1959 Dodge Coronet

4-door Sedan

326 cu V-8

Automatic

M312166687

Clear

Gasoline

For Sale: 1959 Dodge Coronet 4-door sedan, with pushbutton automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes and swivel front seats. 103,634 miles. Zero miles on completely rebuilt 326 V8 engine (engine rebuilt by classic car restorer Les Key in 2007). Drives around the driveway fine, but needs brakes. Parking brake (handbrake) does work for stopping car while moving it around. Last registered in 1983. Stored inside since then. Odometer shows 3634, but per previous owner it is really 103,634, and it has a service sticker on driver’s door frame from 1978 showing about 98,000 miles, so that makes sense. The good: Has good Ohio title. Engine is a rare one-year-only Dodge 326, but it was completely rebuilt—new pistons were located and everything. Starts right up and runs smooth. Brand new dual exhaust system—nice and quiet! Transmission seems to work fine (only tested at low speeds) as does parking brake. Original chrome is presentable, not perfect. All glass is good. Door panels look fine, but driver's armrest has loose top portion. All electrical believed to work fine per previous owner—I know that lights, turn signals, horn, cigarette lighter and wipers all work. Has all four original Dodge hubcaps in good condition. Headliner has only one small poked hole in it. Seems to have old seat covers front and rear that match the car well and seem as if they are from the era—there are two small rips in the driver’s seat. Seat swivel mechanism works fine for each front seat. Manual door locks work. Original rubber Dodge floor mats. It has a flat spare (on a good wheel) in the trunk (as well as an extra junk tire seen in the pictures). While it has rust behind one headlight eyebrow, and both rear quarter panels and trunk floor, most of the body is solid and it has a solid frame and solid body mounts to the frame. Has original two-tone yellow and white paint that needs redone. It’s a very original car that hasn’t been messed up or modified. It’s the coolest looking car around with mean grille and big fins. I’d love to see it go to someone who wants to fix it up and make an original daily driver out of it. That’s what’d I’d do if I had the time. The bad: Brake pedal goes to the floor—I haven’t even looked at the brakes, but I’m assuming you’d want to rebuild the master cylinder and all the wheel cylinders. Needs a battery (present battery will barely hold a charge). The power steering pump leaks or a hose running into it leaks, so that needs fixed. Needs two nuts put back onto the engine mounts if I don’t get around to it. Needs new tires (present tires hold air but are mismatched and old). The car must have an electrical short that will drain the battery if not disconnected. Needs the trunk floor, especially to make sure the attachment points for the straps that hold the gas tank are strong enough to support a full gas tank. Engine is running off of gas from a gas can strapped inside the engine compartment for that reason. New trunk floor pans for 59 Dodges are available on ebay for $100. You can also buy new rear quarter panels for it on ebay. Both of the rear doglegs behind the rear door are rusty—could be patched with fiberglass, but I’m including old stock replacement dogleg sheet metal for each side. The original dash is wavy has shrunken a bit on the passenger side. Could be a daily driver without too much work. You’d have to fix the brakes, get new tires and battery, figure out the electrical short or install a battery cut-off switch, repair the power steering pump or hose or buy a replacement, and then fix up the trunk floor enough to make sure a full gas tank is supported. Then you could fix up cosmetic issues as you wish. Pictures show the worst of the car. It really is otherwise clean. I bought the car off ebay (from Toledo, Ohio area--I think I’m the fourth owner) in 2006 for $1450 then spent about $2000 on the engine rebuild, so I have roughly $3,500 in it. Then I married a woman with 5 kids, we had 2 more kids, and I now work four part-time jobs, so the car just sits in the garage because I don’t have time to play with it. So I’m selling it to make room in the garage for a good running 60 Buick I have that will be my only classic car until the kids are older and I have time and (hopefully) money. Personal or cashiers checks or money orders must clear before pick-up.Any questions: Call me (Jim) at 614-915-7210 On Sep-08-12 at 12:35:55 PDT, seller added the following information: I just put washers and nuts back on the engine mounts, so that is done. I took a closer look and it's definitely the power steering pump itself that is leaking. Just for fun I call our local NAPA store in Worthington, OH and they had a listing for a rebuilt PS pump for $48. The guy said none were in stock in the US, but for $48 I could take off this leaking pump and take it in to NAPA and they could rebuild it in 3 or 4 weeks for $48. Also, I do have two set of keys for the car--one set is aluminum and appears original. I looked at the gas tank/trunk floor situation and I do think the floor would hold a full tank of gas, though if I wanted to drive it before putting in a $100 trunk floor, I'd take a couple pieces of angle iron and attach it to the two metal supports which hold the gas tank and are hanging lower where that big side to side crack is in the trunk floor (clearly visible in the rear trunk floor photo)to make sure the rear of the gas tank were supported--it would be an easy tempory fix. If whomever buys it is going to have it shipped by an auto transport truck, you may want to buy a battery beforehand. As mentioned, that battery in there is just not holding a charge, so even if I had the battery charged up when we loaded the car, it could be dead again by the time the car got there. If whomever buys it gets bored with it 10 years from now, please sell it back to me. Hopefully by then I'll have enough money and garage space and time and have another 59 Dodge.