2-For-1: 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger 340 4-Speed
In 1968, Chrysler would introduce a hot small-block engine known as the 340. Over the course of six years, the motor would find its way into all sorts of Mopars, including the Plymouth Barracuda, ‘Cuda, Duster and Road Runner, and the Dodge Challenger, Charger, Demon, and Dart Swinger – like this one from 1970. Nearly 217,000 Chrysler products were built with that powerplant in them through 1973. While this car is a Swinger 340, it’s not numbers-matching and will need a ton of work. But you get a spare body to go along with the subject car! They reside in Ft. Pierce, Florida, and nine bids have reached $2,850 here on eBay.
The Dodge Dart was redesigned for 1967 and that platform would carry it through its final year, 1976. The Swinger name first appeared in 1969 as the Dart’s 2-door hardtop when they dropped the pillared sedan with the same number of doors. That included the Swinger 340, Dodge’s smallest performance machine. For 1970, the Swinger 340 came with functional hood scoops carrying 340 emblems, front disc brakes, heavy-duty “Rallye” suspension, a 3.23:1 rear axle ratio, fiberglass-belted bias-ply tires mounted to 14″ × 5½” steel wheels, and a “bumblebee” stripe. Dodge built 13,785 Dart Swinger 340s for 1970.
The seller has an entire spare, prime red Swinger body to go along with the titled car, so presumably, the buyer would have enough there to make one good car out of two. The main auto is rusty and bruised, especially the driver’s side rear quarter. Apparently, the floor pans were in bad shape, so they have already been removed. And the front frame rails have rust along with the torsion bar cross-member. We don’t see much of the interior other than parts of the dashboard and one door panel, so we assume this area of the car will need a bunch of work, too. The vehicle has more than 100,000 miles on it and they look like hard ones.
The 340 engine, which is not original, would have put out 275 hp when new. It does not run per se, but the motor does turn over and the 4-speed transmission will go through the gears. The engine is a later 1970 340 and the tranny is from the year before. The fender tag is still present to help with any research the buyer may want to do. On the good news front, the 8 ¾ rear-end has been rebuilt and the car has the correct radiator and exhaust manifold.
If you spend some time Googling, you’ll find that NADA says top examples are running north of $20,000, and yet some online ads are at twice those amounts. So, after a restoration, you could end up with a desirable car should you want to resell it later, but at what cost to get there? This looks to have the potential of becoming a money pit rather quickly.
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Comments
I am getting all the adds when I am logged in. Letting you know, GP
I guess…if you can do ALL of the work yourself. These A bodies will never bring the cash of their B or E body counterparts so this would definitely be a labor of love. Darts / Dusters are fun cars to drive, especially in 4-speed variant but the journey here is a long one.
The value of this car depends on the condition of the spare body. The red one, which is the subject of this story, is a parts car. At its current high bid of $4,050 a convincing argument can be made that the price is still reasonable based on using the 340 car as a donor. You get basically a complete car with all of the small hard to find parts along with the 340, 4spd, clutch linkage, steering column, 8 3/4 rear end, disc brakes, instrument cluster and more. Forget about switching over the VIN, just build it as a street machine/hot rod with a great drivetrain. This has the potential to be a reasonably priced build, which once done would be a fun driver. Rebuilding the red 340 body is a fools errand.
Steve R
It is a nice smorgasbord of parts to make a Swinger 340 clone. That’s worth something, but not a whole heckuva lot.
You have a very good idea Steve however I don’t think the other body vin is a swinger 340 which down the road hopefully far down if we should have to separate from the car wiether us or our children estate setteler the swinger vin would command slot more then a dart vin that was a 2 door slant 6 but your idea would be much faster and less $$ poured into it and it would be a blast roasting the tires off of this machine my dad had a 70 swinger that came from Dodge equipped with a 383 he bought it in 87 for 500 bucks the body was half in primer other1/2 needed work trunk was rotted but overall not bad any that was supposed to be my first car when I got my license in 6 months so I stared doing work to it got the body straight and primed tore out the interior put 2 racing seats in sheet metaled all the panels then my dad especially my mom started to get parinode that I would be out hot doghing it and racing and kill someone or myself and sold the car for 2500 I got to keep the $$$ including his original 500 Wich I bought a 81 z28 for 4500 they gladly cosigned all my friends taught I had the fastest car but I knew I had gotten rid of the fast car at my young age I couldn’t believe the difference when you mashed the pedal not Ren the same class sorry to write a book here Steve however your idea of hot roding the dart took me foeen memmiore lane I in no way knocking your idea I was just looking from an investment point of view but sometimes thier just made for fun hope your enjoying your holiday weekend
Hey guys, the donor car(Go Mango) IS a 340 car, it was mine and I sold the body and other parts, because I was not able to sale as a complete car. I took it apart to restore and lost my shop, due to it was sold. I needed a fast sale to keep it intact, but was not able to do so. It was a automatic, power disc, ac, power steering, rally instruments(no tack), white stripe and 8 3/4 rear, 3.23 open. I still have the title. Will sale for $1,000.00 to the buyer of the car to match. Still have some parts left (motor and 727 is gone). Owner knows how to get hold of me. This is not my ad, but would like to help all involved to build a cool car, that could still be worth the effort in doing so.
Illegal or not, you know that the VIN from the roached 340 car will end up on the donor body… doubling the end value of the build will be way too tempting for most folk.
That is why i’m offering it to the buyer, to complete a titled 340 Dart Swinger. I was asking $5,000.00 for the complete original, matching, body, motor and transmission, but could not sell at that price, so I had to part it out, due to lack of storage. As stated before, motor and transmission was the first to go. SAD :( I was almost ready to paint when I had to move, so the body was a prize to the new owner. The correct title would add to his fine purchase and not be a clone car. To answer the other question, the title, dash & fender tags, along with the broadcast sheet would look fine hanging on my office wall. The $1,000.00, I believe is a fair and honest price, for the value it would add to the car. In all fairness to me, I sold the body far less then it’s worth, because the title was not included.
Curious why the buyer did not ask for/receive the title. You have no use for it but now value it at $1,000. The buyer basically is illegally swapping vin tags when a title exists. Seems odd all the way around.
Since the title for the spare is being held hostage and known to exist what would keep them from strolling in at some point with law enforcement and saying it’s their car.
Good point Jay, I never thought of that, myself being a honest person and giving someone a chance of having a nice worthwhile car at the end of a possible costly project. I guess the owner of the body must keep it as a parts car, as the way I sold it and that would eliminate any possibility of someone later trying to claim it.
Never, ever swap vins. I know a guy that had a 67 Chevelle, big block four speed. He got pulled over, cops started checking and the vin had been swapped onto a stolen body. Turns out it had parts from five different stolen cars on it. Massive legal bills, cool car that sat in a wrecking yard for 20 years because no title could be gotten. broke in half when it was moved to a different part of the yard and the oilpan fell off. It is not worth sending yourself or someone else to jail. Wipe your ass with your title scumbag, it should have went with the car, no matter what.
Gerry Rhoads, not sure why you all coming off so nasty about someone selling a clean tittle that belongs to a car, that it came from. There is nothing illegal about that. If the tittle went to the other car, then maybe you are correct. If you read and comprehended what was written, there is no mention of anything that was wrong or illegal. I would enjoy to see that 70′ 340 Swinger on the road again. I sold the body as seen in the photo for $200.00, way less then if it came with the tittle. I did not appreciate your nasty comment and it was not called for.