The photos of this heavy-duty Dodge one-ton pickup and vintage camper aren’t the best, sadly. I’m not sure why, but it is what it is, as people say. It deserves better, but this 1961 Dodge D300 with a Vista Liner camper is listed here on Facebook Marketplace in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and they’re asking $15,000. Here is the original listing, and thanks to T.J. for the tip!
I can’t get enough of the first and second-generation Dodge one-ton pickups. The Utiline box on the back is great, and this one is said to have been special-ordered with a nine-foot bed size and single rear wheels rather than duals. The equally faded red paint stripe on the Vista Liner camper matches the faded red paint on the truck perfectly. It appears solid and is said to be a Wyoming truck that lived in an airplane hangar and came to Minnesota in the early 2000s. There is an interesting photo showing the underside of the wood-floor bed, and a couple of others.
Man, I really wish there were better photos of this rig. What a shame. You already know the seller didn’t pop the hood to show the engine, but they say it has a slant-six. I’m assuming a 225-cu.in. OHV slant-six, which would have had 145 horsepower and 215 lb-ft of torque. It’s backed by a four-speed manual transmission sending power to the rear wheels. This one has 4.88 gears, and they say it can pull stumps, but as far as being fast on the highway, not so much.
This is the only cab interior photo. I know, I don’t get it either. I mean, the seller probably has 8,540 photos on their phone, as the rest of us do, I really wish they had taken many photos of this great-looking truck/camper duo. From what we can see, though, it looks nice inside. Surprisingly nice. Hagerty is at $4,300 for a #4 fair-condition D300 and $9,500 for a #3 good truck without the camper.
This is the only photo inside the camper. I know, again. As with everything else, though, it looks surprisingly nice from what we can see. Vista Liner made 8-foot and 10-foot pickup campers in this era, and this is the latter. At 1,375 pounds, you’d likely not even notice this load on the back of this big truck. I believe this is either a model 300 or 320, but we don’t know for sure. The seller says this rig has 18,000 miles, and it looks like that could be accurate. It runs and drives as it should, so that’s great news! It also has a rebuilt starter, a new clutch and slave cylinder, and new clutch and brake master cylinders, new wheel cylinders, new battery cables, and new tubes, along with used tires on the original wheels. Any thoughts on this big Dodge and Vista Liner camping combo?
In the early ’80’s,I entered my ’79 Ford Fiesta in the local
Lord Ellis Hillclimb,& offered to drive one of the vehicles being
loaned by a local new-car dealership.I was hoping to drive their
almost new GMC van,but instead drove their mid-60’s Dodge
tow truck that they’d acquired from the last owners (Paoli Brothers-
Plymouth).
I was bummed,thinking it would be a chore to drive it,but was
amazed at how well it went up the hills on highway 299,on the way
to the hillclimb,& was able to tow the Fiesta with it.
Turned out that it worked out well,as I rolled the Fiesta,so I
had a way to get it home.
These av great old trucks!
So I had to google the Lord Ellis Hillclimb, and the only thing I found was a great vintage in-car video of a guy doing it in a ’74 BMW 2002 back in 1979. I also had a ’79 Fiesta in the early ’80s that could pretty much keep up with any A1 GTI of the era. And the next fun car I got was a ’76 2002. Interestingly, the dash layouts were pretty much the same with a high instrument pod and a flat divided shelf extending across to the right where stuff would pretty much stay put, even the way I drove them both!
Sorry to highjack the comments…the Dodge is pretty darn cool as well! Way cooler than the Cruise America RV we rented a few years ago anyway.
I was there the same year as the 2002.You’ll see
my friend Mace’s Yellow F100 at the end.
I can see using this for some intrastate camping, but would you want to drive this from, say, Kansas City, KS to Moab, UT on interstates and then over the Rocky Mountains?
This era of Dodges are amongst my favorite. I love this camper, matching faded red stripe and all. Those appliances ( fridge and stove) look original. I’d personally love to see this stay together as a set. Like they most likely have been for the past several or more decades. Wouldn’t it be nice to see them both restored to as original? I think it would anyway.
