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Go Wheel Shopping: 1966 Dodge Coronet

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This Dodge listed on craigslist is said to have only 40,000 miles and to have been purchased from the original owner’s family. It’s not what you expect to see, but it might be mostly original with the original engine and transmission. Having sat for 10 years, the seller says the car is now running and driving.

The big questions are how well was the collision repair done and how much rust is there. They did provide pictures of the underside and it looks pretty clean.

They don’t show enough in their picture of the engine to see the state of the inner fenders or radiator support. The picture is cropped so are they trying to hide something?

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The car looks straight with no obvious signs of rust, although they say there is rust in the bottom of the fenders. It sure would have been nice to see pictures of the front and back and the interior. The $4,200 asking price might seem like a lot for this car, but it’s a lot less than any similar 2 door car. Also, rust free cars this age in the Northeast are not very common. So, if you can tolerate a couple of extra doors and want to save the work and expense of rust repair, perhaps this could be a viable candidate. It could even be a driver pretty much as it is. (Except maybe with different wheels!) What would you do with it?

Comments

  1. Avatar Sukey

    2 legs good
    4 legs bad
    Aka George Orwell
    1984

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    • Avatar Hoos Member

      I guess it depends on how many legs you stand on………

      My dogs prefer 4.

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  2. Avatar JW

    The 40K must have been hard miles for the body to look like that. Maybe a few too many stops at the local watering hole after work.

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  3. Avatar Jason Houston

    Yeh, I can just see the Little Old Lady placing her order for the once-turquoise metallic Super Stock Dodge 4-door: “Thanks, Mr. Salesman, but I’m not going to sign unless you include a set of those ultra-rare Go-Fast! wheels.”

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  4. Avatar packrat

    Last fall, someone locally had a straight bodied ’66 Plymouth Belvedere 4 door in running condition for a thousand dollars. The dodges and plymouths were both based on the same subframe but I always preferred the looks of the Plymouth’s body treatment for ’66-67.

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  5. Avatar joeinthousandoaks

    40k Miles, no proof, no way! Does anyone actually believe that because a car is 1 owner that it drove only 40,000 miles? 240,000 is more likely.

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  6. HoA Howard A Member

    I know someone with a ’66 Plymouth equivalent to this car, and has had it for sale for years, and no one wants it. I guess it’s pretty obvious, people don’t know what a 40K mile car would look like, because, once again, this ain’t it. While I like 4 doors, in a car like this, it’s not a plus, and I think a thousand dollars is more like it. ( I was interested in the Plymouth ^, for a grand, but he wants 4g’s too, and I said no thanks) If it actually had 40K miles, that would be a different story. Clean, original 4 doors are pretty cool, but I doubt many will want this.

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  7. Avatar Dale R

    Am I the only one that noticed the la series 318 that wasn’t available until 67? Definitely not the original engine.

    Like 1
  8. Avatar Greg

    Dale R is correct. My 66 had the ploy 318.

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  9. Avatar Rick R

    Correct – LA 318’s didn’t exist until ’67 (and some Canadian-built cars still came with the poly 318 in’67). If this is the original engine, it’s a 273 (which my ’66 Satellite has).

    If it looks like a 318, but sounds like a slant six (solid lifters), its a 273.

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    • Avatar Ed P

      If I remember correctly, the A block 318’s valve covers were scalloped on the spark plug side. The LA 318 valve covers were straight.

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  10. Avatar Rotag999

    Yes should have poly 318 unless the last of the line got the LA motor coming in..?

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  11. Avatar Jim

    Iv’e pulled worse looking cars out of garages after 30yr comas with 1/4 the mileage, after enough bicycles, carriages, boxes, lumber and furniture gets carried past it and piled on it nit can look like crap. Here in the city storage space is at a premium and you learn to use every nook and cranny. Then a few rattle cans of primer, here you go. Most of us would pull it out get it running and a quick wash n vacuum. Amateur car guys could be responsible for his it looks. What shows in the pictures looks like it could be 40,000, but there’s not enough pictures of the important stuff to tell. A visual inspection would tell it a bunch more pics, and for the asking price a few more pictures shouldn’t be an issue. I found this interesting, I started looking online about the model engine, there’s a lot of conflicting info as far as 313 Poly or LA, I dug out my 1968 + 1969 Motors Manuals, the ’68 listed 273 and both 318’s, the ’69 shows the 273 and the LA 318. I’ve always found Motors Manuals to be pretty accurate back then but they get their info from Chrysler. Also at the end of model yrs things get pretty sticky, my ’99 Tahoe was built on the second to last day for the 99’s but they were already building the new body/chassis style in the same lines. My truck has the new style 2000 model year antilock system, it took a while to figure out why the new module wouldn’t work properly. If it fits jam it in. Ford does the same. If the car us legit it might be a good buy for someone, but for the price I wouldn’t roll the dice. I’d go see it.

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  12. Avatar Russ

    In 1973 a friend of my family offered me a car he had inherited from his late aunt. For $260 I became the owner of a ’66 Coronet (the cheapest model) with 35,000 original miles, slant 6 automatic, power steering, AM radio… and the seat covers had been on it since new. Being young and stupid this was just one of the many great cars I let get away from me. (The rust free 66 Impala convert sold for $100 was my worst mistake.)

    Like 0

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