Junkyard Find: 1972 Dodge D200 Custom Sweptline
The Dodge D-series trucks were getting embarrassingly dated by the late 1960s, with their solid-axle front suspensions and archaic styling, so Chrysler created the third-generation D-series pickups for the 1972 model year.
Here’s a reasonably solid three-quarter-ton from the first year of that generation, spotted in a Denver self-service yard.
This one is pretty well-optioned for a pickup of its era, with V8 engine (probably a 318, but could be a 360), automatic transmission, air conditioning, and other features shunned by penny-pinching truck buyers who just wanted to haul a few tons of hog innards from place to place.
There’s some rust, nothing serious by Midwestern standards, but enough that few in Colorado would be interested in a restoration.
The ’72 Sweptline 3/4-ton version had a curb weight of a mere 3,705 pounds — light enough to float away (by 2016 full-sized pickup standards). Back then, though, pickups weren’t considered everyday commute vehicles for suburbanites looking for a vehicle with a leather interior, a menacing face, and brag-worthy towing capacity.
1972, when pickup ads featured mooing cows and phrases such as “built for haulin’ loads back here and pamperin’ people up here.”
[Images: © 2016 Murilee Martin/The Truth About Cars]
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, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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Lemme tell you ~ These trucks used that same fuse box for a decade and we were always into it... -Nate
I think of the Rescue 51 unit from the TV series "Emergency" when I see one of these trucks.