My 1979 Brazilian Dodge Dart is now going home !!!!

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buzian

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Location
Ivoti, Rio Grande do Sul
Hi friends !!

Very good news, since the last contact...Last week the Dart finally came out of its 12 year closure, and we took it right to the mechanic to see what would work.
Here's the car coming out from the museum's garage:

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On the road...

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And now in our friend's speed shop, just coming in:

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First thing to do is to wash all the dust and the dirt accumulated from years of storage:

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And here is the final result:

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We agree that after the cleanup the result was AMAZING, I couldn't believe the paint was so alive and shining, the visual came back again !!!

The next day we tried to put the engine on work...We put oil, water & gas...And it started !!!
The videos of this "adventure" in YouTube:

-First start after 12 long years:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjs8B4ntdA4"]YouTube- 1979 Dodge Dart - First Start after 12 years !!![/ame]

-First ride on the Dart, with my Mechanic talking about how lucky guy I am:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgXvCRfa_mI"]YouTube- 1979 Dodge Dart - Primeiro passeio depois de 12 anos - First ride after 12 years !!![/ame]

The first look shows that we'll have to rebuild the water pump, it's leaking, and it's necessary to change the plugs and wires, besides cleaning the carburetor, but the main problem now is to change all tires urgently, they became oval after these years sitting on the same position, so let's buy new ones... The spare tire was blown out when we tried to inflate it, so we'll gonna need 5 new tires for our baby boy...
Good news, the TorqueFlite auto trans is very well alive and kicking, all works seem to be okay, we're gonna only change the filter & oil to keep it working fine.
The brakes are grabbing okay, and the suspension seems to be in order, so we'll just check out the parts and its working...
Now the next step is to bring the car home and to put all papers in order, after this we'll take the car back on the road, doing these small adjustments.
We'd like to hearing from you, and we'll post the news as soon as they come, okay ??

See ya, Mopar A-Body friends !!
 
really nice:cheers: whats the emblem say on the side under the rear glass?
it cleaned up great, keep us posted on that gem:-D
 
Mac Daddy,

The emblem on the side of the car says "Dart De Luxo", like "Dart DeLuxe". Our Dart was based on the 1975 Dart Swinger model in appearance.
In fact, this brazilian version of the Dart was the cheapest option in the 1979 lineup models. It was sold in the two-door hardtop or the four-door sedan.
The higher-priced cars for this model/year were the Dodge Magnum, Dodge Charger R/T and the Dodge LeBaron (this one only in the four-door configuration).
All cars shared the same bodywork and engine configurations, no mechanical differences between them, only the luxury details.
Here are some pics of these models, all based in the Dart platform:

Dodge Magnum:

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Dodge Charger R/T:

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Dodge Le Baron:

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Interesting to notice the front grille in these cars were designed in Brazil using fiberglass, and these were the last Dodges produced in the world, since the production ceased early in 1981.
Thanks for your comment !!!
 
Thank you folks !!!
It's really interesting to see the difference between the brazilian models and the american ones, we had some diverse items, like the instrument cluster and so on...
Heres a picture of my trunk when I first opened it, with the blown out spare tire:

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It was very funny to notice that when I opened the engine bay, there was a BEE's NEST under the right front fender !!!!
See this one:

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And here's the 318 V8 engine before it started:

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Mopar hug !!!!
 
Thank you for sharing this very happy day...the videos really capture the feeling. Are there any other a-body drivers near where you live?
 
Did you have a Brazilian variant of the barracuda?

Unfortunately not, we only had the Dart-based models, and a small one, using the Hillman Avenger/ Plymouth Cricket project since 1973, this car was called Dodge 1800 & Polara, all produced until the factory closed in 1981.
Here are some pics of this one:

The first generation, from 1973 till 1977:

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The last generation, from 1978 till the end, in 1981:

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Here in Brazil we suffered badly from the oil crisis back in the Seventies too, and the only way to keep the "big" cars alive was selling these small ones, they run on a 1.8 liter four cilinder engine and 4-speed manual transmission, with an automatic trans as a option from the 1979 models.
Besides all of this, the Polara cars were never a hot seller, nor its bigger brothers: a mere 200,000 cars were sold in the Chrysler of Brazil history, from 1969 till 1981, almost half of them were the Dart-based cars.
Just for curiosity, the production of the 1979 Dodge Dart cars were 858 units, and we believe that less than a hundred is still alive today...
 
