Seems like a lifetime ago when I turned down the chance to grab a 1972 Dodge Charger, not unlike this '74, from Brenda, a woman I slung hash to doctors and nurses with in a Long Island hospital cafeteria. She wanted to dump it to upset her husband and she wanted all of $1,200 for it. Despite its propensity to stall out like many an early emissions system clogged car would, it was in solid condition. I passed on it because I knew better. She said her husband was crazy.
I was maybe 21, maybe 22 and she was an "old" 26; she had two kids and a husband she claimed was abusive. She might as well have been 40. Or at least 30. I had convinced myself she had a thing for me - maybe she did. I don't know. She was a terrible flirt, smokin' hot too and even if she did "like me", it was probably a distraction for her. Nothing ever came of it. When you're that young, getting mixed up in something so "adult" was above my pay scale. Still is.
This is for sale near Indianapolis with an asking price of $4,500. I find it hard to believe this is worth that much, but you never know. I'd choke on handing over what Brenda wanted for her for this. What Brenda was asking for her '72 years ago was a bargain even back then.
Poster of the ad claims this is a 318 from a 1968 Coronet and ran great when parked; that seems like a while ago. Charger SE's came standard with a 318 but could have been ordered with a 360, a 400 or even a 440. Brenda's had the 400, two-barrel; sorry, us car people remember those details. I'd love to see what this would be like after it was gently power washed and buffed out. Looks like it may have been a light blue?
These 1971 era "fuselage body" Charger and Fury coupes aren't for everyone but I love them, the four-sedans, known as "Coronets" not so much. Then again, I'm not a four-door girl. These came in Coronet wagon guise as well. Big two doors like this were everywhere when I was a kid, it's what we drove to tell the world we weren't driving our parent's car; kids today it seems don't care so much about that sort of thing. Their falling out of favor as fashion statements was a long time coming and I find it almost as hard to believe that cars like this don't exist anymore as much as it's hard to fathom they were as popular as they once were.
This car is based off the famous Plymouth\Dodge "B-body" that was Chrysler's defacto intermediate chassis back in the day; the Chrysler division used it to underpin their Cordoba from 1975-1979 too. I used to kid myself that my '75 Cordoba was actually a Dodge Charger like this or the General Lee in disguise. I wasn't far off the mark either.
The B-body was made famous back in 1962 when Chrysler executives mis-interpreted intel that GM was downsizing their full-size line. To counter, over reactionary Plymouth and Dodge came out with a stretched version of their A-body compact as their new-for-'62 big cars and the rest is history. Turned out GM was coming out with the Chevy II which was a compact car. Oops. Chrysler kept the old B around after 1965 when they rolled out new properly sized big cars.
Nothing about this seems too bad save this big dent in the driver's door. Something tells me the latch mechanism doesn't work either on it.
I passed on Brenda's offer because I knew her husband would either kill me or demand I give it back to him. I mean, he had guns, drank to excess and had that menacing look in his eyes that he might do things that most people wouldn't. I lost touch with her after she left the hospital. A friend had told me she was still with him but that was at least thirty-five years ago. I have no idea what happened to her Charger.
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