“All Original” truly means the car retains all its original factory parts. You might say “all original” if spark plugs and other maintenance items have been changed, but after a repaint or different engine or seat cover, your car is no longer “All Original.” Still, this doesn’t stop people from abusing this phrase, and I braced for some eye-rolling when I saw this beautiful red 426 Street Hemi-powered 1966 Coronet listed here on craigslist in Los Angeles, California. However, this car passes the All Original test; the seller claims this bad boy is a true original except for the wheels and tires. Thanks to our reader Michael for spotting this wicked blood-red muscle car.
Yes, folks, this is how the engine compartment looked when the car was built: black crinkled valve covers, dual-quad carburetors, and the classy Chrysler touch of a body color engine compartment. This one-owner Dodge has covered a paltry 27,000 miles –likely a quarter-mile at a time– and appears to have been garage-kept its entire life.
As if a low-mileage, one-owner, almost completely original Hemi Coronet isn’t enough, this one is a four-speed! Dig that bench seat, too; perfect for pulling your date in close on a cool fall evening just before you roast some poser who thinks he can take your conservatively-rated 425 HP Dodge. The “440” badges indicate this Coronet’s trim level, above base and Deluxe, and below the “500.” I owned a 1966 Coronet 440 some years ago, and hoped to pilot it averaging 105 MPH in the Silver State Classic Challenge. That dream that never materialized, but I loved owning a ’60s Mopar. My original owner’s manual casually mentioned special accommodations required if your car had the “426” engine. This one is out of my league, but I’d love to give it a respectful but spirited test drive. Before 2007 any Hemi car was well into the six-digits but, on a good day, you can buy one now for less. Assuming it checks out, this car’s originality should drive the price into some rarified air. I’ll let our Hemi experts (or anyone) comment below; what will it take to put this sweet Hemi in your garage?
Why would you advertise a car of this caliber on Craigslist? Nice car and out of my price range.
Why not? …Word will spread.
Case in point.
That coupled with the no formalities or fees associated with other avenues… Makes sense to me.
$20,000
20 will get you a ride in the passenger seat.
Missing another digit!
Nice to see a car that important not trashed and instead living a pampered life.
To me,one of the best styled years for the Coronet.
My Uncle had one with a 318,I think,in Turquoise,which was
the best color also.
Yup. I got a thing for this years Coronet too. Throw in the 4 speed and hold me back! Just beautiful. Props to the owner for keeping it so nice all these years. I hope we eventually find out what it sells for. Beautiful car.
According to the ad, it’s only $1.
I can afford that, reckon I’ll go pick it up. :-)
A friend owns the Plymouth equivalent, same year, same drivetrain, darker shade or red, black bench, immaculate but with original wheels and wheel covers…
I agree with Dan, why would a car like this be on Craigslist in L.A. and with 3 photos, and its in Ohio? I don’t get it!
Smells like fresh- picked scam to me.
Manual drum brakes. Yee Haw! Made/ for going, /not stopping.
Hello RH FACTOR. Regarding the drums, I had 225/60s on my ’66 Coronet with four-wheel manual drums and they were fine as long as I kept them adjusted. If you can lock up your tires without fade you have enough braking power. Plus the manual brakes communicated the edge of lockup far greater than a ’60s power setup. Drag racers like the drums because they have a more positive release which equals less rolling resistance when you’re trying to shave a 10th here and there. One of my hot rod books has a whole discussion defending drum brakes for their swept area, etc. The main benefits of discs are simplicity, ease of maintenance, and the auto-centering caliper keeps them properly adjusted over the lifetime of the pads, not increased braking power per-se. I’m no expert but that’s my $0.02.
Disc brakes main advantage was that they dissipated heat very well and did not fade with REPEATED applications. As in road racing or driving in the mountains. Jaguar were the first to use to advantage in racing, the disc brakes of the C type being one major factor of their dominance of LeMans in the mid 50’s. MGA twin cams had them about 1958 also.
But drag racers only stop once every half hour at most and the reduced rolling friction is an advantage.
Two big drawbacks with drums- wet weather fade ( can make them really dangerous) and heat fade (not as bad but in the mountains can get hairy). I prefer discs.
The problem with that is that Mercedes discovered in the early 1950’s that Drum brakes were hopeless on high performance applications when jaguar with less powerful cars beat them in races because their dunlop disc brakes allowed the jags to brake later into turns ,much much later. Mercedes even had a flap which flipped up to act as a parachute to slow down their car.It had 14″ diameter Drums almost 5 inches wide,and even with a massive area it didn’t work as well as the discs. By 1960 Mercedes had four wheel DUNLOP discs on their flagship 300SE W112 Model only the lesser model retained rear drums.
