1966 Dodge Monaco

Funny how our tastes change eh? I can remember about 15 years or more ago, I didnt really care for the look of these old sixties Dodges. Now however, I do admire the
clean if not unique and unusual designs these
babies have! Around this time a year two years ago, I was walking down Queen Mary Blvd. in the Hampstead area of Montreal, and
there shined this gold coloured beauty.

Its a'66 Dodge Monaco, in two-door hardtop form.
Though I wasn't nuts about the sort of oh-hum
mag wheels, everything on this MoPar looked
in excellent condition. The oddly shaped
taillights and front grille, I imagined made alot
of people buy an Impala, or Galaxie instead,
back when these were new. Speaking of this
car's taillights, anyone who's seen the movie
"Hurricane" about Ruben Carter the boxer will
remember the scene when fellow Canadians
are working on getting Ruben out of jail, and
discover the importance of the suspect's
getaway '66 Monaco's Taillights. Actually they
discovered that the similar and less expensive
Polara's taillights "don't run all across" as
someone points out in the movie.

Another oddity about these collector cars, is the really
weird huge round gauges in the instrument
panel. The speedometer, gas gauge and so
forth look like two giant eyes looking at you.
It honestly kind of creeps me out. This is
actually the second two-door hardtop '66
Dodge I see on a Montreal street. The other
car was black with those slick fifties style
original hubcpas, and was also a Monaco.

Like full-size Plymouth Furys, Chryslers, and
Imperials, Dodge Poloras and Monacos shared
bodies that were all completely restyled in
1965. Monaco was a new model created off of
the Polara chassis and body, to compete more
fiercely with Chevy's Impala, and Ford's
Galaxie. The top of the line Custom 880 was
Dodge's classiest car in 1965, but Monaco
took over the role the year after. Since there
was the Impala SS, and the Galaxie 500, the
Dodge boys introduced the Monaco 500 as a
contender in this class. This performance
machine was sold as coupe only, and was not
easily distinguished form a regular Monaco
coupe. The base Monaco was offered not only
in coupe type, but as a four-door sedan and
or four-door hardtop, and also a six or nine
passenger station wagon.

All Monacos came with a big block 383 cui.
V8, that made about 270 horses. The Monaco
500 had a higher horsepower rating of 325. A
Torqueflite automatic transmission could be
ordered versus the standard manual tranny.
With a production total over 30,000 units
fabricated by the Dodge boys,

'66 Monacos aren't hard to come by as an internet search
revealed. An almost mint Monaco 500 coupe
was offered for $13,000, and was painted a
sparkling dark green with a white top. A
couple of nice four-door hardtops looked like
bargains for less than $1500. Though the
styling next to the competition might not have
been the best, these Monacos are quite
inexpensive. You also get a lot of power out of
those 383 motors, that are undeniably
reliable, and probably get better gas mileage
than a big MoPar from the '70s. That of course
before emission controls and so forth became
mandatory in the early seventies, which
unfortunately made cars afterward sluggish and
underpowered.
Being a big land yacht fan, I'd take a '66
Monaco over the Polara. Why have chicken
when I could have steak? I'd be happy with a
coupe, or maybe a four-door hardtop would
be even better. Decisions...
Photos of various size available at a reasonable price.