1970 Dodge Dart Giveaway Car

[blownhemi]

In my job I occasionally get to build cars with other people's money. Lots of fun, but lots of responsibility too. I was given a timetable and a budget to find and build a car that we could use as a subscriber giveaway car. The boss wanted to do a Mopar because in the 33 year history of the magazine we'd never built a Mopar. Obviously it's a choice that I liked so I set about looking for a car. First choice was an Aussie Mopar, and we have some cool cars to choose from. We looked hard for an Aussie Charger (Like the Faraone car seen at the last few Drag Weeks), but they're so expensive now we couldn't find anything within the tight budget. I can't say how small the budget was, but it was low enough that we couldn't get bogged down in rust and paint repairs. Especially with a timeframe of just six months - yep, just six months to buy and build a car. After looking at way too many shitboxes I ended up finding a very tidy 1970 Dart Swinger. It was head and shoulders above everything else I looked at. Rather than try and tell the whole story now, I'll show you what we started with. Most will wonder how we can improve on what is a very cool looking car already.

[DanStokes]

That IS a sweet car! I notice it's left hand drive - was it an American car to start with? Will you have to convert it to RH drive to be legal? I'm SO confused.

Sounds like you work for a car mag. I guess I missed that - which one? From time to time when I'm at Bonneville someone will bring a box of Aussie mags and pass them out to us volunteers.

Dan

[squirrel]

it would be left hand drive, an import, because the Australian mopars were not Dodges, nor were they Darts. You'd typically find something like a Chrysler Valiant down there.

I bet a lot of guys here in the States would kill for a nice clean Valiant Ute!

[JOES66FURY]

and....and....waiting....for....more....lets see it...

[blownhemi]

Need to grab a couple pics off my old phone and PC

[blownhemi]

We align honed the block today. The plan is to build nice torquey 408ci Stroker and make around 500hp. But as with horseshoes and handgrenades; close enough is good enough.

[Huskinhano]

Cool project! I've always had a softspot for Darts ever since a coworker had a 68 GTS, 340 and 727 trans. I still remember him telling me about the night he out ran the cops doing 4 wheel drifts around corners. He was 17 and was drunk.

[blownhemi]

To be honest I would have preferred a '68 but it was the right car for the right money and it only had a 318 so it gave us something to work with. Aussies don't mind Darts because they're similar to the Valiant hardtops which were sold here in the late 60s.