There are wagons and then there are wagons. This 1973 Dodge Monaco Wagon is a wagon-wagon. A wagon lover’s wagon. It’s wagonriffic, it’s.. er.. ok, enough of that. (but, it’s a wagon!) This wagon of wagons is listed on eBay in beautiful Greenville, South Carolina with bids of $3,700 and there is no reserve with three days left on the auction.
The seller says that this is “a good solid Southern car that has spent all its life in Western North Carolina, and as such has VERY solid floors, floor braces, body panels, rockers and so forth. When we got the car it had sat on concrete inside a nice dry building since 1991, which is the year of the last inspection sticker on the windshield, so the old girl has been off the road more than she’s been on it”. I am a rabid fan of this era Dodge Monaco with covered headlights – and a wagon with a 440? Mmm mmmm..
This giant, 19-foot-long Monaco wagon looks great in the overall photos but once you look at the detail shots, and there are lot of good photos, you’ll see that there is a lot of rust, hopefully just surface rust. It may be challenging to control the spread if it because it’s literally in every nook and cranny, at least it looks like it is. The owner says that there “are a few, very few, spots of localized rust. All very minor and easily fixed. Namely a little at the bottom of each front fender which is absolutely typical and a tiny bit on the tail gate.”
The carpets have me worried but hopefully there isn’t any bad rust under there. They say that the “floorboards are super solid under the rugs, as is the big tub the rear facing passengers feet fit down in.” A carpet kit is probably $3,500 for a car this big… just kidding of course, but this is one lonnnng car. The driver’s side of the front seat needs help but just about everything else looks good inside, other than the carpets and the steering wheel having a couple of cracks in it. And the rear-facing seat looks great, even if the surrounding area is in need of work. This car is loaded with full power and AC, which the seller says is all there, and the “power windows work but nothing happens when you hit the power seat switch or tail gate window. Likewise with the power door locks.”
And there it is, the monster 440 cubic-inch V8 which by 1973 had 220 hp and 350 ft-lb of torque. That isn’t a bad amount of power but when the car weighs almost 2.5 tons, another 50-100 hp would be nice since you’re going to get horrible mpg anyway. The seller mentions how they got it running after it was sitting for so many years, they “took all the spark plugs out, which all looked really good, and shot light machine oil in all the cylinders and then left it sit 24 hours. The oil on the dip stick looked good and was up to level so we spun the engine over about 30 revolutions with no spark plugs in it to build up oil pressure. The big 440 engine spun over just as free as a bird. We then put new spark plugs in, undid the fuel inlet pipe and filled the carb up with Premium gas from a squirt bottle. She fired right up on the second revolution!” Zinnnnnnng, that easy.. Would you restore this Monaco wagon or get it working great and use it as it looks now?
Leave a Reply to Rube Goldberg Cancel reply