Jay Leno's Garage

By Jay Leno
Photographs by John Lamm
Published in the September 2008 issue.

Recently I bought a Dodge Coronet two-door station wagon. Although we were never a wagon family when I was a kid—there were just four of us—my friend’s parents had a ’54 Plymouth Belvedere wagon with a flat-head Six. So when I saw this Dodge, it brought back those fond memories.

The Coronet weighs 3400 pounds, about the same as the ZR1 Corvette with all its carbon fiber. The Dodge has a 150-hp 241-cu.-in. Hemi V8 and a three-speed stick with overdrive. The original owner bought it to tow a boat. It’s got a radio, a clock and a heater. Back then, that was really all you needed.

My little Dodge was considered an extremely powerful car for the day. And it still gets up and goes. You can lay a nice strip of rubber. There’s a sort of agricultural honesty to this car, too. Open the hood—there’s the carburetor, there’s your spark plugs, there’s your coil, and there’s a glass bottle for windshield-washer fluid. It doesn’t have a rear-window cleaner, because the rear window doesn’t get dirty. And it rides pretty nicely. You can put it in overdrive and go down the road at 60 mph.

This car just seems to make people smile. Before Chrysler’s Forward Look styling of the late ’50s, the company built solid, friendly cars. If a Cadillac was a little too flashy, but you wanted solid engineering, Chrysler was the company. It pioneered the TorqueFlite transmission and the Hemi V8. The Hemi was an expensive engine to build and machine, but it really had the power. We all like the legendary 426 Hemis, but this 241 is a nice little revver. Step on the gas, and it just goes eeee­rrrrrrrrpppppp. The 241 has all the power you need.

When you drive this wagon, you feel like you should be smoking a pipe, because that’s what dads did in those days. I drive for about an hour, and I find myself saying, “Hey! Keep it up, and we’ll turn this car around right now!” I feel I have to say that once or twice, like there are some kids in the back.

K.T. Keller, the chairman of Chrysler at the time, said that no car would be designed such that he couldn’t wear a hat while riding inside. So mine has a nice high roof area. There are vent windows but no air conditioning. You could have had Airtemp for $643, but most people didn’t order it.

This two-door wagon predates the Chevrolet Nomad that everybody still goes crazy for. I like the Coronet better, because of its style and rarity. This Dodge was perfect for the small family. It looks like the car from Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. You might live in Connecticut. And you’d drive down to the train station to commute into New York City in the days when there was no graffiti on the trains. Yes, it was a more honest time.