After World War II ended and Detroit returned to making civilian cars instead of building weapons, most new American cars from 1946-1948 were slightly redesigned versions of previous designs. war (for the Americans wanted car right away). 1949 was the year the major models of American automobiles really left the war in the rearview mirror; Ford went to Independent front suspension and nicer lines, GM introduce brand new overhead valve V8 engine line and nicer linesAnd Chrysler… well, Chrysler keep building heavy-looking machines with reliable but outdated powertrain and suspension hardware. New 1949 Dodges has a slightly smoother looking bodywork than 48’s, but styling turned to metal in those days, and sales weren’t as strong as Chrysler had hoped. This is one of those cars, a top Coronet in Self-service vendor’s yard in Northern California.
I stopped by this yard on an e-fueled drive from San Francisco Bay to the World’s Largest Small City because I have seen this car in Row52’s online inventory and i want to get some windshield wiper hardware for my 1941 Plymouth project. The wiper parts don’t fit my car, but this avoid turned out to be quite solid and complete, well worth documenting for This series.
In the 1949 Chrysler Corporation brand reputation hierarchy, Dodge ranked above Plymouth entry level but below DeSoto And Chrysler.
The Coronet name was introduced in 1949, designating the top trim level for that year’s Dodge vehicle (the last new Dodge to carry the Coronet name in North America). was a model in 1976).
The list price of this car is $1,927, or about $23,904 in 2022. cheapest 1949 Dodge four-door sedan was Meadowbrook, priced at $1,848 ($22,924 today). Serious cheapskates can get a shortened ’49 Plymouth De Luxe four-door for just $1,492 ($18,508 now).
What you got as standard equipment on affordable cars back in 1949 was vastly different from what you get today. For example, you have to pay extra for a heater in a 1949 Dodge. I should have bought this “MoPar 70” logo while I was there.
This is what Dodge’s brochure writers have described as “comfortable living room.”
This is what it would have looked like almost three-quarters of a century ago.
The serial number (I removed the last two digits) shows that this car was built in California, although not in California. Los Angeles factory. It turns out that Chrysler already has an assembly plant in Northern California, on Davis Street in San Leandro, and that’s where this car was born. First scrap yard I ever patronized, when looking for parts for my 1969 Toyota Corona sedan in the early 1980s, in Davis, just across from Doolittle Drive from the factory site. Chrysler closed the San Leandro plant in 1954, after which it was used by International Harvester and later by Caterpillar. Today, Drake’s Brewing Company make beer there.
The engine is one Chrysler flat six-cylinderwas a tool manufactured from the 1920s until the 1970s (later used in generators and irrigation pumps, as well as powering some army truck). Chrysler didn’t join the overhead six-valve craze until long after GM and Ford, with Slant-6 . engine first appeared in the 1960s models. In case you are interested, the last mass-produced new car you can buy with a flathead motor in the United States is the 1964 Marathon Checker.
If this is the engine installed in San Leandro when this car was built, it’s a 230 cc (3.8 liter) engine with 102 hp. However, these engines have been swapped out early and often for decades, so it could be one of the many different versions.
The transmission was one of the oddities of its time: a half-automatic. Known as gyroscope 1949 avoid (or Presto-Matic in Chryslers and Tip-Toe Shift in DeSotos), this line is used Chrysler’s Fluid Drive Coupling instead of a flywheel, with two forward gears plus an electrically actuated overdrive resulting in four forward speeds. The base gearbox in the 1949 Dodge cars was a Instructions to move column three on the tree with fluid drive (allows you to shift gears when stopping and starting in any gear, but still requires a clutch to shift gears), but Coronet buyers can get a Gyro-Matic option.
You still have the clutch pedal with the Gyro-Matic, but the driver only uses it when shifting the shift lever between positions (intermediate, reverse, low and high). Someone already knows how to drive three on the tree normally going crazy over Gyro-Matic, because it looks exactly like that much more common setup. When driving, you press the clutch, select Low (in second place in three-speed mode) or High (in third position), release the clutch and press the accelerator. At that point, it can be driven like a regular automatic, until you want to change between the Low and High ranges.
This is a demonstration of the Gyro-Matic in action. The transmission’s final year was 1953, after which the conventional two-pedal automatic took over the Chrysler lineup in North America.
I liked this watch a lot, but didn’t buy it.
This car is not rusty, but the interior shows that it has spent decades outdoors. Restoring this mess will cost a lot.
Pick-n-Pull usually tries Car sales like this as a “builder” before putting them in general stock available for parts, but no buyers at this price. I find pretty much Chrysler products in this era IN large self-service yardso obviously the number of these cars out there is more than the number of people willing and able to fix them.
