David Krumboltz — for Bay Area News Group Walnut Creek’s Ron Hunt appears recently with his 1968 Dodge Dart GTS.
Many cars have been named after their inventors: Some of the better-known are Ford, Chevrolet, Nash, Willys, Packard and Buick, just to name a few. Dodge was named after two brothers, though — John and Horace Dodge. They started with a Detroit machine shop in 1900 and soon received a contract to manufacture parts for the new Ford Motor and Olds Motor Vehicle Cos.
The Dodge brothers made their fortune early, when Henry Ford in 1903 offered them 10% of the new Ford Motor Co. in exchange for manufactured parts worth $10,000, or about $348,520 in today’s dollars. In 1913, the Dodge Brothers Motor Co. was established and introduced their own car the following year. They were still making parts for Ford, but a business disagreement led to Ford buying out the Dodge brothers’ contract for about $27 million in today’s dollars.
Among the superior features of the Dodge Brothers cars were all-steel bodies; 12-volt electrical systems (six-volt systems were used by competitors until the 1950s); a 35-horsepower engine instead of the 20-horsepower engine in Ford’s Model T; and a sliding-gear transmission. By 1916, the Dodge Brothers were ranked second in U.S. vehicle sales. Before World War II, because of their durability and reliability, Dodge Brothers became the largest supplier of light-wheeled military vehicles.
1920 was a tough year, though. Both Dodge Brothers died, one in January and one in December, leaving the brothers’ widows in charge. They made Frederick Haynes, a long-time company officer, president of the company, but early in the 1920s the company’s sales ranking slipped to seventh place. The widows sold the company to an investment group, and by 1927 the sales rank was down to 13th place.
The new Chrysler Corp., the successor to Maxwell Motor Co., was incorporated in 1928 and acquired Dodge Brothers Motor Co., which was actually a bigger company than Chrysler. Chrysler wanted the Dodge company for its factory in Hamtramck, Michigan (which was used until 1980) and for its dealer network. By the end of that year, sales had improved to seventh place.
A lot of thought goes into naming a car model. The Dart model name was first used by Dodge from 1959 to 1962 as a full-size car, but most people think of a Dodge Dart as a compact car, which it became in 1963. The good-looking fourth-generation of Dodge Darts began with the all-new 1967 models. Completely restyled, the new Darts had an inversely curved rear window and curved side glass as well as mechanical improvements like the steering system, wider front track and other suspension changes.
Dodge was getting heavily involved in performance vehicles. There were a number of the models included in the “Scat Pack” category with “bumble bee” stripes around the rear of the car including the Dodge Dart GTS, Dodge Charger R/T, and Dodge Coronet R/T.
This issue’s featured car is a 1968 Dodge Dart GTS belonging to Walnut Creek resident Ron Hunt. According to Google, people keep a new car on average for about eight years, but this Dodge Dart GTS has been in the same family since it was purchased new by Hunt’s mom from Butler-Conti Dodge in Lafayette 55 years ago.
Hunt and his sisters actually learned to drive with this car. Hunt acquired the Dart in 1975 from his mom, and it now has 125,000 miles on the original 275-horsepower, 340-cubic-inch V8 engine that’s teamed with an automatic transmission.
“The original color was a beautiful rust color with a black vinyl top,” Hunt said. “Mom worked for Kaiser, and she parked around the corner at the side of the hospital. There used to be an on-off ramp there, and she would park under the overpass. One day she couldn’t park all the way under the overpass. They were doing construction, and a full load of liquid cement covered the car.”
The car was then repainted the original factory rust color (poorly), then later was painted white (poorly) then blue (poorly).
“A friend of mine in the late 1980s was painting a Camaro and commented that my Dart needed paint. I thought he was joking when he said ‘I have enough paint to paint that car for you.’ We painted it this beautiful red with the black bumble bee strips in his garage, and it has lasted this long.”
The car is all original except the paint, of course, and the front bench seat has been replaced with bucket seats. More changes are coming, though.
“Ever since I’ve had it,” the mechanically skilled owner said, “I’ve dreamt of it being a four-speed.”
He now has acquired a four-speed transmission and will install it himself soon. Hunt is a car collector (he has five), not a car trader, so he has no plans to sell. Besides, he loves his Mopar too much.
Have an interesting vehicle? Contact David Krumboltz at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To view more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles or to read more of Dave’s columns, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz online.
Originally published at David Krumboltz