2025 Greenwood Car Show: Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth

Perfect weather for this year's Greenwood car show, and it was bigger than ever! Let's kick it off with my favorites: Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth.

 

For the fourth and last year of the Dodge Super Bee, 1971, it was made an option on the Charger; sort of a budget Charger R/T. A very rare car.

  

 

I've written about the 1966 Plymouth Satellite pictured above as far back as the 2018 show. I'm sure most people don't realize that this plain-looking car is one of the show's most valuable entries. The 426 hemi was available only from 1966 to 1971, and the 1966 edition is considered the best. This car is certainly worth six figures.

Pictured below the hemi in yellow is a 1967 Plymouth GTX. The GTX was a new premium edition of the same car as the Satellite, but standard with the 440 "Super Commando" V-8 rated at 375 hp. You could order an even more powerful 426 hemi in the GTX - for about $600 more than the 440!

  

 

Even this little 1966 Plymouth Barracuda came with a V-8. In this case the 273.

 

 

In 1970 the Dart was Dodge's cheapest car. But like everything else then, you could option it out with a pretty ferocious engine. In the case of this Dart GT, a 340 V-8 rated at 275 hp.

 

Between 1951 and 1958, full-size Chrysler products were equipped with the company's original hemi-head engines. These are so popular today that even very ordinary DeSoto sedans are being restored. This 1956 Fireflight coupe has the 331 hemi with dual-quad carbs rated at 255 hp.

 

 

 

Time was when cab over engine trucks like this were seldom seen outside of junkyards. But trucks like this 1955 Dodge COE K-Series are starting to show up at a lot of car shows. They're just cool.

 

I love the old business coupes, like this 1950 Dodge. That's an awful lot of car for a single bench seat.

 

 

This 1935 Chrysler Airflow was ahead of its time. But they didn't sell many. The public thought it was just too weird.

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1970 Plymouth Barracuda 'Cuda 340 convertible

Only 8,939 Dodge Challenger and Plymouth Barracuda convertibles were made in 1970-71, and despite being relatively inexpensive cars when new, they command staggering prices today, particularly when fitted out with the rarer performance options. This is one of only 435 'Cuda convertibles built in 1970, and I'd say it's worth at least $80,000. Here's an even more valuable 'Cuda convertible I spotted in 2019.

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Why Aren't You Terrorizing a High School Somewhere? 1973 Plymouth Duster

Like the Chevy Nova from the same era, the Duster was a favorite for swapping in a big, smoky V8 and loudly announcing one's obnoxious presence to one's public school classmates.

Here's an unmodified Duster from the same year.

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Time is an illusion. 1979 Cadillac Fleetwood, 1955 Ford Fairlane, 1965 Plymouth Barracuda

There are some neighborhoods in Seattle where you can street store the cars you're (slowly) restoring.

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1966 Plymouth Barracuda

This Barracuda looks like a full-size Hot Wheels car.

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Slick streets? Global pandemic? It's the perfect day to take your 1941 Plymouth for a cruise!

I guess...

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1970 Plymouth Barracuda 'cuda 440 convertible

WOW this is without a doubt the most amazing car I've spotted in use as a daily driver in Seattle. Only 8,939 Dodge Challenger and Plymouth Barracuda convertibles were ever made, and only 435 'cuda convertibles were built in 1970. Assuming this car has its original engine, it's worth upwards of $100,000.

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1978 Plymouth Volaré

Volare, oh oh! Cantare, oh oh oh oh! - Dean Martin

I've been looking for a still-running Volaré since I started this blog. And on this surprisingly summer-like day in May, jackpot!

In the 1970s, Detroit seemed to stagger from disaster to another, and the biggest for deeply-troubled Chrysler was the long-awaited replacement for its highly-popular and durable A-body models, which included the Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant and Duster.

From curbsideclassic.com: "Chrysler must have known that replacing the A-team successfully would be a mission-critical task. Boy, did they ever flub it. Their compacts went from being the most durable to the most-recalled in history, up to that time; GM’s X-bodies soon stole that title. It was 1957 all over again, but worse. At least Chrysler had the foresight to call them “F-Bodies”. From an A to an F, without any intermediate stops; what a fail.

Beta-testing new cars on a mass scale is just not a good idea. Build quality was all-round crappy, at best. It went downhill from there: five mandatory recalls covering a variety of ills with suspension, ignition, fuel system, brakes, steering and body. The one that had the highest visibility (literally) was pre-mature rusting of the front fenders. All (Plymouth Volarés and Dodge Aspens) had fenders inspected, removed, replaced and/or galvanized, and repainted to the tune of $109 million. That was serious bucks to Chrysler then, especially since the whole mothership was rusting away.

Lee Iacocca had this to say: “The Dart and Valiant ran forever, and they should never have been dropped. Instead they were replaced by cars that often started to come apart after only a year or two. When these cars first came out, they were still in the development phase. Looking back over the past twenty years or so, I can’t think of any cars that caused more disappointment among customers than the Aspen and the Volaré”. Honest, but easy for him to say, since he wasn’t responsible."