Intersting observation but I have a small issue with one of your statements. If the wheels are locked up, your no longer stoping. A brake is basically a heat device. It converts motion energy to heat energy. Dislike brakes can disapate heat much more efficiently. I totally agree with what you said about drum brakes and drag racing. One of the ways of reducing disc brake drag is to convert to non floating four or six piston brake calipers
Even has the original single circuit master brake cylinder. Love the hemi as you don’t have any problem changing spark plugs unlike on almost all other muscle cars of the era.
Thanks for the respectful comments here. I hoped folks would chime in with observations on Disc and Drum brake differences and you all have not disappointed. I certainly would take discs over drums any day, but I did want to point out that properly-sized drum setups are more than adequate for daily driving and served the racing world until discs took over. What do you all think about the discussion of power vs. manual brakes? Barney: it’s certainly true that anyone racing or driving on a loose surface should avoid lock-up to preserve their tires and ability to steer, but I would propose that, if you put two normal drivers with average skill in identical non-ABS cars, put them on a dry parking lot and ask one to threshold brake and the other to just stomp on the brake pedal and lock up the tires, the second person will stop in a shorter distance. Thoughts?
Barn finds has been putting on “all”
of my favorite cars and trucks lately–Wow!GREAT JOB! LOL.
I love the 66/67 Coronets,and don’t see many,very often.
Really,REALLY, nice car,but I couldn’t afford it with a slant six and 4 flat tires!LOL
Here’s my 67 R/T bought new at Mr. Norms.was 440 4 speed dana .story has it motor replaced when new at Norms . Date code and no vin on motor make this believable, unfortunatly not provable. Runs great decode sheet shows delivered to Grand Spaulding Dodge 1/19/67
I remember as a kid sneaking home early in the morning listening to Grand Spaulding Dodge commercials on WLS radio (Chicago) and Mr. Norm hawking hi-po Dodges. I was driving a ’59 Chevy Convert with a 283. Never got one of those dream Dodges but have owned 3 Vettes.
MoPar didn’t put VINs on the block until 68.
It’s a beauty that’s for sure.
Doesn’t even have power brakes from what I can see, unless it uses a remote booster – must be fun trying to stop!!!
No problem stopping……once.
This listing is very suspect. Who in their right mind lists a car of this caliber on CL with only a few pics???
That scam smell just keeps getting stronger
Why would anyone , will this caliber of a car care about listing or sell Ng prics, Craigslist does a General Atra, ebay does the entire USA plus more more countries, Hemmings and I am sure other venues can get a big chunk of USA too but not Craigslist.
Simply not true autotempest.com searches every CL ad in the country. You guys are missing out on the hidden gold out there.
Searchtempest also searches Craigslist, I use it to find flippable bikes all the time.
Agreed. IMO the onus is on the buyer to find the gem, sellers can be of all walks of life and gearhead knowledge.
Gotta find the find…
I’m sure,that if you got ahold of the “seller”,& send them
a huge deposit,that they’d never be heard from again – & you’d
never see the actual car.
I think anybody buying an original 4 speed hemi car already has the suitcase and the money and knows you need to see the car in person before you hand it over.
Or even a smallish one. I bet this car gets “sold” a hundred times and no one will end up with it. It may well not even actually exist. I’ve seen this scam before. One major tell will be if the deposit has to go via Western Union. But there are dozens of variations on this one.
Here’s the saved ad http://www.craigslistadsaver.com/view.php?name=1966DodgeCoronet
I use Autotempest to search Craigslist all the time and used it to find my ’83 El Camino about 200 miles from me in northern KY.
Craigslist is just classified ads, right? So why isn’t there a proper asking price, other than $1? Also, just 3 pics, this seems weird.
Anyone interested in buying this most likely will not be in Ohio (reason for LA listing) and I’m pretty sure the interested party understands that it will not sell for one dollar. Additionally, the interested party will probably personally inspect the vehicle.
Craigslist listing is completely understandable.
Car… fuc**ng awesome.
Then why not list it for $2? Just make more sense and closer to reality.
I agree, it is a breath taking car. Stock original is always good.
Here in dallas i call it the gas monkey effect. After they got national attention every yayhoo in the country started posting their old cars for sale on dallas clist. Cant tell you how many times I go to look at a car and the location is New Jersey or Montana.
