Final Parking Space: 1954 Dodge Meadowbrook 4-Door Sedan
1954 was an interesting model year for the cars built by the Chrysler Corporation. They still looked old-fashioned compared to their GM and Ford rivals, but powerful overhead-valve V-8 engines were available for every marque except Plymouth. Even more important, Chrysler’s first true automatic transmission finally hit streets that model year. Here’s a 1954 Dodge sedan that incorporates both: It was built with a Red Ram Hemi engine and Powerflite automatic transmission, and I found it in a Colorado self-service wrecking yard recently.
This is a Meadowbrook, the entry-level Dodge car for 1954.
Above it were the Coronet and Royal, but all Dodges still out-prestiged DeSotos and Plymouths on the Chrysler Ziggurat of Achievement (my term for Chrysler’s version of Alfred Sloan’s Ladder of Success).
The number on the body tag tells us that this car was built at the Dodge Main plant in Hamtramck, Michigan (now GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly aka Factory Zero). 1954 Dodges were also built at San Leandro Assembly in California, at the spot where Drake’s Brewing Company now brews beer. This car’s final parking space is within a dozen or so miles of being equidistant from both locations.
Some old Black Hills State University parking passes indicate that this car once lived in Spearfish, South Dakota, near the northeastern corner of Wyoming and about 400 miles from Englewood.
This car was built with the smallest-displacement version of the early Hemi engine that Chrysler ever made: the 241-cubic-inch Dodge Red Ram V-Eight (yes, they spelled out Eight in marketing materials for a while). The decklid badge was gone when I arrived, but it bragged about the transmission as well as the engine.
Early Hemis are worth real money these days, so I wasn’t surprised to find an empty engine compartment. The Meadowbrook Red Ram was rated at 140 horsepower, while the Coronet and Royal versions got higher compression and 150 horses. The base engine in the 1954 Meadowbrook and Coronet was the sturdy but antiquated 230-cubic-inch Chrysler flathead straight-six, which made 110 horsepower.
The Red Ram Hemi was available in Dodges starting with the 1953 model year (Chrysler New Yorkers, Saratogas, and Imperials got 331-cube Hemis for 1951) The big Chrysler news for 1954 was the PowerFlite automatic transmission, a two-speed unit that shifted all by itself. The buyer of this car’s engine also took the bellhousing and torque converter, but the transmission itself remained behind.
To make real money selling mainstream cars by the middle 1950s, American manufacturers had to offer automatic transmissions (even though most buyers were still driving their new rides home from the showrooms working good old three-on-the-tree column-shift manuals). Chrysler had gotten by with the “Fluid Drive” transmission rig for quite a few years, but that was just a three-speed manual with a fluid coupling that offered reduced clutch pedal use and fewer shifts. GM had been selling the excellent Hydra-Matic automatic since way back in the 1940 model year, so the PowerFlite was long overdue.
I’m a bit surprised that a Meadowbrook buyer bought the very costly Red Ram and PowerFlite options, though this car was a bit lighter than the higher-zoot Coronet and Royal and the decision may have been performance-based.
The radical Forward Look cars were still a year away, but that didn’t stop Chrysler from getting the very first Dodge (a Royal convertible with Red Ram engine) as pace car for the 1954 Indianapolis 500.
Dodge, Plymouth, and DeSoto sedans of the pre-Forward Look postwar era are very affordable today and make good project cars for those who want to drive a cool old Detroit machine but don’t feel like spending six figures on a restoration.
This one has some rust in the usual spots plus plenty of old body filler hiding who-knows-what sort of damage, so it never stood much chance of getting put back on the street.
It will be a bonanza of glass and trim parts for some lucky junkyard shopper, though.
You need all the help you can get when driving on the lonely roads of the western Great Plains.
You may have noticed that this ’54 has a big dent in the driver’s door. That’s an important cultural reference! “It wasn’t very large, there was just enough room to cram the drums in the corner over by the Dodge. It was a ’54 with a mashed-up door and a cheesy little amp.”
If Zappa’s reference wasn’t enough, Bert Parks also approved of the ’54 Dodges.
That Meadowbrook plaque looks like a radio delete block off plate. A radio is what you really want when ” driving the lonely roads of the western Great Plains “. Having slim pickin’s during that time NPR was one of the few stations available. The rust belt and other remote locations ended up producing a lot of opera fans because of regular broadcasts from The Metropolitan back then. Me, today I’d probably have Tom Waits ‘Old 55′ or “Diamonds On My Windshield’ playing. – “And the radio’s gone off the air, and it gives you time to think”.
54 Chev & Pontiac still had the bulb-out rear fender design, so they are “behind the times” compared to this slab-side (shoebox) Dodge.
I think we will see more cars like this ending up parted out. The cost to properly restore a car puts you underwater for many desirable-spec models. Rarely is the 4-door the value investment.
It’s a shame, because this car’s bones look more solid than 90% of the cars people are trying to patch up in the rust belt I live in (looking at you 2nd and 3rd gen Camaro/Firebirds).