It was the summer of 1971 that I went car-shopping as a teenagers at Chiaroni Dodge in Santa Rosa, California (sadly no longer with us). I'd actually gone there to look at a pretty '61 T-Bird. (I can't imagine what I was thinking.) I'd looked at that, a '64 Chevelle, and a '62 New Yorker. I only test drove the Dart at my mother's insistence. Geez, Mom, I don't want a car with a Six! How boring!
The Dart sat next to the New Yorker on the car lot. It was a well-maintained little car, a '64 Dart 270 4-door sedan in medium tan metallic with 225, TorqueFlite, power steering, AM radio, full wheel covers and whitewalls. I later found out it had previously belonged to the dealer's daughter.
I'd already gotten past the 4-door part when I looked at the New Yorker -- I couldn't convince anyone otherwise -- but I had one heck of a time getting past those "missing" 2 cylinders... Darnedest thing was, I ended up liking that Dart more than anything else I'd ever driven. And I found myself liking it more and more every time I compared it to a car belonging to one of my friends...
I'd never driven a car that handled anywhere as well as my Dart. It took me about two minutes to realize that anyone who called a Slant Six gutless had obviously never driven one. I imagine I came off the freeway laughing like Beavis. There was, of course, the added bonus of knowing I'd have no trouble parallel parking it. (I was still driving on an instruction permit at the time.)
I thought it was a great looking car, 4-door or not. And it was light-years more reliable than anything my friends had (other than my friends with MoPar A-bodies... ...did I have to grudgingly admit Mom was on to something?). More importantly, NONE of my friends could keep up with me on even the slightest bit of winding road. (Well, there were no Porsches in my social circle...)
Probably my favorite memory (now that the statute of limitations has passed) would be the time a Sebastopol (Calif.) police officer cut in front of me to pull into a parking lot. It didn't have gumballs on top, and they were painted in stock pastel colors, so it looked like an ordinary turquoise '70 Ford Custom 500 while I was leaning on the horn and flipping the driver off... ...at least until I saw the shield on the door... ...he turned around and came after me with the spotlight blazing... ...I was working more on adrenaline than common sense, but I knew with the certainty of the young and stupid I'd never been in a scrape with my Dart I couldn't get out of and probably wasn't in one now. That big 429 could eat me alive in a straight line, but I knew if the road got the slightest bit windy I'd be outta there... ...I lost count of the turns and street changes, but I amazingly managed to lose him somehow... ...my friends and I spent the next 45 minutes hiding behind the gas station I worked at at the time, shaking like leaves. Was there ever such a perfect mind-meld of excellent car and lunatic teenager? (That car made believers out of several friends, including the owner of a stock 289 Mustang who was along when I ditched the cop and knew his car couldn't've done that...)
I made the mistake of selling it when I moved to Seattle in '75. I've had numerous Slant Six cars since (the engine keeps outlasting the body), and I'm looking for one now...
Today, every time I hear "Riders On The Storm" by the Doors, I'm taken back to the first time I ever heard the song, which was also the first night I took my Dart out by myself. You may remember that "Riders" was released about three weeks after Jim Morrison's death. I could not have been more aware of this being a combination of circumstances I'd never see again. This is, sad to say, a more vivid memory than my first sexual experience. (On the other hand, it gave me something to share with my then-teenage son when Kurt Cobain died.) Put me behind the wheel of ANY car and put "Riders" on, and I'll fully expect to see a row of pushbuttons glowing green over to the left of the speedometer...