Why Buy Three Demon 170s, When You Can Have a 1-in-9 1970 Coronet R/T (It's Not Original)

Probably one of the least mentioned models of this iconic series is the 1970, but there are reasons for that. Dodge’s Challenger made landfall, holding hands with the third-generation Plymouth Barracuda. The horsepower wars were at their height, and everyone was putting on a show. The Coronet was no stranger to the battles, being tasked with R/T duties on the performance front.

Dodge built 2,515 Coronet R/Ts in 1970, far behind the 10,337 Chargers of the same Road/Track family and terrifyingly low compared to the Challenger R/T production run of 18,512 units. To make things a little spicy, only 16 of those Coronets came with the hemigod engine, the 426 Hemi piston hero from Mother Mopar. The bulk of production was left on the shoulders of the 440 Magnum powerplant (with the four-barrel induction).

Sitting between the unicorns with hemispherical heads and the mainstream 440-cubic-inch RB was the jacked-up version of the latter, the triple two-barrel carburetor Magnum V8. Being Dodge, it was called the Six-Pack, and it only adorned 210 examples of the famous performance mid-size B-body platform. Sixteen were left without a permanent roof (nine automatics, seven four-speeds), making them quite a rare sight today.

(Quick side note: out of the Hemi batch of 1970 Dodge Coronets, just one was allotted to the domestic market. Two were ushered across the border into Canada, while the third crossed the Atlantic to find its home).

The rarity of the ragtop Coronets certainly puts it in the same ballpark as its divisional relative, the 1970 Plymouth Cuda convertible Hemi. However, is this rarity alone enough reason to push its value through the stratosphere? Apparently, it is, as this example featured in this story comes with an asking price of almost half a million bucks.

The vehicle in question is one of nine 440-6 automatic Coronet R/Ts from 1970 (the Six-Pack plant wasn’t available on other Coronet trims or packages), but the sad part is that it’s not even a survivor. The car has been restored to concours rigors (the five-year nut-and-bolt project was finished in 2011) and was offered for public sale last September in Dallas. The high bid of $200,000 was not what the seller intended for, so the super-rare Mopar is now advertised again.

The odometer shows 381 miles (613 kilometers) in the video attached (the number stands for the distance covered since it was rebuilt). The car had to undergo an extensive body panel transplant from a donor coupe since most of its original carcass was too exhausted by all-season weathering of 1970s daily use.

The car belonged to a collector in Oklahoma until the current owner bought it and restored it to showroom-new quality. The 7.2-liter V8, rated at 390 hp and 490 lb-ft when new (395 PS, 651 Nm), is allegedly in perfect running order, and the three-speed TorqueFlite automatic should remove the gear shifting worries.

‘Serious inquires only.  Viewings and demonstrations will only be scheduled with a deposit in place first.’ This is not a common request from a seller, but I’m willing to bet there are collectors or piston-headed car nuts who will play along and wire the money just to get a chance to see it in person. After all, if someone is willing to consider putting half a million dollars at stake for one old Mopar that’s not an original Hemi, who’s to say otherwise?