1965 Dodge Dart

I am offering for sale this 1965 Dodge Dart 270, in goodcondition.
This is an original Mopar, with a 225 slant 6 engine, fourdoor sedan. In its day it was promoted as a “compact” car, but of course now itseems rather large and roomy, with two full bench seats and a huge trunk. Threespeed automatic transmission. Neither the brakes nor the steering are “power.”Mechanically, it is solid; starts reliably, runs well. Cosmetically, it’s fair. The exterior looks nice; up close there are plenty of blemishes. Theinterior is rough and grubby. The odometer reads 66,000+, but who knows howmany times it’s turned over.
I bought the car four years ago and drove it home that day,500 miles, nice and smooth. In the four years I’ve owned it I have not putanother 500 miles on it. I hoped to make it into an occasional day tripper, butI haven’t made the time or had the money to invest in improving the interior.Ultimately I have decided it doesn’t make sense to keep a car I don’t useparked on the street, with insurance and registration running several hundreddollars a year. So it’s for sale.
Let me go into detail on what’s good and bad here. I’m notgoing to gloss over anything – I am going to try to tell you exactly whatyou’ll get. If you come and look at it after reading here, you should have nosurprises.
When I bought it, it hadn’t been used much for severalyears. I invested about a thousand dollars in addressing some mechanical needs,including repair and upgrade to the differential and the cooling system, and anew battery. At the time my mechanic evaluated the major systems in the car andfound nothing else needing immediate attention.
The car starts every time on the third try. Whether it’sbeen a day or a month since the last time I started it, it’s always the samestory. Turn the key, crank it a few times, it doesn’t catch. Do it a secondtime, it doesn’t catch. Do it a third time, and voila, it’s up and running. Theengine always runs fast in park when first started; it takes a long time for itto throttle down.
A couple times I have not been able to start it, and theconditions were the same in those instances. I had been driving the car for awhile, then parked and turned it off, then five or ten minutes later tried tostart it up again, but it wouldn’t catch. In each case, after the car cooledoff (20-30 minutes), it started up as expected.
I know of no mechanical issues – everything works. I haven’tdriven it enough to know how much oil it goes through. The gas mileage is notgood, of course, probably in the 10-12 MPG range, though I have not measured itcarefully. I’ve not done a compression test, but the engine “feels” right whenI’m driving it. It can idle a little low and threaten to stall; sometimes at ared light I keep a little pressure on the gas with one foot while I’m holdingthe brake with the other foot.
The tires are not new but they don’t need to be replaced,either.
The exterior is mixed. The car looks sharp whenit’s clean. I believe the cream-colored paint is original. I’ve seen otherDarts of this vintage with the exact same color. Mostly the paint is in good shape.It has worn off beneath the gas cap. There are a few rough and rusty spots. Theantenna is missing and there’s some rust around the opening in the fender wherethe antenna used to be. One of the taillight lenses is broken; I have thebroken piece in the trunk. The trim is all there and pretty good overall,though on one side it’s popped loose and wants some repair. There are somedings on the front bumper. Overall the exterior is not perfect, but it’s reallyin good condition for a car this age that’s had only the minimum of care.
The interior is very rough but salvageable. Please see the photos. The front seatvinyl is cracked and open. The back seat is worse, ripped wide open in spots.With covers, both the front seat and the back seat are serviceable. Thecarpeting is ragged. The headliner is torn wide open and old grubby insulationis falling down into the interior. The front dash is in good shape. The reardeck is ripped open and in very poor condition.
The car is not watertight. I don’t have a garage, and parkon the street. In the winter the interior gets damp. It smells musty and thereis some staining from mold on the insides of the metal doors. The controls onthe dash are sticky; it is hard to pull out and push in the knob for theheadlights. Like many of the issues listed here, this would be easy to address for someonewho knew what they were doing, but I am not that someone.
All the exterior lights work fine. The horn works and it’sfull and loud. But the ring on the steering wheel that you push to blow thehorn is broken in half and taped together. The turn signals work. The turn signal arrows on the dashboard do not light up. Infact the electrical system on the dashboard is flaky overall. Sometimes thedash light come on, sometimes not. Sometimes the gas and temperature gaugesreport correctly, sometimes not. The original radio is still in place, but itdoesn’t turn on. I tried plugging a USB adapter into the cigarette lighter so Icould charge my phone, but there was no sign of life there.
It’s a 50 year old car and is missing many things we takefor granted in modern cars. For instance, the windshield wipers have exactly twosettings: on and off. The turn signals do not turn off automatically after you turn. The seatbelts in the front are only lap belts; in theback there are no seatbelts. In those days we kids just tumbled around backthere. These days people may not know why we say “roll down” the windows, butin this car you roll them down. Call me sentimental, but one thing I love hereis that there are vent windows in the front. The heat and defrost work well.
The car is registered here in Washington and has tabs validthrough September 2019.
I am starting the bidding at $3299. Winning bidder must pay$500 by Paypal within 48 hours, non-refundable, and pay the balance when takingdelivery of the car. If you’re not local, you’ll need to make arrangements tocollect the car. I will drive it to a local (Seattle area) shipping location ifyou’ve made all the arrangements and the car is paid in full.
I am happy to answer any questions. If you love slant sixDarts like I do, and you want a car you can drive immediately, and you have thetime to invest in overhauling the interior, I think you’ll be pleasedwith this one. Good luck and happy bidding!
Mark MacKenzie

Also published at eBay.com