PhilJohnson
Well-known member
Everytime I get near Craigslist my wallet seems to magically loose weight 
This time I found a 51 Dodge Coronet for 500 bucks. It looked pretty straight so I decided to have a closer look. I had just sold off a couple of clunkers so I figured this would be a good way to make sure my money didn't find it's way into buying something useful. I drove over to the dealership where it was at and had a closer look at the beast. Overall it seemed decent, typical of most cheap old cars the brakes are questionable and the floors need help. The paint is actually presentable. The car does run although it could use a tune up and a carb rebuild really bad. It has Dodge's weird fluid drive trans setup. I plan on fixing it up to relieve my 65 F100 of it's daily driver duties. I am hoping the Coronet will get a little better mileage (20 mpg+).
I plan on picking it up this Saturday. Apparently the car was destined to get scrapped. Another dealership had it along with 52 Plymouth and a 50 Studebaker Champion. The guy who owned that dealership was getting a divorce and decided to scrap the three back row gems. His buddy who works at the dealership where I bought it from swooped in for the save and gave the other guy scrap price for the trio. In a gesture of classic car hobby goodwill the guy put them all up for sale at very reasonable prices. He just couldn't bear the thought of three perfectly restorable cars being scrapped.
This time I found a 51 Dodge Coronet for 500 bucks. It looked pretty straight so I decided to have a closer look. I had just sold off a couple of clunkers so I figured this would be a good way to make sure my money didn't find it's way into buying something useful. I drove over to the dealership where it was at and had a closer look at the beast. Overall it seemed decent, typical of most cheap old cars the brakes are questionable and the floors need help. The paint is actually presentable. The car does run although it could use a tune up and a carb rebuild really bad. It has Dodge's weird fluid drive trans setup. I plan on fixing it up to relieve my 65 F100 of it's daily driver duties. I am hoping the Coronet will get a little better mileage (20 mpg+).
I plan on picking it up this Saturday. Apparently the car was destined to get scrapped. Another dealership had it along with 52 Plymouth and a 50 Studebaker Champion. The guy who owned that dealership was getting a divorce and decided to scrap the three back row gems. His buddy who works at the dealership where I bought it from swooped in for the save and gave the other guy scrap price for the trio. In a gesture of classic car hobby goodwill the guy put them all up for sale at very reasonable prices. He just couldn't bear the thought of three perfectly restorable cars being scrapped.
