San Ramon Street Sighting - 1967 Dodge Coronet Deluxe

When I was a kid I picked up a Johnny Lightning diecast of a blue 1967 Plymouth GTX. I loved that toy car. Since then I have been a fan of 1967 Mopar coupes and convertibles, particularly the Plymouth Belvedere, Satellite and GTX. The B-platform was shared with the Dodge Coronet and Charger, the latter of which I also had as a Hot Wheels toy. Coronet was one of Chrysler Corporation's most popular models for 1967, yet was never on my radar that much growing up.

Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1973 Dodge Royal Sportsman

My last post here dealt with a 1973 Ford Econoline van. In that post I mentioned that Ford's van sales were down that year. Now we look at its primary nemesis in the marketplace, the Dodge B-Series. I see this fantastic Royal Sportsman passenger van on the road often in my area, much more often than I ever see it parked. This van even popped up in traffic while shooting the 1957 Austin-Healey 100-6.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1951 Dodge Coronet

In my final post of 2016 I said I hoped to be more active in the new year. Here we are halfway through February and nothing to show for myself. So in recognition of Valentine's Day and to show my loyal readers some love, here's a pink 1951 Dodge Coronet coupe I ran across in Alameda last year.

Van Man Review - 2008 Dodge Sprinter 2500 CRD

In the three-plus years I've worked for Country Club Cleaners in the eastern Bay Area, there have been few vehicular constants. When I came on board the company fleet consisted of six Ford Transit Connects, two Dodge Caravans, two Chevrolet Astros, one Ford Econoline, two Chevrolet Expresses and a Dodge Sprinter. Of those vehicles I believe we have one Express and four Transits left; the rest have been replaced due to age and mileage. It's easy to take something for granted that's just always there, and the Sprinter has been the biggest workhorse of the company.

Van Man Review - 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan C/V

Some say that autocross teaches you how to drive in second gear. I learned it from a Chrysler minivan.

Welcome to Van Man Reviews, a recurring feature where I talk about vehicles I've driven for work. I used to drive this 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan C/V two days a week on a delivery route.

Danville Street Sighting - 1938 Dodge Brothers Fire Truck

May 4th is International Firefighters Day. I felt this was a good time to feature this classic Dodge fire truck in honor of the day and the men and women who serve.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1994 Dodge Grand Caravan Art Car

It's April Fools Day, and this is probably the only time you'll ever see a '94 Dodge Caravan as a feature post here. It's an art car, a Burning Man creation, and there's not a whole lot more I can say about it. It has toilet seats on the windows.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1966 Dodge Polara Wagon

Much of the United States is buried under snow as I type this, and I'm again hearing the words "polar vortex" tossed around. So I figured it's as good a time as any for this snow-white Dodge Polara, a wagon big enough to evacuate yourself and your whole family from the siege of bitter winter storms.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1965 Dodge Dart GT

I've said here before that the Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant twins are small potatoes in the classic car world. They're Chrysler's Ford Falcon and Chevy Nova, grocery getters for the masses in their day that mostly came with conventional styling and engineering, and small-displacement engines tuned for fuel economy. Thousands are on the roads today, often the ride of choice for drivers who want a touch of vintage style but a useful back seat, useful trunk and an old car they can actually drive every day. They came with some of the most bulletproof powertrains in the business, like the 225 slant six and Torqueflite three-speed automatic transmission. As long as the body and chassis don't rust out and no one blows up the engine, these cars pretty much just keep going.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1968 Dodge Coronet 440

Several months ago I featured a 1968 Dodge Coronet 440 sedan that I found in San Francisco. That car was pretty well used, but a tough survivor. Here's a coupe that's also seen some use in its lifetime and endured.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Dodge Coronet Lancer

It's been a while since we last visited with Fifties Guy, so this week it's all Forward Look Mopars. First up is a 1959 Dodge Coronet.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1970 Dodge Charger

Ask a person about the 1968-1970 Dodge Charger in popular culture and you'll get three answers. Older people will probably say the bad guys' black '68 R/T in Bullitt's famous chase scene. Young people might say the black '70 drag car driven by Vin Diesel in a couple of the Fast and the Furious movies (he also drove a modified '69 Charger Daytona replica in Furious 6). And most everyone knows a certain gravity-defying orange '69 R/T with the doors welded up and a horn that plays Dixie. Incidentally, virtually all of those cars were destroyed in filming their respective roles. But this green '70 Charger has survived and lives a quiet life in suburban Alameda.

