Nice looking Dodge

Nice 880. I have always found it interesting that the 1964 880 gets it looks from the early 1960's Chryslers (Virgil Exner), while the 1964 Polara and other *B* body models were clearly the work of Mr. Engle, who had come from Chevrolet, if I remember correctly.

The front of the 880 appears to have a newer design than the rest of the car. Plymouth did not have an 880 eqivalent for 1963 and 1964. Is it possible that the 880 was a *carry-over* until the new *C* body products were made available for 1965?

-Kirk Matheson

(link changed from the ridiculously over-long kind to the short kind)

Engle was hired over from Ford. The reason why the Custom 880s look like Engle-facelifted Exner efforts is because that's exactly what they are. The 1962 "full-size" Dodge and Plymouth cars were significantly downsized from the 1961 models, because Chrysler management misinterpreted the rumours of the 1962 Chevy II as meaning that the full-size Chevrolet was to be downsized. An eleventh-hour downsizing order came down and Styling had to shrink the '62s in a very big hurry. The public were aghast at the results (which we now know as the first B-bodies and some of us like quite a bit, thank you very much), and dealers hollered bloody murder, for they had nothing to go against the (still completely large) full-sized Fords and Chevrolets. As a stopgap, the 1962 Chrysler Newport was hurriedly retrimmed and given a (hallucinatory) 1961 Dodge front end treatment -- voila, the 1962 Dodge Custom 880.

Custom 880s carried on being sold on the same bodyshell, reskinned and retrimmed for 1963 and 1964. In 1965, the new C-body included a "designed intentionally" Custom 880.

More details and pictures at

Dan, I figured that you would know the answer to this. I had always wondered what happened when the full-sized models got shrunk for 1962.

Did the 1965 880 share the same body with the Polara and the Monaco?

I guess that I have never seen a '65 880, or if I have I probably mistook it for a Polara or Monaco.

-Kirk Matheson