Junkyard Find: 1978 Dodge Magnum
Is there any vehicle more emblematic of the Malaise Era than the first-gen Dodge Magnum? Other than the Plymouth Fire Arrow, that is… or the black-bumper MGB… or the Mustang II. Terrible as it is, however, this junked Magnum I found mouldering in a San Jose self-service junkyard still has a certain undeniable presence.
The Magnum was the last of the storied Chrysler B-Body series, which means it’s a sibling to such Chrysler superstars as the Super Bee, Road Runner, and Charger.
I’m not going to look up the horsepower figures on the California-spec 318 for 1978. You don’t want to know.
Maybe I’m getting too tolerant in my old age, but I think that the weird styling touches on this car have aged better than most Malaise Detroit weird styling touches (e.g., the quarter-window louvers on the Pontiac Grand Am Colonnade).
Polyglycoat!
Just up the 880 from this yard, I passed the Solyndra and NUMMI buildings in rapid succession. What does it mean?
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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If I had one of these Magnums, I'd turn it into a hot rod.
I have a decent 78 xe lots of potential