Greetings muscle car fans, sorry for the recent hiatus but things have been rather busy for me as of late. I am back now to bring you a look at a car that I myself cannot decide if I love or hate. There are times when I praise this car for its unique styling and times when I shake my head and wonder what the design team was thinking. Currently, I think I am leaning on the “love” side of the coin. Let’s take a gander at the 1970 Dodge Coronet R/T.

When going through my previous posts to get some ideas on new cars to feature, I realized that I had spent a lot of time on MOPAR  B-bodies  such as the GTX, Road Runner, Charger, etc. However, I came to find that I never once touched on the budget muscle car from Dodge, the Coronet R/T. So, before I run down some of the characteristics of the ‘70 Coronet, how about a little history on the beginnings of the re-designed B-body.

The Coronet had been a mid-size car from Dodge since the early 1950’s and proved to be a profitable since its introduction (hence the long production run) for the company. Once the horsepower battle ignited in the 1960s, the Coronet was saddled with bigger engines, much like most of the cars coming from Detroit at that time. Styling for the car mimicked that of the Plymouth Belvedere and GTX through the mid-60s and it shared every engine option with its brother cars. When Chrysler decided to build budget muscle in 1968, both Plymouth and Dodge rolled out their re-designed Road Runner and Coronet Super Bee respectively. When introduced initially, the cars looked similar in shape but still had some key design features to distinguish one from the other. While the Road Runner had the Warner Brothers cartoon as its signature graphic, Dodge chose a bumble bee equipped with side pipes, drag slicks and a helmet that was stuck on the rear fender surrounded by a stripe that wrapped around the rear fenders and decklid.

The year the two MOPARs really differentiated themselves was 1970. The Road Runner boys re-designed the grill and rear and made some minor changes to the sheet metal. The new Coronet received much more drastic changes as the front sheet metal from ‘68 and ‘69 was scrapped and replaced with all new stampings. The grill was no longer a single unit but instead featured a split design that tapered towards the center line of the hood and left a gap of a few inches of metal in the middle.

Engine options remained the same for the Coronet since its re-design in 1968. The base option for the Super Bee was the tried-and-true 383 V8 that cranked out 335 horsepower. If the R/T option was checked off the buyer received the 440 Super commando V8 that made 375 horses with a single 4-barrel carb. If even more power was desired, the 6-pack option was ordered and that included a 440 cube V8 with a trio of 2-barrel carbs bolted to the intake with a progressive linkage that unleashed 390 horsepower at a moments notice. And finally, for those that enjoyed blowing out store windows, the 426 Hemi was available that laid down 425 horses thanks to a dual-quad set up that shoved more air and fuel into the beast than most people could fathom (only 14 Hemis built).

Sales for the 1970 Coronet were much lower than previous years and Dodge decided to drop all performance variants of the car leaving only sedan and station wagon options left. Perhaps it was due to the styling that the car did not sell well. Maybe it had something to do with the plethora of other muscle available at the time. I cannot say entirely but I will say that I do enjoy this car every bit as much as my other favorite muscle cars.