1967 Dodge A100 Custom Sportsman 3-Speed for sale on BaT Auctions - ending August 21 (Lot #82,148) | Bring a Trailer My story on this van. My dad never had a new car, but low mirage used cars. We had a 1966 Chrysler Wagon, my dad traded it on a van like this, same color etc., not modified, except curtains my mom put in. We took it on 1 6 hour round trip from South Bend to Indy. 2 in the front, 3 in 2nd row, 3 in 3rd row and my grandma in a lawn chair in the very back. Going for the Beverly Hillbilly look best we could. My dad couldn't get over the poor ride, of sitting right over the tire. ended up being the shortest duration he ever had a car. traded it on a 1970 Lesabre . He hated it so much, i always imagined if i had the money to blow, and could find one, id buy it for him, just to see what he would say. Sadly he passed in March with dementia/Alzheimer's, but my love of cars came from him. Seems like every weekend of the summer involved swap meets and car shows.
With grandma in a lawn chair in the way-way back, BEHIND 2 other bench seats, I'm thinking your dad actually bought the LONGER version, with a 108" wheelbase. Has an extra side window behind the front door.......
@markfnc Cool story. Thanks for sharing! But yeah, I could imagine riding over the front wheels in one of these could get a bit tiring. I know enough about Mopars, but the A100 isn't really part of my knowledge base, other than I know they used the lightweight Swiss-cheesed seat frames and seats from A100 vans and pickups in 1964-'65 Hemi B-body race cars, as well as the 1968 Super Stock BO29 Hemi 'Cuda and LO23 Hemi Dart cars. But do you happen to know if this van has coil or torsion bar suspension up front? I would tend to think with coils it wouldn't be as nice of a ride as torsion bars, but who knows? Regardless, the short wheelbase in these didn't help things either. As for the van in the ad, I really dig it. I really like the colour combination too. It's also in the perfect condition for my tastes as well. A great 20-footer, but not a cream puff that you'd have to worry about people breathing within 50 feet of it. This is a vehicle to be driven and used without any worries. Just the kind I like. For my tastes, I'd actually keep the original 225 slant six and just stick a cam in it. It already has an 8 3/4" rear, so it'd take it no problem (unlike the weak 7 1/4" rear that normally came with slant six passenger cars). I'd just take care of the minor rust issues, overspray it, replace the door panels with those ugly speakers in them and just enjoy it as-is.
What a great memory of your father. It is amazing how much we pick up from our parents. Alzheimer’s is such an insidious way to go. I have so many fond memories of my dad and “new car” showing weekends. He wasn’t an old car guy, but we sure spent a lot of time at the dealerships, and car shows. Many a happy McCormick place car shows.
I only said that because for whatever reason I thought these had a weird design that wasn't common to Mopar for the era, but I guess I was wrong. I'm sure it would have been much better with torsion bars, but given these were basically a work truck platform, leafs make more sense.
I wanted to look it up because I thought for sure it would have had torsion bars on the front. Surprised and VERY disappointed with what I found out.......
I never drove the Dodge version of these mid engine vans but I disliked driving my buddies 66? Chevy, and my older brothers Ford. I don't think either of those had front leaf springs. They only seemed happy up to around 50mph, any faster and they let you know they were going to try and kill you if you kept up that unreasonable speed!
Which is also why torsion bars would have been great in these. They were extremely stable at speed and police preferred them, and said it was the only suspension setup that actually became even more stable the faster you drove with them. Many police in the 80s didn't like the newer Caprices and Crown Vics as much because they weren't as predictable at high speeds as the older longitudinal torsion bar setup was. Not only that, but torsion bars are easily adjusted within literally seconds to accommodate for ride height and ride quality. Chrysler's engineers really were ahead of the curve with their torsion bar setup from the late 50s through the 70s. It's too bad they never made it into the A100 platform, but it's understandable.
Did some research and it looks like the Ford version also used front leaf springs And so did the Chevy Version I don't think Jeep made a Van version of their Forward Control Truck, but I know the PU versions also used leaf springs But the earlier Corvair based vans had coil springs up front
They were essentially made for hauling, so a leaf spring suspension does make more sense than coils or torsion bars. It got the job done and its inherent simplicity would have been cheaper to engineer, manufacture and assemble. I can understand why they used leafs.
Don't believe I was ever in a Sportsman but a friend had a Dodge work van around this era. It would get the "wobbles" around 60. This van may be cool to look at but no thanks to driving it in today's traffic,
