In the heat of the horsepower wars’ most intense battles, Detroit’s Big Three used the spearheading “muscle car” soldiers to wage the performance raids against one another. And when burning rubber all the way along a quarter-mile bout wasn’t enough, the mighty metal warriors received touches of plush, hints of comfort, drops of luxury, and pinches of ivy-league upbringing.
But with optional extras comes a brow-raising price tag, and that doesn’t attract massive volumes of buyers. Onlookers, admirers, in-the-wants – oh, yeah! Enough to fill a Super Bowl stadium ten thousand fold; paying customers – that’s a different story.
Then there’s the straightforward solution of making a low-priced car with minimum equipment and maximum performance. Something a teenager could afford – and this isn’t a metaphor. In 1969, a high-school senior could land a part-time job and get enough cash to leave a dealership at the wheel of a new car.
Dodge was a convenient way of making ends meet (from a piston perspective): “Play your cards right, and three G’s can put you in a whole lot of car this year.” (…) “Newest member of the Dodge Scat Pack. You Don’t make it on looks alone. 340 cubes of high-winding, 4-barrel V8.”
I intentionally omitted a sentence from this 1969 ad for this particular automobile with a very enticing headline: 6,000 RPM for less than $3,000. But I’ll bet a full tank of smiles that you already know what the car is: the 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger 340.
Not as famed as its heavy-grunt, deep-burbling Mopar brethren (think Charger, Road Runner, Coronet, or GTX), the Dart got the `Swinger` performance package that year. The 340 cubic-inch (5.6-liter) V8 made it one heck of a four-on-the-floor runner with a $2,836 price.
Although history does retain a specific occurrence of heavy-punching Dart production for 1968 and 1969 (both dedicated for drag strip usage only), the street version saw the peak of performance attained through the small-block 340 LA engine.
The exceptions mentioned are an 80-batch of HEMI-equipped Darts for 1969 (need I state the displacement? Fine – 426 CID, or seven liters) and fifty 440s in the following year (courtesy of Mr. Norm). For the rest of the Planet Piston population, the Swinger 340 was the absolute best Dart choice to make.
Yes, there was a 383 variant – the GTS, but the extra weight of the engine countered the extra horsepower, so the Swinger didn’t back down on its higher trim brother. Besides, Dodge put effort into promoting the Swinger 340 package that year.
The big news was the engine – the 340 in the Swinger was exclusive to the model. It had a 10.5:1 compression ratio – the highest of all Chrysler engines, small- or big-block, which made a difference. Or rather, it almost made no difference from the most notorious members of the V8 Mopar gunslingers of the time.
The exceptions mentioned are an 80-batch of HEMI-equipped Darts for 1969 (need I state the displacement? Fine – 426 CID, or seven liters) and fifty 440s in the following year (courtesy of Mr. Norm). For the rest of the Planet Piston population, the Swinger 340 was the absolute best Dart choice to make.
Yes, there was a 383 variant – the GTS, but the extra weight of the engine countered the extra horsepower, so the Swinger didn’t back down on its higher trim brother. Besides, Dodge put effort into promoting the Swinger 340 package that year.
The big news was the engine – the 340 in the Swinger was exclusive to the model. It had a 10.5:1 compression ratio – the highest of all Chrysler engines, small- or big-block, which made a difference. Or rather, it almost made no difference from the most notorious members of the V8 Mopar gunslingers of the time.
The headlamps are big and rectangular, flanking a deep blacked-out grille framed in chrome with two round fog lights right in the middle. If this isn’t eye-catching enough, a try-clops air intake with butterfly valves raises hopes for a supercharger underneath.
The hood sports two hold-down pins but no windshield wipers – I know the dragstrip hints keep getting stronger and stronger. Then there are the dual side mirrors – color-keyed to the car and housed in aerodynamic casings. Remember, in 1969, most cars had just the driver’s side mirror.
The custom Swinger is also lower and sleeker than its stock relatives – the windshield is raked some two inches toward the back than a regular model, and the roof is chopped four inches, too (eleven centimeters). And, to make the stance even more ground-hugging, the suspension is adjusted to hold the show car closer to the road, shaving another two inches (five centimeters) off the car’s height.
The rear resembled the sales version: a longer trunk ended in a mild spoiler molded in the lid, not glued, bolted, or welded on the sheet metal. The taillights were a definitive Charger appraisal, with the elongated, rounded shape protruding through the rear panel and taking up two-thirds of it.
The bumblebee stripe gave away the Scat Pack membership of the Dart Swinger, and the dual exhausts raised the pulse in anticipation. The car wasn’t much different from a standard unit on the inside, but getting in was – mainly because the doors had no handles.
There’s a button that does the magic trick, accessible through the tiny indentation in the body. The cabin features two bucket seats, not the usual bench, and a radio delete plate takes up the middle of the dash. Anything else is the typical Dart austerity – minimum instrumentation, three pedals, one big Hurst shifter, and that’s it.
The same principle dominates the engine bay – the 340 V8 is the factory powerhouse, the 275-hp, 340 lb-ft V8 with a four-venturi carburetor (279 PS / 461 Nm). No forced induction, the hood scoop mentioned earlier is purely ornamental. The A833 four-speed gearbox sends the spin to the 8.75-inch rear differential.
Although the gearing isn’t specified, it could be one of the three options available for the Dart Swinger 340 in 1969: the standard 3.23, a 3.55, or a more thrilling 3.91. As for getting the power on the ground, that’s the Ansen Sprint slotted wheels’ job (secured by power steering and brakes). For a driving demo, play the second video – the music perfectly matches the Swinger and its evocative rumble.
Now part of the Klairmont Kollections Auto Museum in Chicago, this one-of-one Dodge had a fantastic encounter with good fortune in its life. First, it didn’t end up in the crusher like most show cars and lived anonymously for many years. In 1989 it was purchased by Steven Juliano (THAT Steven Juliano, the Mopar-know-it-all collector of rare and one-off piston gems) and restored using original and new old stock parts.
In 2019, it was sold (for $110,000) at an auction, and last summer, it changed hands once more (the price on the seller’s website was $148,000 this time). While it never made it into mass production, this show car – penned by the famous Alexander Brothers from Detroit – shares some traits with the 1970 Swinger. Although it wasn’t the typical “idea car” – being made into an existing model’s image – the 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger 340 is referred to as a “concept car” that can rightfully sit alongside other fabulous creations from the late sixties Dodge Division.