Thank you for sharing this very happy day...the videos really capture the feeling. Are there any other a-body drivers near where you live?
Goldfish,

We have some cars here in our region, but less than twenty nowadays...Most brazilian mopars were crushed in the early Eighties and Nineties, leaving us with these rarities nowadays...
We have a Brazilian Mopar Nats that use to run on August, and I'm plannig to go there with my car, if it'll be fine for these days...
Mopar hug, my friend !!!!
 
We have some cars here in our region, but less than twenty nowadays...Most brazilian mopars were crushed in the early Eighties and Nineties, leaving us with these rarities nowadays...
We have a Brazilian Mopar Nats that use to run on August, and I'm plannig to go there with my car, if it'll be fine for these days...


when you go to the nats take lots of pictures:-D our mopar nats are in august as well:cheers:
 
We have some cars here in our region, but less than twenty nowadays...Most brazilian mopars were crushed in the early Eighties and Nineties, leaving us with these rarities nowadays...
We have a Brazilian Mopar Nats that use to run on August, and I'm plannig to go there with my car, if it'll be fine for these days...


when you go to the nats take lots of pictures:-D our mopar nats are in august as well:cheers:

Sure Mister, we're gonna have a ball here with the videos & images !!!
Please send us some pics of your Mopar Nats too !!!
 
Hi FABO friends !!!
It's been quite a time since I don't come here with some news, but now I took some time & pics to share with you guys !
Our baby Dart is ready for the streets now, all documents are okay and I bought a brand new set of tires to give the "brand new cushion ride" feeling again...
I'm sending now some factory photos of a 1979 Dodge Dart, just to show how original our baby gem is now:

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Here are some actual images of our 1979 Dart, waxed & cleaned up to the bone:

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The Dart ride is superb, everything in this car works, including the original AM/FM cassette player, and it's a real pleasure driving this babe down the roads & streets nearby !
Last weekend our 31 y.o. boy made his debut in the official car meetings, it happened in a indoor exibition near our hometown, and it won his first trophy too !!!
Here are some pics I made back then, that's me in the very first one:

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It was great, to meet old fanatic classic car fans like us and make brand new buddies up there !
An interesting thing happened, besides our car being very rare, we found another "baby brother" silver Dart parked very colse to our car, and I made some perspective shots with the twin brothers:

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Next time I'll bring more pics & news from our Dart boy, now it's time to have some fun behind the wheel...
See ya, folks !!!
 
Hi FABO friends !!
It's been quite a time since I came here, and our Dart is going on...Now I have to make a little pause to replace some parts that shows some wear, specially the brake that's not properly working, we have some leaks and I always prefer not using the car than having some serious trouble with our baby boy...
Here are some pics I took last month when we walked through the Dodge dealer near our city where our Dart was sold back in 1979 , it's now closed but the building is still there, so we decided to make some shots to share with our friends, hope you like them !!

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i really like the charger grille is there any left for sale used in brazil?

John,

The brazilian Charger front grille is quite rare to be found brand new, I know an old friend who has some NOS complete grilles but I'm not sure if he may sell it...I'm gonna ask him then I'll reply in a PM, if you may interest in a new set, okay ?
I know that some guys used to do a fibreglass replica of this grille but I didn't like the finish to be honest...If this can help you I'll send the seller's contact too.
This kit comes in two parts that are attached to the front, the separate grilles and an emblem in the middle of them - there's a perfect reproduction of the emblem, that's no trouble. You may have to buy the front quadlights fixer and a pair of turning signals too, these parts are okay to find, very easy.
We'll keep in touch !!!
 
Hi Buz,

That's a really nice little Dart you have there.

So, your family owned it since it was new, and then gave it to a museum?

Did you have to buy it back, or did they no longer have the need to keep it and just gave it back to you? That's quite the story.

It's nice to see the Mopar family reaches such fine places as Brazil. Maybe we can make it down there one day.
 
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