Dodge Dart

July 1966, heading home to the USA after three years in Japan, my thoughts were on car shopping. We had taken a new 1963 Chevrolet station wagon to Japan, but sold it to someone who wanted it and replaced it with two cars, a 1952 Chrysler Saratoga coupe bought for $100 from a civilian supervisor at my duty station; and a 1952 Cadillac series 62 sedan bought for another $100 from an Air Force officer who was PCSing back to the U.S. Those two cars did the job for us, especially the Chrysler V8, which was ONE HOT CAR.

One car in mind was a Mustang, the new little car Ford had put on the market while we were living overseas.

But an aunt dashed that by writing with alarm that Mustang gas tanks were exploding and people burning to death, and that we should get a Dodge Dart. Without checking for false rumors, Mr. Safety dropped the pony car from the list and actually did end up with a 1966 Dodge Dart. Light blue coupe purchased on a “newspaper ad special” by Fairfax Dodge who had a couple dozen brand new ones in stock for $1,650. Stick shift, no air.

Almost from day one, the transmission on the Dart was quirky, hard to shift, grinding loudly when shifting into first gear. Back to the dealer several times, but they never got it corrected. Consequently, I sold it and bought a totally rebuilt VW from H. B. Lantzsch Volkswagen, for $695, turning my back on Chrysler products forever -- actually until years later when they came out with the first minivans in 1984 and the enticement of a new Plymouth Voyager was one of the things (a beach house was another) that helped persuade Linda to cooperate when we were choosing between a call to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Mount Joy, Pennsylvania and the call to Trinity, Apalachicola. We did have two of the Chrysler minivans over the next few years, the Plymouth Voyager, and a Dodge Caravan that someone fleeing from the police totalled for me one night when I was driving to HNES school board meeting. But that’s a couple more blog postings.

What brought all this to mind is this morning’s Automotive News email with a piece about the 2013 Dodge Dart. It looks really cool.

But I’m sticking with the General.