318) car many times back then. It was, by the way, the other main Chrysler color – golden brown. 🙂
Mine had a black vinyl hardtop and was blue. And another shade of blue. And primer. And rust.
Personally, I value a slant six, three on the tree, rubber mats on the floor Dart two door hardtop. For the rarity. Stuff like this is dime a dozen anymore.
A neibour a few doors over had one just like you described when I was five. I remember he had a cb radio with an outside speaker and every time he would drive by all that couls be heard was paranoid blaring from that speaker and of course that cars last ride after the carb fouled for the last time, he stuck it in neutral and gave it a shove down through the bamboo shoots and into the pit. My Brother pulled that car out five years ago and took it to the scrap yard, along with thirty five years worth of household appliances.
Back when that was an acceptable way of getting rid of a car, or just leaving it in the sticks, I remember seeing abandoned cars just left way on the outskirts of rural areas.
Yup!
As a kid in the 1970s, I loved to go exploring in the patches of trees bordering the fields around my grandparents’ farm – you would find these mini-junkyards where all of the used-up farmers’ cars would unceremoniously be left.
Heck I love my faded green/green ’77 Chevelle. If it wasn’t faded, its almost the same color as Toyota’s green on the recent Camry.
Honda has a green as well, that I might repaint mine with when the time finally comes to refresh it.
Otherwise it’l stay Medium Green, Metallic. or Pontiac calls it Bahia Green.
I knew of a few green and brown ’70s cars that got cheap color changes in the mid-80s. The kids that received them as hand-me-downs tended to hate the colors, but I’m not sure that they looked any better with $99 versions of colors from the BMW palette.
Only had 1 green car my 69 Javelin,had a brown Ford Cortina Mk4 & a brown Honda 500/4 bike.My parents would buy green,brown or beige cars to shave a bit off the price when buying new. I remember we had a Mk3 Zephyr 6 in dark green and a few pale green Cortinas and a brown Granada Mk1.I worked with a guy who had a Dodge Polara in a slightly lighter green and another had a 72 Camaro in light green.My favourite 70’s green is the lime green Mopar colour from 1970.
I saw the dealer tag and didn’t even realize until I googled it that it was from Gretna, IA not Gretna, LA.
No, McBride was in Gretna, Lousiana.
Gosh I love this car…
and here is my seafoam green 504 diesel.
What a beauty!
Nice! I remember those alloys from the 505, but recall 504s with the steel wheels and chrome hubcaps. Of course, I’ve never seen one in person, and got my Pug fix from Inspector Clouseau movies 🙂
Got any photos of that “honkin'” engine?
Sadly, no, and I don’t remember what it had. But it’s safe to say it wasn’t a Slant Six!
The taillights indicate it’s a 1970, so it has the possibility of being a true Swinger 340 (the Duster variants (Demon/Dart Sport) took over Dodge’s A-body performance from 1971 on), even though it’s missing the rectangular exhaust outlets typically found on any of those cars.
Of course, it just has the standard hood scoops and not the extra cost ‘performance’ hood paint, either (only the bumble-bee stripe was standard). Since the stripe looks to have been properly applied (they’re usually screwed up when put on a non-340 car), it could be an original low-option car and a 340 under the hood.
As to the color, there’s a story that Tom Hoover (Chrysler engineer usually known as the ‘father’ of the hemi) would loan out a ’66 Hemi Coronet to test performance parts on the streets of Detroit. He specifically chose one that was dark green, hoping that it would be more difficult to identify the correct color later if spotted in any kind of illegal activities.
One of my best friends had a Dodge Dart in that very color and year. It was a 4 door with a Black Viynl Top. Brougham indeed.
Boy oh boy… ’70s green… how well I remember it. It seemed to me that 99% of all ’71-72 LTDs were that shade called IIRC Dark Ivy Green, usually with a matching interior. Managed to own just one ’70s green car, a ’74 Buick Century Luxus Coupe (gotta love that name, WTF is a “Luxus”???). Strangely it lacked Broughamness that afflicted so many Colonades seeing as it was sans landau top. Being a former North Carolina car it was also what I consider to be my first “nice” car i.e. not rotted to the frame rails from n.e. Ohio road salt.
Luxus, Roman God of Brougham.
In the immortal words of Charlie Brown… “THAT’S IT!!!”
Ah, yes. Vega #4 was that shade…
how about my aunt’s 77 skylark?
My first car was a ’71 Skylark that was GM green with a black vinyl top and a terminal case of the tin worm.
A friend of mine once said it looked like a decaying alligator skull.
1973 AMC Matador in “Grasshopper Green”
I’m a little surprised no one noticed the Fox Capri next to the Dart. Actually, I didn’t notice it at the time! Maybe I’ll catch up with it at one of the cruise-ins this year.
Bile Green.
Hated that color – always.
No matter the car.
Gold-Brown I can tolerate…almost like…but not that shade of violent, nearly-dry-heaving upchuck.
