Back when I was growing up on Long Island, the folks who lived across the street from us had a 1962 Dodge Dart just like this but it in a darkish, almost military like green-gray. And I loved it. I think my affection for it driven equally by its distinctive design as well as for the fact that mechanically curious eight or nine year old me bolted like a Pavlovian dog across the street at the first utterance of it's hood-springs clanging like small church-bells whenever the hood was opened. Which, as I recall, was quite often since it broke down so often.
Now, you may be like, "I thought Dodge Dart's where small cars...what is this?" Well, you wouldn't be wrong, exactly, as for many years a Dodge Dart did denote a small car, including most recently from 2012-2016. From 1960 through 1962, however, Dodge Dart meant big. "Dart" first appeared in the Dodge lineup in 1960 on Dodge's least expensive standard-size line below the also freshly chirtened for 1960 Polara and Matador lines. For whatever reason the slightly smaller Plymouth body-shell was used on a whole sub-series of Darts including, from top of the heap to "price leader", the Dart Phoenix, Pioneer and Seneca. Above is a 1960 Dart Pioneer festooned in all it's over-decorated, 1950's-esque finned and chromed glory. In case you're wondering, these cars were sales duds.
What makes our '62 Dart here really special is it's part of Chrysler's infamous 1962 downsizing of Dodge and Plymouth "standard-size" models. Wait, downsizing in the 1960's? Wasn't that a late 1970's thing? Well, the answer to that question is the stuff of legend.
The story goes that at an industry social function some time in 1960, let's imagine it was like a scene out of "Mad Men" with everyone dolled up, smoking, flirting inappropriately and getting plastered, William Newburg, freshly minted president of Chrysler, overheard Chevrolet executives discussing their new downsized lineup for 1962. Lest be made to look bad by Chevrolet, being "Mr. Proactive", Newburg promptly ordered the already finalized for production 1962 Plymouth and Dodge standard-sized models be scrapped for new and smaller ones. Chrysler division and Imperial models where spared his wrath.
Again, like a scene straight out of "Mad Men", the problem was Newburg's intel was either wrong or he misinterpreted what he overheard in between noshes on chipotle crab corn dip. Not only was Chevrolet not downsizing, they were introducing an entirely new line of compact cars for 1962 to be known as the Chevy II. And...what resulted from a much-hurried hard-reboot at Dodge and Plymouth left a lot to be desired design wise. Although, frankly, you can blame nostalgia, perhaps, for some of my affection for these bug-eyed beauties but...I still find them oddly handsome and sized just right.
With sales tanking, Dodge hastily rebadged the still ginormous Chrysler Newport (nee DeSoto) as the Dodge "880" in mid model-year 1962, technically making our Dart here a mid-size car. Year-to-year sales cratered by as much as twenty-five percent for Dodge (and Plymouth) and remarkably, Newburg didn't get his knee-jerk arse fired over it. No, sir. What did him in shortly after the introduction of these cars was an embezzlement scheme involving parts vendors that almost killed off the whole company. Nice. Chevrolet sales went up for 1962 almost as much as Dodge and Plymouth sales went down meanwhile the erroneous and clandestine info gleamed after two or three straight-up Manhattan's wreaked havoc on The Chrysler Corporation for the better part of the next twenty-years. Care for another baked pear, Mr. Newburg?
The reaction to these cars was so bad that an immediate and near comprehensive do-over was ordered for 1963. Viewed as wildly successful based on the meteroic sales increase for 1963 vs. 1962, the reskin took a lot of the "what-is-that?" out of these designs but also, subjectively, whittled away most if not all of the distinctiveness of these cars that impish me loved; I still do. Again, my fondness for these might be somewhat skewed by my childhood facination with them but I don't see what folks see or didn't see in them. Crazy how fond we are of stuff from our childhood. Probably didn't matter what the car was that was across the street with its hood up, whatever it was would be golden through my eyes then as now.
Dodge cleaned up their Dart model naming scheme for '62 as well replacing the silly Phoenix-Pioneer-Seneca non-sense with "Dart 440", "Dart 330" and just plain old "Dart". 330 and 440 having nothing to do with engine size which is somewhat ironic seeing that Chrysler introduced a 440 cubic-inch V-8 in 1966.
Another silver lining was that Chrysler engineers used an enlarged version of their new for 1960 and quite capable "A-body" chassis that underpinned the compact Lancer and the "Valiant by Chrysler". This chassis went onto be called the "B-body" and went onto a fairly stellar and long career underpinning many a Dodge and Plymouth, some choice Chrysler branded models too, in the years to come. The Imperial division, which had been around since 1955, was dropped after 1975.
You're not alone thinking our '62 here looks like a puffed up Lancer because, essentially, that's what it is. Although, it's funny; whereas the little Lancer, that would be the white car, I think homely as sin, the larger Dart I find to be a much better looking car. Even in red. Wouldn't be the only time a design looked better on a bigger canvas. Inverse is true at times but rarely.
The Dart nameplate was moved down to what they had been calling the Lancer for 1963 and there it remained, on smaller cars, through the end of the A-body's rather lengthy run through 1976 when it was replaced by the "F-body", F is not for fun, incidentally, Dodge Aspen. What had been the 1962 Dart series was rebranded as "Polara 500", "440", with no Polara pre-fix, as well as a "330". .
That family across the street didn't have that Dart for long. The father and his sons were mechanics and many cars that popped up in their driveway were beaters they'd repair and sell. I don't recall what came next in the never ending driveway turntable of cars they had but that Dart has sure stuck with me.
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