I sold a ’67 GTX, manual & Hemi with all the factory paperwork and Glovier verification for $67,100. All original and the tires were still non-DOT. That was the real money on the car!
Sounds about right. The 66/67 cars are highly underrated in the collector market. The Coronet moreso than the Bellvedere variants. Figure this one in that 55-70k range simply because only 160 where produced with a four speed and hemi. Most of those were turned into race cars and probably lost to history.
This is 6 digit car.
I envy the new owner….
Sweet!
SO what’s the price? It does seem a little fishy to me?
In 1972 I bought a 67 hemi coronet from a Ford dealership for 1100 dollars…
I did the same with a 68 Roadrunner. Same price, but not from a Ford dealer. Wish I still had it.
In the mid-70s my parents had a Philly daily driver hand me down version of one of these. It may have been a four door instead of two but ours was beige with rust and lots of dents. It was just the old car then which is funny because it must not of been that old after all. I think it was a used car that my grandparents bought and used for a bit and they probably got rid of it when they got their 73 swinger. We called it the Beige Bomber. And I remember that baked old car smell. And some kind of an oil leak that made it smoke a bit if I remember correctly. Mom put some classy neon orange fuzzy fabric over the cracked dash top and some matching dice for the rearview mirror just to “spruce it up a bit”.
I think she got tailed by a cop once and pulled over while she was driving through a really nice neighborhood close to our house just for looking out of place and suspicious. I remember it being a coronet 440, but it probably had a 318? I’ve always wondered why it was called a 440 and if it had a 440 in it. Now I know the nomenclature. and boy I sure like those old Mopars. This one is cherry sweet.
They didn’t put that 426 Hemi badge up front….soooo….
Actually they did so ….
Too serious of an engine for most new car buyers back then, same with the side oiler 427 ford.Legendary race engines they were, practical daily drivers they weren’t, or were ever intended to be.
$175k http://ohio.buysellsearch.com/view/vehicles/cars/126431478/r%2Fvehicles%2Fcars%2Fmk-dodge%2Fml-coronet%2Fyr-1966
Hi Mark, thanks for the post. I know this is a special car but I had to laugh at the value of the car notation. ‘This vehicle is about $157,184 more than the average price for a 1966 Dodge Coronet for sale.’ Take care, Mike.
…in 1968, the Ohio Highway Patrolman said that at 125 mph I was still pulling away from him (and mine was just a 66 Coronet 500 with a 383). If it had been a hemi…I’d probably not be here today to talk about it. Always loved the look of the 66…though I preferred the fancier trim of the Coronet 500. Mine was the two-door dark blue with a white top…but I do like the red (a real ticket magnet).
I left a comment on here earlier and it got deleted. Not sure why. Anyway, after reading all the mud slinging that many of you have done about something you know nothing about, I had to say something. These are facts! I know the person who owns this car. It is everything it says it is and all of the original parts are stashed away safely(wheels, hubcaps, dizzy, etc.). An individual was enlisted to sell this car and it looks like he has posted it in every nook and cranny on the net. It is a beautiful, original car that he has owned since day one but unlike the name of this web site, I don’t believe the car has ever been in a barn and I know it has never been lost. Been in his possession for over 50 years. Happy motoring folks.
Never could understand the reason for not listing the asking price. If the guy wants a million, say so–cuts out a lot of people who couldn’t even imagine paying $175K for a car that retailed for 4 grand and there are those that might. God knows there are no secrets in this day and age.
My 66 Hemi Charger had 4 wheel drum non-power assisted brakes. They were good for one power stop/extremely rapid slow down from 100 plus, if you were lucky–after that you better have 100 or more miles go before you tried to do any serious stopping. I can’t imagine dealing with that today. The difference was like having hydraulic brakes when you first slammed them on which acted as though they had instantly been replaced them with mechanical brakes!
Why not take it to Barrett Jackson next month where those drunken bidders will pay some real money for it.
Perhaps the seller isn’t in to high profile, also I’d wager that all those cameras and people take a nice chunk outta the cut. Then there’s shipping, Etc….Etc….. For the businesses flipping cars I’m sure it makes sense. This guy loved this car for over 50 years I bet maybe he’d like to choose where she goes. Instead of some rich anonymous person on a phone
My first car was a 1968 Dodge Coronet 500, it was a dog with the 318, but it was mine. I wish I had pictures.
My brother currently owns this car in Upstate NY. It has been thoroughly inspected and documented. Original build sheets located where they belong, etc.