[VAC] Re: Towing with a Dart

[Dan Weeks <theprofileco@xxxxxxx>]

Marc:

Don't even think about it. I towed a very light 16' Serro Scotty Sportsman
(no toilet, no shower, no air, weighed about 1,500 lbs) for a while with a
Dodge Aspen with a 225 slant six and a 4-speed manual trans. Wide open in
third, with a tail wind, I would occasionally see sixty. I used to have to
draft trucks to get up to speed. Truck lane type hills had me down to 40 in
second, wide open and screaming. The 225 is probably the best straight six
ever built, and it would run wide open all day with no complaint, but you'd
never get out of second gear towing an excella. Plus, the Dart is WAY too
small, short, and light to keep that big a trailer under control, and the
suspension too undersprung to handle the tongue weight, even with an
equalizer. That, and the '68 Dart had little tiny 8" drum brakes, as I
remember, that were barely adequate to stop the car itself. With 4.11 gears,
a 4-speed wide-ratio manual trans or an auto with a big trans cooler, and
retrofitted later-model disk brakes, the car would be adequate for handling
a small pop-up trailer, but much as I love those darts, that's about as much
as I'd want to tow with one.

Dan Weeks