Photo: Auto Archaeology/YouTube
Mopar City of Oregon, Illinois, is one of those places. It’s home to over a thousand vehicles, including anything from A-body and E-body compacts to B-body intermediates and C-body full-size rigs. The yard was recently documented by Ryan Brutt of YouTube’s “Auto Archaeology,” with several videos posted online.
Ryan’s latest vlog shows a large portion of the yard that’s loaded with B-body Mopars. This platform underpinned Chrysler mid-size vehicles from 1962 to 1979, and it’s obviously famous for being used in iconic Dodge and Plymouth muscle cars. It’s arguably one of the most interesting areas of Mopar City.
Of course, this section includes quite a few mundane vehicles. The B-body platform also underpinned bread-and-butter nameplates like the Dodge Coronet and Plymouth Belvedere. These sold like hot cakes in four-door body styles, and they’re quite common in junkyards. Moreover, many two-door coupes are also pretty common.
The Dodge Charger is one of the best examples out there. Dodge delivered over 370,000 units from 1966 to 1971, with most of them equipped with small-block V8 engines. While the R/T version is indeed somewhat rare, the base Charger is a common junkyard find. And this one is loaded with them.
The Plymouth Road Runner was also a strong seller, and you’ll see quite a few in the video below. Naturally, they’re all 383-cubic-inch (6.3-liter) V8 cars, so no rare Hemi or Six-Barrel vehicles. But Ryan also found a few cars that are actually rare.
One of them is a 1970 Dodge Charger of the R/T variety. They’re not exactly rare by overall production numbers, as Dodge delivered about 10,000 units, but this one was born with a 440-cubic-inch (7.2-liter) Six-Pack V8. The 390-horsepower mill found its way into only 684 cars that year. Ryan says it’s an automatic car, which makes it one of 337 examples fitted with this drivetrain combo.
Things get even more interesting if we also factor in the EW1 white exterior. The 1970 Charger Registry states that only 4.3% of all R/Ts were ordered in this color. It’s unclear exactly how many were Six-Pack vehicles, but we’re probably looking at fewer than 15 units made with this drivetrain setup.
The second vehicle that caught my attention is the 1970 Plymouth Belvedere that pops up at the 1:07-minute mark. Yes, the Belvedere was Plymouth’s entry-level B-body, and it was built in large numbers, but things are a bit different for this 1970 iteration.
For starters, 1970 was the final year for the nameplate, and Plymouth didn’t sell that many. Records show that only 24,246 examples rolled off the assembly line. That’s a notable drop from 1966, when Plymouth sold nearly 190,000 units. More importantly, this Belvedere is a two-door coupe, which is the rarest body style when it comes to the 1970 version. Specifically, only 4,717 units were ordered like this.
But here’s what makes this Belvedere stand out: it appears to be a painted top car. What’s that? Well, it was a more affordable way of getting a two-tone appearance compared to the vinyl top. The roof was often finished in a contrasting color; in this case, it’s white over B5 Blue. And it’s a very rare option on B-body vehicles.
How do we know it’s a true two-tone car and not a vinyl-top model that was repainted? Well, this Belvedere would need to have a V02 code on the fender tag. But Ryan doesn’t lift the hood, so it remains a mystery. However, it does look like the vehicle still has the original paint, and there are no signs of a vinyl roof.
There are no records as to how many 1970 Belvederes were ordered with this option, but experts agree that only 1% to 3% of the cars were sold with the two-tone feature. That’s anywhere between 47 and 142 coupes. Enough to make this Belvedere worth saving. Unlike the Charger R/T Six-Pack, which is just a shell. Check them out in the video below.
