Cars in Barns
Moparts "Jaw Dropper" Collection - Edition
Page 208
1969 Dodge Dart GTS.
A brief history on the car. I bought the car out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama after placing a want ad on Moparts. The guy I bought the car from owns a 67 Dart GTS 383 car that he got as a graduation present back in 1967. A guy he knows knew he was into Darts and gave him the 69 Dart GTS. The 69 GTS sat outside with the hood unbolted setting on the car. A tornado came through Coker and destroyed the owners home with his 67 Dart GTS inside the garage. All the tornado did to the 69 Dart GTS was suck the unbolted hood off the car. He said the hood was found about a half mile away wrapped around a tree.
He has since had his 67 Dart GTS 383 car restored and the car is beautiful. The 69 Dart GTS sat outside in the elements six years before the owner moved it to a equipment barn. Picture of the tornado carnage to the 67 Dart GTS are on the GTS Registry. I was looking for a 68 Dart GTS on Moparts when I got a reply about this 69 Dart GTS. The owner sent me some photos and we negotiated a price. I made the drive from Texas to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to go get the car.
It was a rolling body. All tinted glass was good. I could not open the passenger door. It had Duster bucket seats in it and a small go-kart size steering wheel. The front suspension was hacked up with backwoods welding. The LCA's were welded to the k-frame and the torsion bars were missing. The upper A-frame perches were broke. But I wanted the car. The owner has a backhoe business and we used his backhoe to load the car on to my trailer for the trip back to Texas. The owner was a nice guy and even offered to put me up for the night. I thanked him, but was excited to get back home with the car.
It was a ten hour drive back home. When I got back home I decoded the fender tag and had Galen Govier decode the fender tag. Galen lists the car as number 1 of 74 1969 Hamtramck built Dodge Dart GTS 340/auto cars known to exist. The car is documented as the oldest known with Govier, but in the GTS Registry there is one older. The car was built on 8-01-68 and is a first day of production car making it rare. The 340/727 are long gone. But plenty of parts were found in the trunk.
The cars only options were A/C and power steering. I have replaced everything that was not original to the car. I replaced the k-frame, torsion bars, LCA's, UCA's, ball joints, tie rod ends, bushings, brake drums etc. I found correct white bucket seats, woodgrain steering wheel, a power bulge hood, front bumper, hubcaps, grill, and head light bezels. I have a butt load of extra parts I have been stockpiling for the resto. I am still looking for the missing 340/727. I may go with a date correct block if I can find one.
Mopar Muscle did a story on the car in 2005 in the Rare Finds section. It's got a cool history and some day I'll put the key and drive it. Maybe the good lord had a reason he spared this car from extinction.
Enjoy!
-Joe
1971 Plymouth Road Runner.
The car still sits in the same location, buying under the easy installment plan, lol. I used to work with this guy, we went to all the major car shows east of the Mississippi, and I pulled parts off this car in the junkyard where it sat for 2 years before i looked at the vin number. When I looked at the fender tag, i saw it had an "M" in the VON, so i called Galen. he told me what it was (yes i had the fendertag in my grasp, I took it off the car). So 6 months later, when me and Jerry were at the same place we bought the car. It had been sitting in that junkyard for 15-20 years as far as he knew (this was taking place in the late 90's). We bought it, and last year, I made a deal with Jerry for the car, me knowing exactly what this car is, so now it comes home this summer, and thats when i will start on it. 383hp/4speed, 3.23 s/g, ps, pdb, strato-vent, tinted glass, tach, am/fm/cassette, buckets console, stripe, tips, 15x7 rallyes. The pics of the 71 advert car is what this car is, its the only one of the promo's to have a fully painted roof under the canopy vinyl top. lots of little strange things with tis car also, like it had an astrotone(silver, like in the parts catalogues) rallye cluster face, other things.
-Chris
