Junkyard Find: 1976 Dodge Aspen

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin
junkyard find 1976 dodge aspen

It’s hard to believe that the Dodge Aspen was once a common sight on the street, seen as frequently back in the Malaise Era as CR-Vs are today. Cops drove them, college students drove them, old ladies drove them; as the successor to the Dart, the Aspen was about as mainstream as it was possible to be. Then, sometime around about 1990, just about all of them were swallowed up by a hole in the earth.

Every so often, however, an Aspen hangs on long enough to show up in a self-service wrecking yard. Here’s one I found in a Denver yard yesterday.

What can I say about this interior? The less said, the better.

This example appears to have a pretty hefty selection of quasi-luxurious options, including the much-sought-after “Schnauzer On A Stick” heraldic crest on the grille.

You can’t go wrong with a Slant Six under the hood. Well, unless it’s a LeBaron.










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  • And003 And003 on May 14, 2012

    If this was an R/T model, I'd buy it. I always had a soft spot for the Aspen R/Ts. If I had one, I could salvage the body shell and glass, and swap out everything else. Then I'd have a custom chassis installed in place of the original unibody chassis.

  • The Dark One The Dark One on Aug 12, 2012

    My neighbor had one of these, the same color, and her best friend had a same year white Volare. Sure enough, around 1990 - 91 it was replaced in her driveway by a Nissan Sentra.

  • Jimbo1126 I just looked at the Hyundai website and it appears the SE SR trim has gone away. The SE is now the base trim at $45,500.
  • Jimbo1126 Even my mother, certainly no big car fan, commented that the Mark Vi was the ugliest car she'd ever seen.38,391 in 1980 to 38,398 in 1981 is an increase of 7. :)
  • Kwik_Shift Important consideration when choosing your next vehicle. Its not only your own death, or of your passengers, but the possible lifetime of crippling injuries.
  • Teddyc73 Can we all once and for all stop calling this things "tacos"? Please!
  • David S. Bear Tooth and Chief Joseph highways.
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