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1978 Plymouth Fury A38-Pursuit

Let me tell you about the greatest police car ever made. In 1980s, when police would try to pull over a speeder, if the leadfoot driver was in a old GTO or some other fast car from a bygone era, he would just drive away, knowing that the cop couldn't catch him. That's because police cars had gotten a lot slower. The Dodge St. Regis (what kind of name is that?) police car of 1980 probably only had a 318 V-8 to pull all that weight around, thanks to big engines going out of fashion. Not to mention the fact that Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy, and its future dependent on cars that were economical and just not much fun.

But in 1978, those things hadn't happened yet. That year, the Plymouth Fury police model was America's fastest car, with an incredible array of high-performance equipment.

From hemmings.com:

"The A38 package added brawn to the otherwise sedate 218-inch-long sedan, beginning with heavy-duty tuned suspensions "matched for high-speed handling and police duty," per period literature. The A38 also added slotted 7-inch-wide heavy-duty wheels, heavy-duty front disc/rear drum brakes, fabric-belted radial police pursuit tires, 500-ampere heavy-duty battery with heat shield, 100-ampere alternator, high-capacity radiator, calibrated 140-MPH speedometer, oil gauge, more responsive power steering with hose heat shields, and grass shields for the catalytic converters. Its differential was Chrysler's 9¼-inch unit offered with an array of ratios for various department needs, while an engine oil cooler and more were optional."

"Hidden from view were one of four engines, beginning with a standard two-barrel 318 altered for stressed service. Options including tuned versions of the 360, 400 and 440, all of which still featured four-barrel carburetors."

"With the exception of a full-size Chrysler, the 440 was unavailable for public use, and even then, the civilian version was rated for 195 hp. Those destined for police cars were instead rated for 255 hp and 355-lb.ft. of torque. The extra power was enhanced by dual catalytic converters fitted to a true dual exhaust system and electronic spark advance (except in California) and supported by heavy-duty parts like a shot-peened nodular cast-iron crankshaft, double-roller timing chain drive, moly-filled top compression piston rings, high-load valve springs with dampers, a windage tray, chromed and hardened exhaust valves. Bolted against it was the stout TorqueFlite automatic. 

Also in 1978, the Michigan State Police launched its yearly performance-based police car tests, a true best-bang-for-the-buck evaluation that dramatically differed from those done jointly, since 1956, by the Los Angeles County Sherriff's and Los Angeles Police Departments. Michigan's result: the 440 Fury handily bested the competition. Supplied with a 2.71 rear gear, it went from 0-60 MPH in 9.2 seconds; top speed was 132.7 MPH."

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1969 Plymouth Road Runner convertible

The Road Runner is the purest muscle car ever made. Chrysler dropped the finest engines and transmissions ever made up to that time... into what was otherwise the cheapest car they could build.

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1966 Plymouth Barracuda

You lying so low in the weeds
Bet you gonna ambush me
You'd have me down, down, down to my knees
Wouldn't you, Barracuda?

The original Plymouth Barracuda could lie low in the weeds better than most cars, as it's based on the tiny 1964 Valiant sedan. But unlike that dull-as-dishwater car, the 'Cuda is a cool fastback with glass-house rear window and was available with a 273 c.i. V-8 making 180 horsepower or more.

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1970 Plymouth Duster 340

These days you usually can't add options to an automaker's cheapest model to create a performance car. But in 1970 Plymouth's new Duster, built on the "compact" Valiant chassis could be ordered with a 340 c.i. V-8 and still cost only $2,500.

thetruthaboutcars.com says,"Speaking of muscle, the 340 had more than plenty. Advertised at an insurance-friendly 275 horsepower, the informed-user consensus had it pegged at more like 325+."

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1966 Plymouth Satellite 426 Hemi

In 1966 Chrysler began selling the legendary 426 hemi engine in its mid-side cars. The hemi, so-called because of its hemispherical cylinder heads, was rated at 425 horsepower; in reality it was closer to 500.

For about $1,000, or about $7,800 in 2018 money the buyer of this otherwise plain-jane Satellite got the most powerful engine ever made, upgraded suspension and police-grade drum brakes. Sounds like a bargain to me!

Chrysler did offer disc brakes in 1966, but did not make them available on "smaller" cars like the Satellite. Also, buying the 426 did not require you to buy power steering, but driving this car without it would have been pretty much impossible. I'm led to understand that the 426 was sold with only a 90-day warranty - the assumption was that anyone buying it would take it straight to the race track.

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1966 Plymouth Belvedere II - the most reliable American car?

The details are a little sketchy, but someone at some point did an analysis of all the cars in American junk yards, compared them to production figures, and determined that the '66 Belvedere was the "least-junked car in America". This example certainly looks good, considering that it's been on the street 52 years.

New for 1965, the Chrysler "B-body" cars included such models as the original Dodge Charger, the Plymouth GTX and other muscle machines that are now some of the most valuable cars ever made.

    

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