What we have here is a genuine 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger 340 (per the VIN), but unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to have done much swinging lately. Modified for drag racing, this Dart has been echoing the sounds of silence since the ’80s. The seller claims that he has a lot of parts so let’s see if Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. Tolland, Connecticut, is where this Swinger calls home, and it’s available here on eBay for a BIN price of $6,100.
I covered this 1968 Dodge Dart GTS convertible a few days ago and mentioned how I preferred the ’67 to ’69 variety over the ’70 and later models. They’re definitely similar. It’s just a styling preference. The ’70 line-up featured the basic Dart as the foundation, added the Dart Custom as the mid-point, and topped out with the Swinger/Swinger 340 as the top banana. The Dart Swinger was rather popular, with 120K units seeing the light of day in ’70, but the Swinger 340 was more rarified owing to just 13K copies being assembled.
So, what’s left here? Not a lot, actually. The body reveals radiused rear wheel wells opened up over a Dana 4.10 rear axle assembly. Some stuff, like bumpers, brackets, lights, grille, etc., is missing, though the seller claims he has 80% of the non-attached parts. As to the attached parts, meaning the body, rust is the order of the day, not just the conspicuous surface rust but panel rot-through, too. The rear window is missing, too.
Unfortunately, the 340 part of this Swinger 340 is gone. The original 275 gross HP, 340 CI “LA” V8 engine is lost to the ages. The seller does have parts including, “340 X heads, jr headers, Holly strip dominator intake, 3 cranks, 13.1 pistons…” as well as a non-original four-speed manual transmission.
As for the interior, the dash and instrument panel are still in place but that’s it – the rest of it is barren. I guess the one positive is the floor pan, it shows as being solid with just surface rust evident. At first thought, completely rebuilding an interior may not seem like that daunting a task but there can be an endless number of small missing and required parts that really ups the challenge.
OK, so where to start? Firstly, there are a huge number of parts included in the sale – check out all of the listing images. They, however, are not bagged and tagged, so one will have to rely on their knowledge and additional research to figure out this puzzle pile. As for where to take this Dart, the logical assumption would be a reconstitution as a hot rod. But still, the opening question must be answered: is this one worth saving?
No.
Wild listing.
Well, this and that other rust bucket, you might have half a car. Scrap metal prices are way down, .04/lb. and sadly, that’s all this is. Boy, they come apart a lot easier than they go back together, huh? .04/lb.( or $92/ton)
O Brother. Y Bother.
Why would someone try to sell something like this? It probably was a pretty cool car at one time. Now, it must go to the scrap yard.
This was probably a lot of fun, then got shuffled aside as life happened. I know a few guys that parked their bracket cars when they had kids in the late-70’s and early-80’s, they are still buried in the garage. Most of the local tracks went away before their kids grew up so much of the motivation to get them updated and running left too.
This will probably wind up as a parts car or VIN donor. He’s willing to sell the parts separately, once anything of value or hard to find goes away, the cars fate is likely sealed.
Steve R
VIN transfers should be illegal unless the car they go on shows100% notification that they have been transferred, otherwise there is fraud. Too much of this has ruined the hobby. Of course, the ugliness of making something worth more because of how it once was from the factory years ago also has hurt the hobby. A car should be valued about how it is today.
Another Mopar with extra rust included!!!
Its a 55 year old car in New England , what did you expect ? Its actually in far better shape rot wise than any 12 year old car here on the coast
To the seller..”pay me $150 and I’ll clean out your garage”
The only thing worth anything there is the rear end! The seller is dreaming!!!
The crack must be awesome in that neighborhood
This one is done unless you’re rich and want to save it – money no object. It will be worth less than invested.
In Canada we had 340 Dart Swingers in ‘71 and ‘72 as well, very rare. The US only had 340 Dart Swingers until 1970. (340 Demons and the ‘73 Dart Sport 340 not withstanding)