One of my favorite feelings is that excited, intense sensation all true car geeks get when they see a car you just can’t identify. We’re sort of like junkies, and the more we learn, the harder it is to get really excited, and to get the desired feeling you need ever more obscure cars. This car — the Dodge Boulevard 3700 GT — is just the high you need.
This particular hit of automotive smack was kindly sent to me by loyal Jalop Typecast_Wookie, who described his remarkable find like this:
Anyways, today while googling “cars owned by Trick Daddy” (I’m not even kidding, I don’t know why I was doing that) I stumbled on something I’ve never seen mentioned on Jalopnik during my 25+ years of reading the site every morning. Now, I consider myself a top-tier professional when it comes to looking at cars on the internet, and I can assure you I’m one of the best in the business. I can look at thousands of pictures of cars in a single day without even breaking a sweat, no biggie - but even as a seasoned veteran of ‘The War Against Cars I’ve Never Looked At Pictures Of” - sometimes something will surprise me...
Well, today, at 10:45am, this Dodge infiltrated my admittedly cheap Acer monitor and caught me with my pants down... Ladies and gentlemen, The Dodge Boulevard 3700GT coupe, and MM30.
Holy crap. Look at that thing — it’s strange and familiar and strange and awkward and glorious and sporty and fussy all at once. I’m not kidding, I flat-out love this thing. It feels a little bit like an Iso Grifo’s deadbeat cousin, or maybe the offspring of a Mustang Mach I and a DeTomaso Mangusta, or any number of beautiful, unholy couplings that would result in something with these wonderfully exaggerated long-hood-short-rump proportions.
Even better, mechanically, this thing is brother to the old, humble, pedestrian Dodge Dart, and uses the same old Slant 6 engine that we’ve known and loved for years in everything from Volares to forklifts.
So how the hell did all this happen? What the hell is this thing, anyway?
Here’s the story: Chrysler wanted to sell Dodge Darts in Spain, but at the time, Spain was quite protectionist, economically, and wouldn’t sell imported cars. To get around the restrictions, Chrysler partnered with Barreiros Diesel, who built the Dart from CKD kits, changing the name to the “Dodge 3700” and adding options like a diesel engine.
So, the 3700 was basically just a slightly modified Spanish Dart (which sounds like a euphemism for something violent or gross) but, of course, that wasn’t enough for some people, like coachbuilder Pedro Serra. Serra designed a new tube chassis and fiberglass body for the 3700’s mechanical bits and came up with the striking coupe you see here, which he called the Dodge Boulevard 3700 GT, and, in at least one version (I’m not totally clear on this) the MM-30.
There were plans to make around 50 of these athletic-looking coupes, but Spanish bureaucracy and all the usual tedious demons that try to prevent any cool things from happening conspired and only 18 were made. I think that’s a shame, as a sporty European coupe/sort-of-muscle-car with Slant 6 power (and, in at least one variation, Saab 99 taillights) seems like a pretty fantastic idea to me.
I’m really happy this was sent in. I can’t wait to start working it into top images of unrelated stories when I need a good, baffling car to use. If anyone has seen one of these in person, or knows any more about them, please tell us in the comments!
(silver car photo from here; yellow car from here.)
Contact the author at jason@jalopnik.com.