A 1960 DodgeStory

I was visiting your website, when I noticed you were looking for '60 Dodge stories.

Around the mid 1960's when I was around 7 years old, my father asked me to join him in a car ride. He took me to the local Cheverolet Used Car Dealer lot to show me a car he was going to buy. It was a green 1960 Dodge Matador 4-door sedan. I didn't think too much of it, because all four blackwall tires were either low or flat. However, I did like the fins. We ended up using that car as a family car for two or three years, and it turned out to be a pretty dependable car. I do remember a few things about it:

1. I remember riding with my dad in it going down the main street of town, and he was using the emergency brake handle as the only brakes, as he was taking it in for brake service.

2. During one winter, instead of shoveling the driveway out with a shovel, he instead kept running the car up and down the driveway to clear a path. But, while doing this, two lower parts of the bumper were pushing so much snow, it was too much for them and they broke off! I remember the two parts remained in our garage until we later sold the car.

3. We had only the standard wheel covers, not the spinner ones. Also, it didn't have the chrome gravel shields behind the rear wheels, or the chrome add-ons on the top of the rear bumper. I believe it had the standard 361 V-8 engine.

During the time of ownership of the Matador, my father bought another 1960 Dodge. It was a blue Dart Phoenix 4-door hardtop with a 318 V-8. The first time I really remember it clearly was when my mother came and picked me up after elementary school one day. I remember thinking what a quiet car it was, quieter, in fact, than the Matador. Also, the interior seemed to be alot cleaner, as though this car had had some previous owners that took good care of it. It had whitewall tires and the standard wheel covers.

During the time of ownership of both '60 Dodges, I do remember an incident which involved both the cars, and both of my older sisters. My father had an old city transit bus sitting close to our house on the gravel street. The bus was bought to run a business out of it on the road, but it ended up breaking down. Somehow, it ended up back home, but for some reason, my father wanted it moved a little closer to our driveway. Anyway, he ended up attaching both Dodges to the front of the bus with chains and my sisters were in each car. My father was in the bus driver's seat.

He gave the signal for them to start pulling. I remember spinning tires on both cars with very little forward movement of the bus. (I was on the bus.) Finally, it had moved far enough forward and both cars were unhooked.

One day, after my father had bought yet another car, he asked me which Dodge he should sell. Since I liked the styling of the Matador better, I told him to sell the Phoenix. So, he sold the Phoenix to one of his old friends. I saw it off and on later, and I noticed how badly it was starting to rust, all over the body. I suppose it was later junked after the friend died.

Later on, he ended up selling the other Dodge, the Matador, to his cousin's husband. I don't think I saw it hardly at all after that. I heard that he parked it in the grove at one of their farms. My father and I tried to locate it when I was older, but we never did find it.

I've always liked the styling of 1960 Dodges, and always thought they were an underated car. They should have done better than they did.

Well here I am just about 48 years old. I was 6 years old when I first laid my eyes on a 1960 Dodge Pioneer in the wash bay at a dealership in Humboldt, Saskatchewan Canada. My dad in all his wisdom had special ordered the car. Wow what an option list he had to choose from and the only options he choose was the Sure-Grip rear end and back up lights. He bought the car because of the low trunk as my mom could put large cream cans easily in and out of the trunk this way. It was a red with green interior seats and was a 6 cylinder standard and a four door model. The salesman gave me a little factory model of that car that highlighted the torsion bar front end and I still have it to this day.

Years passed and at around 14 years of age I fell in love with that old car. I bought chrome reverse wheels and white lettered tires and had some work done on the car. I got it repainted same colour but put those big letters on the fins that said Dodge and lifted the rear up with some shackles. I installed a cassette tape deck and relined the inside head liner and back deck that had faded. I installed some bucket seats also. What a car everyone in my home town knew that car well including the police they could hear it coming with the thrush muffler we had on it.

We bought another 1960 car for parts and had to replace the transmission at one point and the clutch. I guess to many burn outs the old one went on it. Yea the parking break was useless back of that transmission I remember outside Hinton, Alberta going down the road I looked in rear view mirror and all I saw was smoke. I had left that parking break on and now it was shot.

Me and my dad had great times laying under that car and fixing it and I valued the time with my father doing that. I have never known another car that could never get stuck. It would push snow well above bumper and very muddy roads were not a problem. The front end never did go out of alignment and never ever had a dime spent on it. That torsion bar suspension was the best. It would go for 3/4 of a mile at times with out hands on steering wheel true and straight. Top speed was 105 miles and hour and it held the road well at that speed never a worry.

