This is a picture of us arriving at the 1997 Mopar Nationals in our 1960 Dodge Dart Pioneer. We drove the Pioneer to the Nationals the day before. It is almost a 600 mile drive. It took just over ten hours. The Pioneer performed very well for us, despite the fact that it is 37 years old and has over one hundred thousand miles on it.
Other facts about our Pioneer:
1960 was the first year for the Dodge Dart. It was also the first year for the slant six. The Dart would only have this body style for one year. There were three models of the Dart produced in 1960. The Seneca, the Pioneer, and the Phoenix. They were priced cheapest to most expensive in that order as well. There was every body style that you can name as well: two-door hard-top, two-door sedan, four-door hard-top, four-door sedan, two-door convertible, and a four-door station wagon. The most popular model was the Pioneer. Oddly, the Pioneer is also the model that we have found the least of. We have never seen another Pioneer, nor any model of the station wagon, other then in ads.
| This
is us and our cars at the 1998 Mopar Nationals in Columbus Ohio. I must
say that it was a much shorter drive for us, being just under 400 miles.
The Pioneer decided to act up during most of the trip. We had a problem
with the rear brakes locking up, one at a time. An old Chrysler mechanic
told us that we needed to turn the drums to fix this. That our drums were
out of round. (This was just another guy attending the show.) While I
believe him, I do not understand how being out of round would make them
lock. Anyone have any ideas? If so, please email me.
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| After we had
our fun worrying about any sudden stops, then on the way home the rear
end started to make some noise. After a bit of driving, it made a lot
of noise, but that's OK cuz then it started to shake. It would appear
that we lost our pinion bearing. This is a shame, since we had only recently
installed that rear.
At the risk of possibly upsetting some people, we felt rather out of place at the Nats this year. I think that they should just go ahead and rename it "The Mopar MUSCLE CAR Nationals". There was just about five cars there that were sort of like ours. A nice 1960 DeSoto Adventurer that was so like our 1960 Dart, that we had to stare! It had the same dash and push buttons and radio. There were a few others, but just about everything else was a hot rod or a muscle car. We DID get a lot of people looking at us, just cuz ours was so different. Our buddy's 1968 Dart GT, on the other hand, fit right in. |
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This
is a picture taken in July of 1998 of our Pioneer being judged at the National
Chryslers Owners Club meet in Hagerstown Maryland. We took a third place
in our class!
Please note that the car parked next to us is another 60 Dart! It is a Seneca from West Virginia. |
| To the right is a picture of the inside of the drivers side rear wheel of our car, upon returning from the National Chryslers Owners Club meet in Hagerstown Maryland. We had a bit of a leak that led to a complete brake failure. We got home OK, and it is is fixed now, but it was exciting at the time! |  |
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This (on the left) is a new picture of an old problem. This is a shot of our transmission bell housing with a big chunk broken out of it. The car was up on a lift so we had a clear view of the underside. This is not a new problem. The previous owner ran over something and did a bit of damage. We have repaired most of it. This particular problem may be tougher than the others. We are not sure if the bell housing is separate, or if the case is a solid piece of aluminum. The "dust" cover is mussing as well. |
| This is our latest and most
urgent problem. It would seem that the rear axle assembly was driven without
lubrication for some time. This pretty much ruined the gears inside. Hence,
they have been removed in this picture.
An ironic note: This rear end (the one installed in the car) was taken out of a junk yard a couple of years ago and installed into our car last year because we thought that the original rear was bad due to an oil leak. Now, we are having the insides of the original rear installed into this housing. Both rears had bad bearings. |
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Below is an ad showing a 1960 Phoenix four door hard-top (or at least as much as would fit in our scanner).
We are members of: 
You
can join by sending $25 to:
Note: We have no connection with the Slant Six Club of America, other then receiving their publications.