During the middle 1960s through late 1970s, midsize Detroit sedans became the most mainstream of all transportation in North America. GM had countless variations of the A-Body, Ford offered any number of Fairlane/Torino family members, American Motors would sell you the Matador that best suited your needs, and Chrysler stocked every Dodge and Plymouth showroom with sturdy B-Bodies. From 1965 through 1976, the Coronet reigned as the main midsize Dodge available in North America. Today’s Junkyard Gem is a fairly well-equipped Coronet from the first year of the Malaise Era, found in a car graveyard near Denver last fall.
The ’73 Coronet came in two configurations: sedan and wagon. If you wanted the sedan, you either chose the base model for $2,867 (about $17,975 today) or the top-grade Custom for $3,017 (about $18,915 today). Those prices were for cars with Slant-6 engines and three-on-the-tree manual transmissions, of course; if you wanted a V8 and/or a three-speed automatic, you had to pay quite a bit more.