I remember once still a kid I was at a party and had drove my dodge to the party. I did get a little drunk and raced a friend down a country road which was wrong to do I know that now. I hit the ditch and tore the muffler off and broke the linkage to the transmission off also and had to jack up the car and shift it into 2nd gear from underneath. My brother was at party and he drove me home and on the way I threw up all along the outside of car.

I awoke at around 5 in the morning and thought that if I washed car and went out to get jack I left in ditch that maybe I would not be in as much trouble as I was going to be in when dad found out about this. I pushed car out of driveway and started it in middle of street. My mom was not home was working late at hospital but I dad was home sleeping. I turned up tape deck and tore off down the street and around the corner.

I completed the tasks set out for washing and retrieving the jack and went home. Lights were on in kitchen and I knew I was going to be in for a little trouble. I walked in back door and here was my dad at kitchen table in his pj's which were ripped to shreds and bloody also. I said to my father "What the hell happened to you" He replied well I heard our car start about an hour ago I ran out thinking someone was steeling the car and jumped on trunk and when the jerk took that sharp right I went left." I knew that the next two or three weeks were not going to be fun for me as heck dad did not walk so good. He tried to hide his damaged body from my mother but that was very hard to do with limping and all. I was banned from driving I think for a month but if memory serves me right was driving in a few days.

Another time I came home from being out with friends and fooling around. The next morning the local RCMP came to our house and asked to see me. Mom woke me up. Here was policeman and he asked if I had been in school grounds burning out last night and driving thought the snow banks that were pilled up. I denied that but when he pulled out front licence plate from under his winter jacket I was caught. The RCMP always get their man or boy as I was then. All I got was a stern lecture from both parties my parents and the RCMP no ticket was given. What fun me and my friends had in that old car.

The years passed and time was not good to our old dodge. The front headlights were falling out, rear wheel wells and fenders were getting rusty and it sat in our front drive way for almost a year without moving. Dad was waiting for me to come home from Calgary where I lived at the time to take our last ride ever in our favourite car of all times. We had the parts car out at a farmers friends and that was where the old dodge was going after all we could not sell it to an auto wrecker and see it smashed up it would retire in dignity that it deserved right beside the other one. I could not do it I figured it was Dads right to climb into it that Sunday afternoon and take the final run. Yep it started right up after not running for a year and dad backed out of driveway and we slid out of town on the back roads as it was not licensed. It was about a 10 mile ride I followed sadly and had a few tears along the way. Here we came into the farm yard of our friends and out back we went and dad backed it in right along side the other dodge parts car. I got out of my car the old dodge was still running and I walked up to window dad looked at me and I looked back at him and I am sure he held back his tears also. He gave the old dodge one last hard touch on the gas peddle and turned the key off for the last time. He took a cloth out and placed it over the speed ometer as we always felt that it was so cool we hoped that one day we might have a hot rod to put that bar type meter into. We talked with our friend who owned the farm for awhile and both turned our backs on the old friend of ours and walked away we had lost a very old dear friend that day.

Back in town that day we talked lots of the fun we had with that car and the good time our old family had with it but to me and dad it was special. For quite a few years my dad never went out to that field where the old dodge was parked but then about 5 years ago me and dad took the trip to see how our old friend was doing. It had decayed more in the years since parked and the weeds trees and grasses had grown up around it. It was good to see even though it would never move again under its own power. It was special and still is to me a very special car I have never felt and loved a car like that old red 1960 Dodge Pioneer and do not think I ever will. Memories are great and she was a special one for us two that's for sure.

Randall Styx
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

A 1960 Dodge Matador 4-door sedan was my first car. I had borrowed my Father's '56 Ford station wagon during my last year of college. (Before that I commuted by train.) About mid 1969 my father found the Matador sitting unused at a residence along his route to work in Chicago, Illinois. He bought it for $120. Its paint was peeling so he had it repainted (Earl Scheib special?) I don't think the new paint was an exact match, but it was close to the original, a light seafoam metalic green. The roof was white. He let me use it a year and then just gave it to me. It had a powerful 383 cu. in. engine, and the novelty push-button controls for the tranny. By the early '70s, Dodge Matadors were a forgotten model, and many parts salemen argued with me that a Matador was not a Dodge, but an American Motors car. The car took part of our family on a trip to the Pacific Northwest coast and the American Southwest. It conquered the "Kleinschmidt Grade" (uphill) on the edge of Hell's Canyon in Idaho. It negotiated the "logging hill" (a trail that was almost good enough to be a jeep trail) in what is now Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan without a problem, only to bottom out while going over an extensive puddle on the access "road" and put a hole in the oil filter. I put over 100,000 of my own miles on that car and sold it for $140 in 1973 when I upgraded to a brand new Dodge Coronet. I still saw it being driven around town up to three years later.