Danville Street Sighting - 1950 Dodge Wayfarer Sportabout

I never really considered the 1950 Dodge lineup to be anything to write home about. Dodges in the first half of the 1950s were blue-collar family sedans and business coupes, the car your insurance salesman drove, or the car you bought secondhand off a corner lot for a couple hundred dollars and couldn't wait to get rid of as soon as you could scrape together enough money for a V8 Ford or a more stylish Chevy. A Dodge was a biggish, roly-poly car with a side valve six-cylinder powerplant built for economy and reliability, not speed or handling. Drop Jimmy and Janie off at school, load up the week's groceries at the corner Kroger, and leave the stoplight drag racing to those darn teenage hooligans in their hopped-up old flathead V8 jalopies.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1968 Dodge Coronet 440

Oh boy, if cars could talk. The 1968 Dodge Coronet sedan was not a particularly exciting vehicle, but I find this one fascinating.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1964 Dodge Dart 270

I don't often do a full shoot of Plymouth Valiants or Dodge Darts unless they really call to me. They're some of the most plentiful "old cars" in my area and they're tough. Many exist in "beater" condition with bulletproof slant sixes and stick shifts or the dependable Torqueflite automatic. Others are well-kept originals, mild customs or have received a budget restoration. Many are post-1967 models but a fair number of earlier cars exist as well. This one is a 1964, the last year of the push-button automatic, and the first year of the optional 273 cubic inch V8 engine and a new four-speed manual with Hurst shifter.

Hayward Street Sighting - 1955 Dodge Royal

It almost seems like some kind of miracle that Chrysler has survived this long. The auto bailout of 2009 is still fresh in everyone's minds and now Chrysler is primarily owned by Fiat. But that wasn't the first time they nearly went bankrupt. Chrysler Corporation needed a government loan back in 1979 after a decade of mostly terrible, forgettable products. And before that, in 1954 Chrysler needed a $250 million private loan to keep itself afloat. That's roughly $2.1 billion in today's dollars. That loan allowed them to employ the talents of designer Virgil Exner and finally banish the upside-down-bathtub look that had fallen out of favor as the 1950s wore on.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1941 Dodge D-19 Luxury Liner

The first time I ever recall seeing a 1941 Dodge Luxury Liner was in January outside the Silicon Valley International Auto Show. They're not nearly as popular with owners today as Fords and Chevys of the same era, making them very hard to find. I commented on this in my feature on it. So naturally I stumbled upon another one in my own town a mere two days after I wrote the post.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1963 Dodge Polara Convertible

Regular readers here know that I'm not exactly a Mopar fanboy. By that I mean I like a lot of Chrysler products, but there are also a lot of models and model years I don't particularly favor. Much has been said about Chrysler's amusing gamble to downsize their 1962 Dodge and Plymouth models on short notice, and how it left their formerly fullsize cars roughly the size of their competitors' intermediate offerings. The end result was a line of ungainly vehicles with scaled-down styling cues meant for larger bodies. Chrysler executives fired designer Virgil Exner for the unpopular goof, even though downsizing wasn't his plan and he wasn't actually involved in the reinterpretation of his original design. Elwood Engel was brought in to "fix" things for '63, and the result was the Dodge Polara you see here.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1952 Dodge B-2B Job Rated Pickup

GMC likes to market itself as "Professional Grade". That tagline implies that GMC trucks are built to work hard and will hold up under the stress of whatever job they do. This kind of statement is nothing new. As long as the truck could reasonably live up to the claim, manufacturers would trumpet it loudly. And some even bolted that claim onto the front of their trucks. Long before Dodge spun its truck line off to become RAMs, they built these, the Job-Rated B-Series pickup.

Job Rated was a term coined in 1939 to describe a range of Dodge trucks built for a spectrum of jobs. Lighter duty trucks would serve general pickup use, all the way up to big commercial rigs hauling or towing heavy payloads. Dodge introduced all-new trucks for 1948 with the B Series, beginning with the B-1. These trucks were improved over the pre-war design that, while visually interesting, was woefully outdated by the time it was phased out. The 1948-1953 trucks, in my opinion, are not the prettiest things out there. However, they do have a certain toughness to them.

San Jose Street Sighting - 1941 Dodge D-19 Luxury Liner

Prewar cars can still be found here and there on the roads of California, but one will often notice that they all seem to be Fords (or in some cases Chevys). Very rarely do you see Chrysler products of this era, particularly Dodges. Here we have a Dodge D-19 Luxury Liner sedan.