Thanks, Bill! I have yet to get over to my office, but I sent your
message there; it will be interesting to compare your numbers with those
that were sent out by the Histerical Society to a guy who had requested
his car's IBM card-copy,. but who had received a production break-out
sheet, too for 57 -58 Dodges, too.
Presumably, anyone else could get those numbers from Chrysler, fr their
particular car, too.
Again, it will be fun to see if Chrysler either agrees with Bill's
numbers, or breaks-out the production down to the individual car models.
I do recall that Chrysler did break-out the convertible production,
between CR &Coro.
It did not mention D500 production, but, from my observation of engine
numbers, I believe that there were about 18,500 D500s built in 1957,
which would be about 6.5% of total 287K total production.
How those D500's would get disbursed between individual models, I don't
know, but if there were only about 1.7K Suburbans built, there might
have been 300-400 D500 Hemis put into that bottom-line model.
The D500 option cost was 'only' about $80.00
(around $800.00 in today's money) but that would have been a significant
portion of any Sub's purchase price.
So, it would appear to me that there would be two primary reasons for
buying a D500 Sub: extra hauling power, for work and/or towing
purposes, or for private towing purposes.
In the 60's, some drag racers (like Lee Smith) campaigned 426-powered
stationwagons, to take advantage of the extra rear end weight.
In 1957, CHRY had not yet introduced its Sure Grip limited slip
differential, and race slicks were not typically greatly oversize, and
Hemi's don't have a lot of low end torque, and D500's did not have a
large drag racing presence, so a street or strip D500 Suburban was
probably a rare sight.
Neil Vedder
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--- Begin Message ---
- From: Bill Watson <wwatson6@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:48:10 -0800
Dodge did keep track of production, but like all auto makers did not release
anything more detailed than annual production by car line (model and
calendar) to the public.
The figures we see today for Chrysler Corporation production prior to 1966
come from two sources, both using the Chrysler Historical archives -
Richard M. Langworth - Chrysler and Imperial
Don Butler - Plymouth, DeSoto and Dodge
Jerry Heasley published a book on U.S. production figures in 1977 and used
the work of the abobe authors. At the time of publication , Don Butler was
collecting production figures on Plymouth and DeSoto cars for his book, The
Plymouth and DeSoto Story. Unfortunately it seems Mr. Butler had gotten
only up to 1955, which is why Heasley's book lists Plymouth, Dodge and
DeSoto produciton up to 1955. Mr. Langworth had published his book on the
postwar Chrysler and Imperial and thus had figures up to 1975, which Mr.
Healey used in his book.
When Tom McPherson published his book on Dodge, he seems to have used Mr.
Butler's figures, as he has no information from 1955 to about 1970. As
well, Mr. McPherson and Mr. Healey repeated the same errors/omissions, ie.
no 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner DeLuxe figures and no 1949 Dodge Coronet LWB
sedan figures.
Since then, due to the work of Jeffrey Godshall and the Chrysler Historical
Archives, "Collectible Aurtomobile" has been filling in the blanks from
1956.
As you may have surmised, I do have production figures on 1956-1964 Dodges,
plus Chrysler Corporation cars built for the U.S. market from 1965 through
1973.
For the 1957-59 Dodge wagons :
1957 :
D70 - 2-door Suburban - 7,163
D70 - 4-door Sierra * - 17,352
D71 - 4-door Custom Sierra * - 7,216
1958 :
LD3-L - 2-door Suburban - 1,300
LD3-L - 4-door Sierra * - 13,113
LD3-H - 4-door Custom Sierra * - 5,783
1959 :
MD3-L - 4-door Sierra * - 17,719
MD3-H - 4-door Custom Sierra * - 5,871
* - 2-seat and 3-seat wagons. Unlike Plymouth, DeSoto and Chrysler, Dodge
did not keep records on how many of each seating style were built, only
total body style figures.
One word on the published production figures - they are TOTAL production for
American and Canadian assembly plants through to the late 1970's. Starting
around 1976 (I forget the exact year at the moment) the published figures
are for cars built for the American market, and included American, Canadian
and Mexican plants..
Anyone interested in complete 1956 through 1961 Dodge figures (to cover the
Forward Look years), I would be happy to supply same. (I do not have
figures on the Canadian Plymouth-based Dodges. though.)
Bill
Vancouver, BC
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill K.
To: L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:19 AM
Subject: [FWDLK] '57, '58 Dodge production
Anyone have a source for production figures by body style?
Krause doesn't show it, claims Dodge didn't keep track of it.
Just wondered how rare my '57 2-dr Custom Suburban is -
Bill K.
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