Thanks for the web site about the 1960 Dodge. That was a good car.

Mark Rollinson
Howell, Michigan

I just discovered your '60 Dodge website. I also have a fondness for the '60 Dodges. I was about 10 when my dad took myself, my sister and mother to a Dodge dealership in Detroit. It was after hours and the showroom was closed but the lights were on. Dad directed our attention to a convertible sitting in the middle of the showroom floor. It was beautiful. Dad proudly proclaimed that this was our new car! A '60 Dodge Dart Phoenix convertible. And it was pink! Well, Dad took some ribbing about the color. My father was a very conservative man. Nothing flashy about Dad. So it surprised the family and friends that he bought a pink (Dad would correct us that the factory color was "Fawn") convertible. But nevertheless we loved the Dart. I had campaigned for a Polara -- the "Big Dodge" when Dad made it known that he was thinking about buying a new car and was considering the Dart. I thought the Polara was more majestic and I loved the canted rear fins.

Dad loved to drive. And he drove the Dart nearly everyday. It proved to be a very reliable vehicle. Dad drove more than 100,000 miles on the car and never had any problems with the car mechanically. Just regular maintenance was all that was required. Later, about 1967, I had gotten my licence and Dad had replaced the Dart and I was given temporary custody of the car when I worked at a local Sinclair service station. Dad advised me not to lower the top due to some weak hydraulics. It was a temptation but I seldom lowered the top because I knew it would take two people to raise it again. I took pretty good care of the Dart and parked it prominently out in front of the gas station when I was working.

The "look" for street cars owned by my friends back then was to raise the front of their cars. This was usually done with spacers in the coil springs. Of course the Dart had torsion bars. So, while tinkering on the Dart one slow afternoon I jacked the front of the Dart up and wedged some old exhaust valves between the suspension and the subframe. When I lowered the jack the Dart remained sitting at full till with its nose raised in the air. It looked cool, I thought. I parked the Dart back out in front of the station for all to admire. Of course with the exhaust valves stuck in there the car had no suspension in the front. I drove it down the street and realized that it was riding like a coaster wagon. I was considering turning around to head back to the Sinclair station to remove the valves when the Dart removed them itself. First one side went "zing!" richocheing off the pavement and then the other side. Suddenly I had full suspension back again. I never did that again.

The kid working at the gas station across the street had a '59 Ford and occasionally we would leave work at the same time and then it was a race to the freeway. I recall that I managed to get in front of my friend and, at speeds that were higher than prudent, exited the freeway with the Ford glued to the rear bumper. I didn't like that much so I pushed the reverse button in just far enough to engage the backup lights. Since I was already heavy on the brakes into the curving exit ramp my friend apparently figured I had mistakenly slipped the car into reverse. He backed off in a hurry!

I drove the Dart for a couple of years. I had great adventures with the car with my friends. Eventually though the rust worms began to take serious control of the metal of the car. The headlamp housings were all but gone and it was time to retire the car. Dad was reluctant to part with any of our cars. At one time we had about eight or nine cars parked in the driveway. Friends who didn't visit often would drive over to visit and would later call that they didn't stop in because they thought we were having a party with all the cars in the driveway.

But it was time for the Dart to go. Living in the Cleveland area it was just a matter of time for the rust worms to render the Dart hazardous. The brother of one of my high school friends was in need of transportation so Dad sold the car to him. He drove it without problems for a couple of years until he retired it to his family farm in western Pennsylvania. I later graduated from college and moved back to Michigan. I inquired of my high school friend about his family farm and about the Dart that was left there behind a barn. He informed me that the farm had been sold but so far as he knew the Dodge was still back there. Sort of a sad ending to a noble vehicle. So now I'm hunting for another '60 Dodge Phoenix convertible. I won't let another one slip through my fingers!

Thanks for listening.

Mark Rollinson
Howell, Michigan

Mr. Tracy Remillard's 1960 Dodge Story

Spencer, Iowa