Dodge Coronet R/T

Coronet R/T at a glance

Road and Track: why Dodge built the R/T

The R/T badge first appeared on the 1967 Coronet, and the letters stood for Road/Track. Dodge built the car on the Coronet 500, its best-trimmed two-door, and gave it bucket seats, a grille inspired by the Charger, a dummy louvred bonnet scoop and R/T emblems. The list price of US$3,052 for the 1967 hardtop was US$426 above a Coronet 500.

Under the trim came a heavy-duty package: firmer suspension with a front anti-roll bar, heavier brakes, a 70-amp battery and Red Line tyres. That made the R/T Dodge's answer to the Plymouth GTX, its corporate twin, which sold 12,690 cars in 1967. Chrysler kept the Hemi for its named performance models from that year: the Charger, the Coronet R/T and the GTX. The R/T therefore sat at the top of the Coronet range, priced and equipped as the comfortable fast car of the family.

The 440 Magnum and the Hemi option

The 440 Magnum was the R/T's standard engine in every year. In 1967 it had a Carter AFB four-barrel carburettor and was rated at 280 kW (375 hp) with 651 Nm (480 lb-ft) of torque, figures that suited a heavy car on street tyres. A TorqueFlite automatic was standard and the four-speed manual was the alternative; 1,355 of the 1967 cars had the manual.

The 426 Hemi was the only engine option in 1967 and cost US$908, nearly a third of the car's base price. Motor Trend raced a Magnum car against a Hemi car in its June 1967 issue: the 440 leapt ahead at the start, and the Hemi caught it just past the quarter-mile mark. On the drag strip the 440 was competitive too: "Dandy" Dick Landy set the 1967 AHRA B/SA national record at 12.61 seconds and 110.02 mph in a Coronet R/T.

Autoevolution counts 349 Hemi R/Ts for 1967, including 55 W023 Super Stock cars and only four convertibles, and 637 R/Ts with the Hemi across all four years. The Hemi R/T was a rare car even when new.

Coronet R/T year by year

For 1967 the R/T used the facelifted Coronet body. Sports Car Market gives 10,109 hardtops and 628 convertibles, 10,737 in total; autoevolution prints 10,809.

For 1968 the Coronet was redesigned on the B-body shared with the Charger, and the R/T joined Dodge's Scat Pack, marked by bumblebee stripes around the tail. Production rose slightly to 10,849, including 519 convertibles, 423 of them with the automatic. The 1969 car kept the body and the 440, and output fell to about 7,200.

The 1970 R/T had a heavy facelift with twin oval grilles around the headlamps, nicknamed "bumblebee wings", plus dummy scoops on the rear wings. The 440 Six Pack with three two-barrel carburettors joined the list, while TorqueFlite stayed standard and the four-speed came at no charge. Only 2,615 were built: 2,319 hardtops and 296 convertibles, two of them with the Hemi.

The R/T against the Super Bee and Charger R/T

The R/T's decline came mostly from inside Dodge. In mid-1968 the Super Bee arrived on the same Coronet body with a 383 V8 and a base price of US$3,027, an answer to the cheap Plymouth Road Runner. The redesigned 1968 Charger offered the same 440 Magnum in its R/T form and outsold the Coronet R/T despite a higher price. The R/T was left between the two, costlier than the Super Bee and plainer than the Charger.

By 1970 both the Super Bee and the Charger R/T outsold it. Street Muscle also blames the 1970 recession and the polarising new front end. Even in its best year the R/T was a small-volume car next to the Pontiac GTO, which sold more than 70,000 units in 1967. For 1971 Dodge moved its two-door intermediates to the Charger line, the Coronet became a saloon and estate only, and the R/T badge stayed with the Charger.

Coronet R/T today: what to check

The first check is the VIN: in auction records, 1967 R/T hardtops carry VINs beginning WS23, where W stands for Coronet. Dodge built many more Coronet 440s and 500s than R/Ts, and a car with R/T badges, stripes and a 440 can be a later conversion; the fender tag and, where it survives, the broadcast sheet should agree with the VIN.

Hemi cars need the strongest proof, because fewer than 640 R/Ts had the engine and a Hemi swap is a common upgrade. Convertibles are rare in any form: autoevolution counts 1,760 R/T convertibles over the four years, most of them with the four-barrel 440.

As a dated reference, a 1967 R/T 440 with the four-speed sold for US$35,200 including premium at Auctions America in Auburn in May 2015, according to Sports Car Market. The Dodge catalogue holds the full Coronet range of those years, and the American muscle car guide sets the R/T among its mid-size rivals from GM and Ford.