Well, this unit had 18,000 miles when we were in Miss Crabtrees kindergarten class, circa 1962, that’s a replacement speedometer, and the picture at the gas station really hits a mark, decades of differences, still side by side at the gas pump. This unit has 8 billion,,,and 18K on it, and appears to have an auxiliary gas tank on the left running board, and even with a Slanty, you’ll need it. As mentioned, the “300” was a 1 ton, and will ride like one, and split rims should be replaced, and again, made for a much slower pace, and “impeding traffic flow” is indeed a real crime and a punishable offense, something unheard of in 1961. Cool find, I can only imagine the funk in that camper, and I think the truck is the better deal,,,for maybe a grand. I just don’t understand where these people get their asking prices from.
I had her husband for 7th grade!
What makes you think it has a replacement speedo. I don’t think Dodge ran split-rims on D Series trucks.
Dodge didn’t use 6 digit speedometers in ’63, and most 1 ton trucks then had split rims.
I used to own this ultra cool D300 Open Road camper with fold-down rear porch and sliding glass patio door. It was featured here on BangShift: https://bangshift.com/bangshiftxl/1969-dodge-d300-open-road-camper-cool-nearly-speechless/
That is the holy grail, Mark! As if a chassis-mount Open Road camper isn’t great enough, but that it’s on a similar one-ton Dodge is as cool as it gets. A 383 has to be much better on the road than a slant-six. Thanks for sharing!
There are fines for driving too slow on freeways, so you’d better take the backroads with this rig.
Got be careful with these old campers and heating/gas systems – get a good carbon monoxide tester….
All you guys are worried about getting somewhere fast on the Interstate.. SLOW DOWN and RELAX!!!!!!!! After the better part of 50 years of Interstate Trucking, having to meet schedules, I take the “Back Roads” anytime I can…
15K miles and 6 weeks from South Carolina to Fairbanks Alaska and back the only time we were in the Interstate was when the old US highway got on for a few exits..
15k in 6 weeks is slowing down? I drive 3k a year and haven’t been out of the county in the last 5.
I hear ya’, that’s 2500/week, Swift Transport would like to find them, and in my busiest trucking, 2,000/week was enough. Just to be clear, the interstates are probably the safest places to drive, it’s the 2, or dreaded 3 lanes that are murder. I have the same problem(?) Brocky has, after driving for a living, it’s hard to go slow and enjoy the ride when for so long it was all business. My trips today are relegated to Walmart 2 miles away, and maybe a Jeep ride in the hills once in a while, but with as nuts as it is out there, quite frankly, I’m not sure I want to go anywhere.
Jim, You are a lucky one with today’s traffic.. You must live in or near a city?? I live on a farm out in the boondocks and still average about 12,000 per year just going to the doctors and getting groceries.. Our last 15 years, before retirement, my wife and I ran in a team operation and averaged 5000 miles a week!!!
See, that’s the thing, in your retirement, you are still doing 2500/week. It’s tough to break those habits. I rarely leave the county too, I live in a small town( 5,000 pop.,,,no 5,020, no 5,080, you get the message) and we have everything one needs, and if not, package delivery makes it happen. I agree, there are some wonderful places you couldn’t see in a truck, but at some point, you have to come back to reality, and I had enough of that. 2500 miles a week in a unit like this would be unbearable. Have fun!
Hey Brocky, we’re on a little farm 10 miles out. !k of the miles on my pickup is critters to butcher and return trip to pick up meat. The P30 van gets just short of 1k going to the farmers market and the wife’s Camry gets 1500 getting groceries etc. Never less than 3 stops on a trip to town unless it’s an emergency. We’re on the I81 corridor and NEVER EVER get on 81 or 64 cause there’s a wreck there every day.
I’d probably take the camper off and park it until I wanted to go camping and zero in on fixing up the truck get some decent paint on it spruce up the interior some and definitely get rid of the split rims I worked on and drove trucks for 32 years and I know how dangerous they are. I’d also switch out those 4.88 gears and put some more street friendly gears in it.
It’s a nice truck but I think $6,000 would be more realistic.
The truck looks like a vintage U-Haul item bought a surplus sale.
18,000 miles–had all those parts replaced and the seat wore off on the side. What did the do to cause that? Practice getting in and out and at that price? I believe he will be asking for quite awhile.
I would remove the camper and do something else with it then have the truck available to be a truck
Let’s not break up a good marriage, they’ve been together since new.
Very cool unit, is that a fuel tank on the running board in front of the wheel well?
That’s also a very substantial extension at the back.
I don’t think that ‘modern’ analogue TV would pick up much over the air, but it looks like it would play VHS tapes.
A real time capsule this one.