Nice looking Dodge

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Art - 30 Mar 2006 04:57 GMT

This is not my auction and I have no relationship to the seller or car but I
happened to come across it on ebay. I thought it was a nice looking car. I
don't remember ever seeing one before.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Dodge-Dodge-880-1964-Dodge-880-4-Dr-Black-1991-AA
CA-Sr-Winner_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6210QQitemZ4626384844QQtcZphoto

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kmatheson@sisna.com - 30 Mar 2006 15:58 GMT

> This is not my auction and I have no relationship to the seller or car but I
> happened to come across it on ebay. I thought it was a nice looking car. I
> don't remember ever seeing one before.
>
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Dodge-Dodge-880-1964-Dodge-880-4-Dr-Black-1991-AA
CA-Sr-Winner_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6210QQitemZ4626384844QQtcZphoto

Nice 880. I have always found it interesting that the 1964 880 gets it
looks from the early 1960's Chryslers (Virgil Exner), while the 1964
Polara and other *B* body models were clearly the work of Mr. Engle,
who had come from Chevrolet, if I remember correctly.

The front of the 880 appears to have a newer design than the rest of
the car. Plymouth did not have an 880 eqivalent for 1963 and 1964. Is
it possible that the 880 was a *carry-over* until the new *C* body
products were made available for 1965?

-Kirk Matheson

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Daniel J. Stern - 30 Mar 2006 17:23 GMT

>> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4626384844

(link changed from the ridiculously over-long kind to the short kind)

> Nice 880. I have always found it interesting that the 1964 880 gets it
> looks from the early 1960's Chryslers (Virgil Exner), while the 1964
> Polara and other *B* body models were clearly the work of Mr. Engle, who
> had come from Chevrolet, if I remember correctly.

Engle was hired over from Ford. The reason why the Custom 880s look like
Engle-facelifted Exner efforts is because that's exactly what they are.
The 1962 "full-size" Dodge and Plymouth cars were significantly downsized
from the 1961 models, because Chrysler management misinterpreted the
rumours of the 1962 Chevy II as meaning that the full-size Chevrolet was
to be downsized. An eleventh-hour downsizing order came down and Styling
had to shrink the '62s in a very big hurry. The public were aghast at the
results (which we now know as the first B-bodies and some of us like quite
a bit, thank you very much), and dealers hollered bloody murder, for they
had nothing to go against the (still completely large) full-sized Fords
and Chevrolets. As a stopgap, the 1962 Chrysler Newport was hurriedly
retrimmed and given a (hallucinatory) 1961 Dodge front end treatment --
voila, the 1962 Dodge Custom 880.

Custom 880s carried on being sold on the same bodyshell, reskinned and
retrimmed for 1963 and 1964. In 1965, the new C-body included a "designed
intentionally" Custom 880.

More details and pictures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Custom_880

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kmatheson@sisna.com - 30 Mar 2006 19:06 GMT

Dan, I figured that you would know the answer to this. I had always
wondered what happened when the full-sized models got shrunk for 1962.

Did the 1965 880 share the same body with the Polara and the Monaco?

I guess that I have never seen a '65 880, or if I have I probably
mistook it for a Polara or Monaco.

-Kirk Matheson

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