From Junction City, Kansas comes this straight and square 1951 Dodge Coronet. It’s attractive and is bargain priced at $2,500. It’s listed here on craigslist out of Manhattan, Kansas.
Because buying film, having the negatives developed into photographs, having them printed, and mailing them in to the newspaper and waiting a week to have them published is so time-consuming and expensive, we only get to see these four images. No, wait. Even though digital photos are instant and free, along with classified advertising, some of the best things in life never change.
But maybe these four photos are adequate to do what they’re supposed to do, which is show prospective buyers just enough to entice them to come for a look and close-up inspection.
Despair not, for what this ad lacks in photographs, it lacks equally in descriptive text. In few words, the seller of this car tells us this car runs and drives, has a new fuel pump and battery, and is still running a 6-volt system – presumably just like Walter P. intended. He says it has a flathead six cylinder engine and three speed manual transmission, which is column shifted. From the looks of the photos, we can guess these are probably all-original components. We can also see it has some kind of OEM climate control, the red tag off of which is shown above.
I love the originality and the short to-do list of this one. Probably the one thing I’d add, is an inexpensive set of portawalls. Would you prefer those, black walls as-is, or would you spring for a set of genuine Coker wide-whites?
Nice find. Love this era Murican stuff
Ad expired, same city as the cheap Model A and there’s no re-listing. I hope it went to a good home. Seems really cheap, possibly a great deal.
Love this. Grew up in post war Chryslers. My dad wrenched ’em in our driveway and later our garage, and he taught me basic mechanics and simple engineering and electrical on those cars. I learned to drive on a later generation one like this. Three-on-the-tree is like a bicycle to me, hop right in and go. If I were nearby and had a couple extra grand I’d be all over it. Could still be a solid daily driver, in fair weather at least. Somebody please rescue this old Dog.
Perfect first car for a young car nut. Hope it went to someone who ll fix it and drive it like he stole it!
>drive it like he stole it
Not with drum brakes! That can be like stopping a locomotive. But, great enjoyment in tooling around in it frequently with a stately deliberation that fits its age and manual steering box. A conversation starter and fun to cruise (if you’re not doing stop and go traffic in a busy hilly urban area).
For 2500 bucks someone got a great deal if it was in as good of shape as it appears.
In Canada the two door hardtop was called the Mayfair with the 218 CID long block Canadian only. On the US side the hardtop remained a Cornet and a Plymouth Belvidere they had the 217 CID short block. There was just under 13500 Mayfairs made in 1951 and with our winter climate few survived. The body style up here in Canada was only produced for two years and with different chrome trim. I have searched for six years and have one other 1951 in a Saskatchewan auction and one1952 in Calgary Alberta. Mine is a 1951. I’d post a pic but I don’t know how to get it out of my I pad album to a comment post.
Neither do I, Mark, can someone explain how, please. Oh, and on packrat’s comment on breaks…. my daily driver in good weather (in Saskatchewan) is a stock 1952 Ford pickup except for radial tires. The breaks were redone not long ago and it is very hard to get those radials to lock up. As a result, my truck stops on a dime.