Welcome, ag4ever

Hi, I came here looking for a lead on a car like my father bought in ‘68. He had recently graduated from the University of Texas and was working for a semi-conductor company in Austin. Originally from Houston, he went to the dealer he and his parents bought many cars from, I believe it was Patrick Motors near downtown Houston.

On the first day the order bank was open for the new ‘69 models, he placed an order for a 1969 Dodge Polara 500 convertible. Red paint, white interior, white top. 383 V-8 with an automatic transmission. I am not sure if it was a 2 barrel or a 4 barrel. (When it was in the shop one time, a service manager said that engine was not offered in that car, so I am thinking it might have been a 2bbl.) When it was delivered, it was red paint, white interior, but had a black top. (My dad swore they used his car for the ‘69 brochure because it was delivered before the brochures were available and matched the phot car exactly, who knows, might have been.) The dealer replaced the top with the originally ordered white top, but never could get the correct rear window, so it had a white top with a black stripe under the glass. My grandmother stitched up a custom vinyl headliner that attached to the roof frame with Velcro strips.

An interesting story regarding the car, my dad entered a fuel economy contest in Houston. The winner got to drive one of the gold Chrysler Turbine cars. My dad rejected the carburetor to run lean, picked a time of day he knew would be light traffic, and pre-drove the route to determine the ideal speed to have all green lights. He said he won the full size car class by a large margin. His report on driving the turbine car was, “the delayed response for the throttle was odd, but once it started delivering power, it was good.”

In the end he sold the car because it had a tick, and was not sure about the reliability. At the time, he was in the Army at Ft Hood (drafted) and my mother was pregnant with my sister. Side note, when he was at Ft Hood, he and several other engineers invented laser tag for non-lethal combat simulations. I believe a mechanic at the Dodge dealer ended up buying the car, kept it for a long time and gave it to his daughter for her to drive in high school. Or that is the rumor my father heard.

I doubt I will find his old car, but I would like to find one similar to it.

If I can locate his photos, I will try to post them here. I remember he had several, with one having been taken looking down at the interior from a high vantage point. For the longest time he even had the old license receipts. I might have the old plates in the garage, I just don’t know if they were from his cars, or my grand parents. Plates are PHB 597 and the second set is PHB 596.

Thanks,
Robert
 
Welcome Robert!
Finding your dad's 1969 Polara 500 is a long shot. Do you have the Vin number?
The 1969 in 1970 full-size convertibles were beautiful cars. Hope you find your dad's convertible!
 
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