I think i commented on this before, but in 1972-74 I worked part time at the local Ford dealership. I swear every car and truck in that showroom was the 70’s green, or more so 70’s brown. Didn’t matter if it was a Pinto, Maverick, full size, or F-100.
It was brown or green if it sat in that showroom.
I can still picture the lot boy going over the hoods of the cars in the showroom twice a day with a cloth and spray foam glass cleaner .
Best friend’s new 69 GTO was green – appears to have been Verdoro Green from what I’m seeing on the charts – with what I recall was a black vinyl top. His mother had a 68 Catalina in a similar color combination. Green cars, avocado green appliances, furniture, rugs, etc. – all part of that era. I’ve never owned a green car and have no plan to do so in the future…
Seems like half of all ’68-’69 GTOs were Verdoro Green with a black interior.
My dad had a ’69 Monaco Brougham in Dark Green Metallic and a ’76 Aspen Wagon in pretty much the same color. The Monaco was pretty sweet (the first car I drove on a road trip, although with my parents in ’71), but the Aspen was an awful POS. After a streak of white cars earlier in my life I swore that as God is my witness I would never own a white or a green car ever.
Yeah, where the heck did we go wrong? In the ’50s life was a rainbow of colors. Ever since, it has been downhill to the “no color” colors used today.
My mothers first brand new car was a 1970 Skylark hardtop coupe in classic 70’s green, with the parchment interior, 2bbl 350 and road wheels. Bought brandy new in Atlanta GA.
I had a maths teacher who had a 1970 Vauxhall Viva estate(wagon) in a truly bilious pea soup green.We had a lodger who had a LHD Beetle convertible in dark green,not sure about the year as imported cars were given current registrations then.
We didn’t get too many sludge green cars in Oz…now that horrible 70s burnt orange paint was another matter!
@Roger: Your memory is correct, Ford did use Dark Ivy Green Metallic, my 1970 Cougar XR-7 was that color, complete with matching vinyl roof and matching leather interior. Actually, it was a fairly striking color combo, not that I would have ordered it on purpose, but I always enjoyed it. My dad had a ’67 Mustang in Lime Green metallic with matching interior, now there was a pukey color scheme.
Lime frost green metallic goes much better with a dark green interior,this started my longing for a 67 Cougar
While it ‘seems’ most 70’s cars were dark yellow-green, there was actaully more variety.
Many shades of blue, gold and red, especially maroon i.e. Pontiac’s ‘Firethorn’. Sky blue was also popular. And, good old black, white, and silver were fairly common, too.
Many F bodies were of today’s ‘gray scale’ pallatte, i.e. ‘The Bandit’ black.
My uncle careered in the U.S. Air Force. They always had heavy-duty, crew-cab Dodge pickups with slant-six engines on the tarmac, so it was not surprising he purchased three (!) identical 1972 four-door Darts with slant-sixes and three-on-the-trees for his wife and kids. They were all that dark green. Shortly thereafter he bought himself a ’73 Dodge 100 extended cab…slant-six, three-on-the-tree.
They all lasted a good, long while. I Wish I had one of those Darts, today!
Me too,Dad had a miser’s special Dart 4 door sedan in appliance white.
Oh fer f**ks sake (f**kin’ CRS lol)… I just remembered I owned a couple other ’70s green cars. I had TWO matching ’73 Pintos in that wonderful shade of dark green with matching bile green innards… AT THE SAME TIME LOL! I was 16 and broke as hell, bought the first one to part out ( needed a trans for my ’74, found out after I bought it that the 4 speed trans wouldn’t interchange without a lot of ass ache). Bought the second one to drive, and promptly totaled it a month later. Brilliant. I wasn’t the brightest teen back then…
In the 1970s a few (fortunately only a few) Jaguar XJs and XKEs were painted a non-metallic green color that looked like lima beans. Loved those cars but never cared for lima beans or that color. 🙂
Seeing this warms my heart. I’m not much of a fan of green, but it was such an appropriate color for cars of this era. My family’s 1970 Plymouth Sport Suburban was Ivy Green Metallic, a shade or three darker than this car. I miss the days when there were 15, 16, or 18 exterior color choices and six or more interior colors.
My Aunt and Uncle had a new ’69 Plymouth Suburban wagon in a green metallic paint close to this color and with Di-Noc wood on the sides. It had a 383 and would accelerate rather well. It was the first car I ever drove with power brakes (highly boosted) and the first time I applied them I locked up all 4 wheels – sending all the unbelted passengers sliding forward on the green vinyl seats. It racked up maybe 90K miles in 2 years and was replaced with a dark metallic green ’71 Buick Electra having a dark green vinyl roof. Green was indeed very popular back then.
My ’71 Chevy pickup was this same shade of green. Hated it. I had it repainted in a darker emerald metallic at Earl Scheib for $99.
This color was almost a metallic hangover from the avocado green used on kitchen appliances in the late 1960’s.