For a guy who was basically hired to write about vintage Japanese vehicles, motorcycles, snowmobiles, vintage EVs, and other oddball things, I’ve been getting into vintage pickups over the last few years, and here’s another interesting one. This 1973 Dodge D200 Adventurer can be found here on craigslist in Boardman, Ohio, and the seller is asking $10,900. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Jack M. for the tip!
The third-generation Dodge D-Series pickups are the last Dodge pickups that I really like or would like to own, other than an SRT-10 with two doors. This D200 (3/4-ton) has a 400 V8, but I wonder if a Viper V10 would slip in there? Of course it would. I’d keep the 400. 1973 was the first year for the Club Cab, and that’s always a nice feature, but this one is a regular single cab, of course. Here’s a brochure showing some of Dodge’s 1973 pickups.
They offered an Adventurer, an Adventurer Sport, and an Adventurer SE. Hopefully, one of you Dodge Experts can tell which version it is. The third-gen D-Series trucks were made from 1970 through 1993, four years longer than Henry Ford offered budget-minded and first-time car owners the Model T. I have never owned either a Model T or a real Dodge pickup, other than my rebadged Mitsubishi D-50 Sport. Here’s what it looks like inside the bed, and here’s an underside photo.
I would have bet that this truck has been repainted, at least partially, but the seller says this one is wearing its original paint. It could be just used as a nice truck as it looks now, or the next owner could always go at it and fix a few things, repaint it, and have a show-stopper of a Dodge pickup. The interior photos were a little small, so this one is pixelated when zoomed in; my apologies. The original owner sprang for bucket seats and a center console, very cool features, but there aren’t any specific photos showing those areas, which is a bummer.
This one is being sold by a dealer, so it’s a little unusual to see such a dirty engine compartment. Then again, sometimes when they’re overly cleaned with a spray-on-shine product, that looks a little fakey, too. This is Dodge’s 400-cu.in. OHV V8, the biggest one available for this truck in this era. I believe it would have been factory-rated at 185 horsepower and 305 lb-ft of torque. Backed by a three-speed automatic, power is sent to the rear wheels, and the seller says it has new wheels and tires and is fun to drive around town. Any thoughts on this ’73 D200?
Nice, honest truck here Scotty. Not sure I could make a case to be happy spending $10,000 for it but it’d get done what needs doing and that’s what a truck like this is supposed to be all about.
Interesting thing about which version it is: was with some friends a bit ago at a local car lot helping them find another car. We came across a 15 year old truck with very low mileage so it got the eye. It was the entry model work truck but the previous owner, I thought oddly, had loaded it up with all the high end features. Why a stripper work truck ordered from the factory with all this when it’d been cheaper to buy the Unobtainium model on the lot?
Then it occurred to us that a standard cab longbed wasn’t offered in any of the versions you’d buy off the lot.
Crazy stuff.