Route 66 in a '60 Dodge Matador Stn Wgn

Two years after moving back to hometown Chicago with 5 kids under 6 years old, with the birth of yet 3 more kids... Dad decided it was too expensive to raise a family having to buy both winter clothes and summer clothes (among a whole bunch of other stuff). He bought a used 1960 Dodge Matador Station Wagon, in two-tone Cities Service green & white, rented a U-Haul and headed out onto Route 66 - bound for San Fernando, California. It was August, 1964. My babiest sister was just 8 months, and the eldest of Mom and Dad's eight kids was just 8 years (meself).

Of course, we had assigned seating. The baby sat up front between M&D; second row was the 3 eldest - meself right behind Dad, me sister in the middle, and me high-spirited brother who looked a lot like Dad - at the far right just out of reach. No 3rd row seat unfortunately for the 5 younger ones, and I must say that I'm not sure if they had assigned spots back there. Brother Number 3 (names not revealed to protect their reputations) held sway in spite of being several months shy of 5 years.

The trip took 7 days, the Dodge's auto trans nearly going kaput (I think we had only 2nd gear left). Many significant things happened along the way. One brother's bed wetting problem was cured (after several days of ACCIDENTS) by being left in a gas station. For a while anyway. And we had that wagon until after I graduated high school...

So my first car was a 1963 Impala Station Wagon, with Dagmars on the front bumper, and a chrome roof rack. My sisters nick-named her Bess. Bought it in '72 for $350, drove it for 13 years, 3 engines, two transmissions, and then sold it for $350. Thus now and then I like to check and see if there are any survivors out there... either of the Dodge Matador wagon or of the'63 Imapala wagons (very partial to the classy tail-light treatment that helps differentiate the 63 from the 64, and the Dagmars!)... I come to this site every once in a while and very much enjoy what you all have here. Thank you for letting me visit. Thought I would just say howdy for now. Will have to go see if I can dig up any old photos of those cars. Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Well J, nice to meet you. Excellent family story, thanks for sharing it. Glad you joined our group, hope to see more of you around the forums.

 

to the forum jcarrollfamily . Quite an interesting story. Now all you need is another family wagon and some more stories.
Maybe even a ride on what's left of Rt 66 back to Chicago singin Folsum Prison blues!
Chicago hasn't really changed much since 1964.

 

Great story, J Carroll!

I too was running around southern California in the late 60's/ early 70's having grown up in west L.A. Graduated HS in the summer of '69. A great time to be young. I remember driving out to the San Fernando valley one day to cruise all the car lots on Van Nuys Bl. Saw a flat-top Olds Cutlass that would have been nice. Unfortunately, my budget was "hundreds- ish" wheras the wagon was in the "thousand-ish".

I can relate to your trip in the Dodge Matador as we had a '66 Chevy Caprice wagon in our family - 5-6 kids (depending on who was home) but they only bought a 6-passenger. So it was usually my brother and I flopping around in the way-back without a seat, like cargo.

Welcome to the forum.

Marshall

 

Welcome to the madness jcarrollfamily! for opening post rating.......oh wait, that doesn't apply here....never mind! Great story and welcome!

 

J
and a great story/intro.....glad you've hung out and enjoyed our banter

 

Welcome jcarrollfamily!

 

Belated welcome to the forum!

 

Welcome and enjoyed the story!

 

Thanks for the story. Do you have any old family photos of the wagons from your past?

 

Just last night came across a b&w photo of the 63 chev impala wagon, from early/mid-70's, and a few others where a portion of the wagon shows up.

looking for some shots of the dodge, but none found yet.

 

I was curious about this car... I had never heard of a dodge matador. I do own a 73 AMC matador, thats why I was a little confused. Heres a pic I found, beautiful car, if I ever had a chance to own one I would.

 

ok, so posting a pic didn't work, but the link works lol

 

Thanks James, yes that is it! The Matador was a one-year model. As a kid having to wash the car, I also had to dry it. To dry the chrome roof rack, I would climb onto the rear quarter fender, and between the tall fin and the window there was just enough room to place a foot so I could reach across the top.

The car had power brakes, but not power steering. Drove it in high school to deliver the L.A. Times newspaper when my other wagon needed work - weaving back and forth down the street to use the car's momentum to pitch the big newspapers, the lack of power steering made it quite a workout. Quite a car with lots of chrome trim, example the edging along the top of the fins... really stylish/cool. I believe someone on this site noted that only about 600 Matadors were built versus many many Polaras (similar model).

 

As far as production figures, I couldn't find anything definite. In 1960, the new Dodge Dart series was built on the shorter Plymouth Fury wheelbase. The Dart (Dart Phoenix, Dart Senica, and Dart Pioneer) outsold the longer Polaras and Matadors. The Dart passenger cars were only about 4" shorter than the Polara/Matador passenger cars. The station wagons in all the Dart/Polara/Matador series all shared the same body and only differed in trim (except that the Polara had a pillarless hardtop roofline).
There were 306,603 Darts built for the 1960 model year in all series. There were 42,517 Dodges (Matador and Polara) built for the 1960 model year. Its known that included in the 42,517 total, there were 23,600 Matador passenger cars, 11,600 Polara passenger cars, and an unkown number of Matador wagons and an unknown number of Polara wagons. Total Dodge station wagon production for 1960 was 51,600, most of which were in the Dart series. An estimated 7317 wagons were built in the Polara/Matador series combined. At least two thirds of that 7317 total were probably Matadors, and one third or less were probably Polaras. I believe there are less than ten 1960 Polara wagons still known to exist.