Jalopnik
The '65 Barracuda won our Favorite DOTS Chrysler A-Body Poll back in March, but since that time I've found this '75 Dart Swinger. Would the Swinger, with its name conjuring up images of Malaise Era key parties, have triumphed over the Barracuda? Perhaps I'll have another A-body poll, once we've seen a few more of them; until then, we can only speculate.
The Swinger was the name Chrysler put on the 2-door Dart with the Custom mid-level trim package. The Special Edition series was the priciest Dart, though the real hot ticket was the $254 "Hang Ten" package, which got you surfer-esque graphics and tape stripes.
The standard engine on the '75 Dart was the 96-horsepower Slant Six 225, though you could get the Dart 360 Sport with a V8 boasting 200 horses.
This Swinger is in decent condition, with all four hubcaps still present and accounted for and no visible rust. The vinyl top is bad (of course), but other than that it's weathered 33 years quite well.
Comments
The very definition of bland.
318 with a 4-speed?
i wonder if it driver swaps regularly
Even back then I could not fathom how they came up with that moniker.
[www.solarnavigator.net]
@Mike the Dog: You can see the column automatic transmission selector next to the steering wheel in the pic through the rear window.
My '75 Swinger was a 318 auto car, bland but moderately fun. Lots of seats for a non-huge car, good sized trunk, handled OK with the wheels & tires off my 'cuda.
However, calling it a Swinger was optimistic at best. I got *no* tail in that car, perhaps better luck if it had been PM Yellow?
OMG I learned to drive on that car!! my dad had burgundy one!! Oh she was a sleeper... good on gas too. A tire burning witch she was, well on one side anyhow. Cold ac. Good on long trips. They are all dead now. RIP.
I wonder how many Swingers actually bought Swingers?
I dated a girl in college that had a Dodge Dart Swinger... it was brown to hide the rust. We had many great times in the back seat of the Swinger.
I have nothing but love for the malaise of the Dart.
Yes it does appear the Auto designers back then did drop too much acid and eat too many shrooms....Their visions and creativity were severly altered.
"The Swinger" from 1966. The last time the term was actually cool. How's that for obscure?
+ Watch video
@mytdawg: bravo sir!
Dig the Swinger title. Doesn't look too bad for a malaise era car either.
Needs a Tramp Stamp on the trunk....
This definitely bring its keys to the party!
and just what sex-mobile was it competing against in 1975? was the Maverick more manly? the Vega more sultry?
folks, this is when the Cordoba and Monte Carlo were the rides of choice for "playahs"
ugh, nauseous that i even typed "playah".. must go throw up now
@abgwin: Don't be dissin' the Monte Bondo now...
Crap, now I gotta go throw up.
@OldeEnglishD: How about a tramp* on a Scamp's trunk?
*I am not implying anything about the young lady's virtue. I'm sure she's really a good girl.
My aunt had a 2 door Swinger. Not sure why a Swinger considering it was owned between Lincoln Marks somethings.
This car is living proof that humanity will never fully eradicate genital herpes.
@abgwin: You forgot the hippest chillinest ride of the 70's...
A few weeks ago, I was in a mall near Rochester, and throughout the mall, there were local circle track and drag cars on display (I never did figure out why), but among the standouts was a really nice Dart Swinger. It was pretty complete, not stripped out. A very nice car, and I wish I had my camera at the time.
Am I the only one who always thinks this car looks more like a late 60s than mid 70s?
I had a light gold yellow '74 Swinger, slant six w/ auto. Those things will last forever as long as you can protect the body from rain - I couldn't. The windows never seal properly, and the rear window sits in a gutter that just loves to collect water.
Those hubcaps, that grille, in that colour. Calling it Swinger is like someone's dad trying to convince us all he's still cool
My cousins from UK rented one of these beauties back in the day and all I remember about the car was that the car would keep running/dieseling even after you took the key out of the ignition until it finally shook itself off. Also, my parents' scumbag Real Estate agent had one too. She kept trying to sell my parents crappy fixer uppers because my dad was "handy" when all they wanted was an already fixed house.
@monsterajr: the running/dieseling was due to it being out of tune. The timing a little off makes it do that. EASY fix.
My buddy had a '74 swinger w/ 318 auto. It was loads of fun.
Fresh air ducts FTW! really wish cars still had these.
I had a 72 Scamp, the Plymouth version. I loved the reverse curve rear window.
All it takes is a little love to make them ROCK....
In a universe where Ford could sell a "Maverick Grabber," a car called "Swinger" made perfect sense.
