This car turned out to be much more of a "highway cruiser" then I think my Dad thought it would be. It took the family from New York to the mountains of Colorado, the deserts of Arizona, and back to the plains of the Midwest with the usual dependability that one expects from Dodge. Also, speaking of deserts, this Dart had no air conditioning, so it was not the coolest place to be during an Arizona heat wave. Nevertheless, the Dart did have its own way of cooling me down. I used to hide under it to get some shade! My Dad always liked to boast that on empty stretches of desert highway that he had "put the petal to the metal" and had the Dart running at 120 mph with no problems. To me that is still a great feat since I can only get my 1991 Ford Taurus up to 85 mph! As for the safety question, I think that walking away from two head-on collisions removes any doubt about passengers' safety in these Darts. That first accident in Iowa was very serious, but the Dart was so well built that even with temporary repairs by the local Ford dealer (there was no Chrysler shop in this small town) our Dart soldiered on for another 1000 miles or so to Cincinnati, Ohio, where it was professionally repaired by a Dodge dealer.
After a short trip up to Dayton, Ohio, our Dart was no longer used to travel the highways, and returned to commuter-car status. It spent its remaining years just doing its job without any problems. The only thing done to it besides regular service was to cover the seats in clear vinyl (and finding underneath them a cache of S&H Green Stamps and change). Also, the hood was repainted because it kept flaking (I suspect due to lousy repair jobs after the accidents). However, all good things end sometime, and that end was on September 18, 1969. I went to school that morning with a brown 1962 Dart in the driveway and all was right with the world. When I came home for lunch, not only was my Dad home from work, but a 1969 copper-colored Dodge Coronet 440 4-door V-8 sat in the driveway. I never quite forgave him for it and always had some disdain for the Coronet, something akin to how a child must feel when his Dad gets a new wife.
To calm me, my Dad let me keep the owner's manual for the Dart, however, after one final move I lost the manual. Also, I begged my parents to take me where the Dart was for one last look and to say goodbye. So Mother took me to the used car lot of our local Dodge dealer, Dayton Reliable Motors (which as of 1991 was called Moorman Pontiac). The Dart looked out of place next to the other used cars. Not only was it the oldest on the lot, but the style of cars had changed. The curve lines and oval openings looked outdated next to the straight-as-an-arrow slab-sided look of the later cars. I am sad to say that this was the last time I saw it. I always wanted to buy it back, but, over the years that dream (like so many others) has slipped through my fingers. The only distinctive information I have on it is its motor serial number (5526 146812) from the bill of sale, a document dated three years after my Dad purchased the car. I think the reason for the time difference is that Ohio wanted more proof of ownership then just an Arizona registration slip, and he had to get the original dealer to provide a "new" bill of sale, along with a statement from the local county clerk that there was no lien on the car.
If anyone out there knows how to decipher 1962 Dodge motor numbers, please drop me an E-mail. And if there is a way to discover if this car is still on the road also let me know. I would like to believe that the car I loved so much as a child is still somewhere out there.
POSTSCRIPT:
I would like to thank those who have been reading the account of my
late Dad's 1962 B-body Dodge Dart. At the end of the article, I made a
request to any other Dodge lovers out in cyberspace if they could decipher
the motor number (5526 14682) listed on the bill of sale. I also recently
posted the same question to the alt.auto.antique news group. I would like
to thank John Kunkel for his speedy reply.
According to John, what my bill of sale calls a "motor number" is this car's vehicle identification number (VIN). Yes, these numbers point to a 1962 Dodge Dart with a V-8 engine, assembled at the Chrysler plant in Newark (I assume Delaware), and the 46,812th car to be produced that model year. I was, however, in for a surprise concerning the body style. For according to the VIN, my Dad's Dart was a base Dart Suburban station wagon, not a 330 model sedan.
Well, I was shocked when I read that. I know that childhood memories are sometimes not the clearest, but I do know the difference between a sedan and a station wagon. Besides, there is the picture of my mother standing next to our car elsewhere on this site--one can see it's a sedan! Also, I have a picture of me standing next to the passenger side front door, and in the background you can see the word "Dart 330" on the door.
I e-mailed back John and asked if he had made a mistake. His reply was no, for if I was right in describing the Dart, its VIN should read as 5226 146812. The second 2 makes it a Dart 330 with a V-8. So it seems that the only real piece of information I had on my Dad's car was a typo. In the belief that I now had the correct information, I had been asking those who have been reading this to e-mail me if you know the whereabouts of this car or how to obtain such information. However, new details have come to light that again put into question what the true VIN is of this car.
Just recently I found a letter from the office of the clerk in whose county my Dad purchased this Dart. Most of it consists of a statement attesting to the fact that there is no lien on this car. It also has listed the serial (now called the VIN) of the Dart. The good news is that yes, there was a typo on the bill of sale, and the correct prefix for this type of car was 5226--just as John Kunkel, and later David Wright, informed me it should be. But now, according to this clerk's letter, the second half of the sequence (the production number) is 146912, not 149812 as stated on the bill of sale. This change makes this the 46,912th car manufactured for 1962 (or about 100 cars younger!). Would you (or anybody) believe a double typo? What the heck went on in the office of Snider Sales Corporation (the selling dealer) when they not only filled out this document, but notarized it as well! No wonder the company was out of business before the end of the 1960's!
One would think it would be simple to solve this problem by finding an old service bill, possible given the fact that my Dad kept every receipt form the mid-1960's onward. But even after looking over old statements for (it seems) everything we ever purchased, all I could find were two bills for GOODYEAR Tires from July and October 1968. It has no VIN, but it does have the Dart's 1968 Ohio license number and its mileage as of 10/25/68 (45,223). And to demonstrate how prices have changed, 30 years ago, you could get four 775X14 brand-name tires for about $120.00!
So, with the right information finally in hand (let's hope!), if you know the fate of my Dad's brown 1962 Dodge Dart 330 4-door V-8, VIN 5526 146912, please drop me an e-mail at 102052.2604@compuserve.com. It was too young to be traded in; the car wasn't even 8 years old, and I estimate it only had about 57,312 miles on it. It was last seen at Moorman Pontiac (then called Dayton Reliable Motors) in Dayton, Ohio, in September 1969. Again, thanks for reading my article on the best (and, along with the 1960 and 1961 models, the only true) Darts ever made.
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