Junkyard Gem: 1964 Dodge Dart station wagon

The

Chrysler A Platform

, built from the 1960 through 1976 model years for the North American market (and for a few years beyond that in

Australia

and

Latin America

), was one of

Chrysler’s

greatest hits, if not

the

greatest hit. We know these cars best as the

1963-1976 Dodge Dart

and the

1960-1976 Plymouth Valiant

, and they established a reputation for reliability matched only by the likes of the

Mercedes-Benz W123 diesel

. I still see many of

these cars

during

my junkyard wanderings

, but A-Body

wagons

have become very rare. Here’s a tattered

’64 Dart wagon

that I spotted in a self-service wrecking yard in San Jose, California.

1964 was the first model year for factory-installed V8 engines in the

Dart

and Valiant (and the Valiant’s sporty sibling, the Barracuda), and the

273-cubic-inch pushrod V8

was a sturdy powerplant indeed. The

slant-6 engine

, though less powerful, went into most of these cars, and for good reason: It was harder to kill than all the world’s cockroaches and rats put together.

This car would have come with a 170- or 225-cubic-inch version of the slant-6, optimistically rated at either 101 or 145

gross horsepower

(probably about 55 horses at the wheels), but I didn’t feel like scraping sludge off casting numbers to see if it’s on its first or 11th engine. In any case, slant-6 Darts were on the pokey side but would get you to your destination every time.

This one has a lot of rust for a California car (in New Hampshire or Wisconsin, it would be considered pretty solid) and the interior is more or less obliterated, so even dedicated station-wagon lovers wouldn’t have been motivated to take it on as a restoration project.

So another early Dart is poised to be stuffed into

The Crusher

, for reasons that make good economic sense. This still makes us sad, though.

Here’s the compact you’ve been waiting for!