The "Swinger"...
"It's Groooooovy Baby!"
Check out this Swinger:
[cgi.ebay.com]
Matte black decals on gloss black paint is the new black.
Lovely cars, crisply styled and well proportioned. Gorgeous in the rear especially, with the concave glass, semi-skirted wheel wells and the angled tail treatment.
That said, mechanically and rust-wise the '74 Swinger I had in the mid-eighties was probably the worst car I ever owned. And I've had two Vegas and a Monza.
@Bumblebee: Thanks! That is one bad a** lookin' Dart.
Dart Swinger as a name sounds 100 times better than Pontiac "Gee 8". Pontiac's most capable car in years and they call it GeeAte GeeExPee.
I've been a Dartophiliac my entire life, and I always will be (my parents owned a half-dozen, I've owned 2 so far)- but any Favorite A-body Poll will always be dominated by the first-gen Valiant.
And while the juxtaposition of the concepts "Dodge Dart" and "swinger" is always good for a laugh, the '73-'76 Darts (and Valiants for that matter) are like running into the hot girl that sat in front of you in English Lit ten years later and finding her in curlers with spreading hips and receding teeth, saddled with an abusive husband and 3 troglodyte kids.. That goofy beaked nose and the XL-sized bumpers just corrupt the memories of it's former fieldhockey-skirt legshow glory.
They even ruined the badge itself by doing away with the best part- the oh-so-Mod flower/star/whatever over the "I":
During my driver's ed. class, circa 1977, our stuffy middle-age teacher Mr. Geno was mocking all the wild car names that appealed to youthful buyers like "Javelin" and "Charger" and "Mustang."
Then the class clown piped up, "Yeah, and look what appeals to you old guys. The Dodge Dart 'Swinger'."
Everyone cracked up, even the teacher. I always think of that when I see one of these.
The Dart Swinger, sexier than your granny's Dart four door.
I like Swingers too... the cars and the people who don't drive them.
@DannyBN: I would prefer a somewhat, um, how do you say.....smaller, less visually offensive tramp...
Shit cars then.
Shit cars now.
A friend of mine had a '74 Swinger he beat the snot out of, course it had the Slant Six that he managed to destroy, the wonderful 7 1/4" rear end that had enough slop in it make unholy noises when you did manage to get the leaf springs wound up or put it in reverse, and the wonderful manual drum brakes. He thought it was great to put a 3" exhaust with a glasspack on the ol' Six and from there after it sounded like an angry lawnmower from two blocks away.
Couldn't handle worth a darn ether with no swaybars.
but it was clean and straight and no rust 80,000 mile car when he sold it for an even worse '85 Mustang 5.0
An ex-girlfriend of mine loves these things, and I have no idea why. She also loves Dodge Aries's.
"Swingtown" prop whore for sure!
Those things used to be everywhere with every known modification. The jellybean of its day.
I spent the majority of my senior year of high school riding around in one of these with my best friend. It was painted fire engine beige. At one point another friend of his defaced the hood with a sharpie drawn cartoon face. Deciding to go with it he asked all his friends to add something to the mobile mural. By the time the tie rods broke it was almost completely covered in signatures, poems and cartoons. In fact he would often park it only to come back later and find MORE additons from complete strangers.
Ahh good times.
@DoggieDaddy: Bland then, retro-ironic-chic today. Funny how our perspective on the past is skewed like that, huh?
Ironic hipsters of the future will proudly proclaim their trendy, anticonsumerism identities behind the wheels of hubcap-missing banged-up 2007 Corollas. (But the truly special will have opted for the Echo.)
Is there any factory floor boards left in these things? I thought they all leaked from the factory.
Highway 61 released a 1:18 diecast of a 1969 Dart Swinger, according to old
[www.toywonders.com]
and here a article about a 1970 Swinger, there was more muscled with the 340 engine then [www.moparmusclemagazine.com]
my grandmother had a dodge dart swinger, in that color, with that interior. she bought it new and traded in her opel station wagon for it.
A bodies were everywhere and cheap in the 80's when most were destroyed. Had a 71 Duster with 230 hp 318, manual steering and brakes which was a fun car. Had a 73 Swinger in the light blue above with blue interioer, again 318 only down to 150 hp and you could tell the difference. Finally had a 76 purple swinger with corporate Duster/Challenger bucket seats, it drove like my freind's 73 Imperial. Big, slow and heavy at the end but still better than the next 250 years of Chrysler crap that followed. Check out the Australian, South African and Brazilian versions built until 1981.