7 Of The Best-Looking Dodge Models Built Before 1980

Dodge has represented many things over the years. More than anything, it is power, from the Charger and Challenger in the heyday of the muscle car to the Ram trucks of the 21st Century. Rarely, though, has Dodge been synonymous with beauty. Sure, people may like the look of a Dodge here and there, but those vehicles are designed to be impressive looking, more so than elegant. If you look at a modern-day Dodge Charger, your first thought will probably be about how its big, bulging front looks like it's holding an engine that can produce over 650 hp (which it most certainly does), not about how it belongs in a museum to be admired.

However, Dodge as a company goes all the way back to the turn of the 20th Century, and in that time, it has managed to produce a number of very striking vehicles. However, most of them are not among Dodge's best-selling vehicles and are instead forgotten about or may not have been recognized as beautiful objects in their time. We are going to look at seven different Dodge vehicles from before 1980 and spotlight just how aesthetically pleasing they are. The test of a true enduring beauty is time.

There is something so classically gorgeous about an American roadster. In many ways, this open-top, two-door sedan is the foundation of what an automobile should look like from the days of the Ford Model T. However, at the start of the 1930s, production on roadsters in the United States ended, and they would not see a return to the market until the 1949 Dodge Wayfarer, the first entry on this list. As the years progressed, roadsters continued to get more sporty and sleek, but with this original Wayfarer, you get the ideal midpoint of the past and the future.

With a length of over 194 inches, the Wayfarer was a very large two-door vehicle, but its size is part of its aesthetic appeal. It gives the car an impressive presence that makes people who look at it think that its cost must be comparative to its size. That wasn't the case, though, as it cost just $1,727 back when it was released. That is about $22,764 adjusted for inflation.

That size is accentuated by all the rounded edges around the car. Whether it is the domed front hood, the parabola that is the front grille, the rear wheel covers, or the circular headlights, there are very few straight lines to be found on the Wayfarer. This roundness also makes the car look smoother and sportier, in direct opposition to the sports cars of the latter half of the 20th Century. You put some whitewall tires on this, and you have a vehicle that epitomizes mid-century, attainable Americana.

If the Dodge Wayfarer was a blend of the past and the future of automotive design, the Dodge Custom Royal was that future. This was a model that first debuted for the 1955 model year, but did not really hit its aesthetic stride until the 1957 model, which is the next model on this list. The Custom Royal had some strange design elements when it debuted. The front grille was instead two awkwardly large holes with a chrome bar in front of them. The headlights featured lips above them that gave the front of the car the look of a sad face. The balance between round shapes and straight lines was totally out of whack.

The 1957 Custom Royal fixed all of these issues. Now, the grille was a narrow strip that stretched across the entire front of the car. The single bulb headlights were replaced by two lamps on both sides of the car, and they were more inset into the car, giving them a more defined shape in relation to the top lip and the bumper. The bumper has a design that almost looks like an angry mouth with fangs, which compliments the lines of the hood beautifully. Dodge also replaced the emblem of the company with its name that fits perfectly between on the edge of the hood. Dodge also significantly reduced the amount of round shapes on the car, leaning more into straight lines, which help accentuate the rear fins even more. The 1957 Dodge Custom Royal looked like a lean, mean machine that still had an air of style and luxury, whether you wanted it with two doors or four.

1959 was the final year for the Dodge Custom Royal, and the following year saw the debut of what would then become what would be considered the top level of what Dodge had to offer, the Dodge Polara. This would be a nameplate that the company would use through the 1973 model year, but it is that very first year when the car was at its absolute peak in terms of beauty, as the car would quickly swerve away from its classical style into something that looked — quite frankly — goofy.

The Dodge Polara carries over a number of the design elements that made the Custom Royal so pleasing, from its rear fins to the Dodge name branded across the front of the hood. However, there are plenty of differences between the two as well. This is most notable with the front facade of the Polara. Dodge has introduced a far more traditional grille to the front of the vehicle that is a large grating with many strips of metal. While it takes away from the mean edge of the Custom Royal, this makes the car feel a lot more modern, as does the bumper that looks to be one large piece rather than the open mouth look. Dodge also took the four headlight setup and made all the lamps roughly the same size, filling up those headpieces to almost look like one large light bulb.

Dodge would soon introduce sweeping hood and grille shapes that totally disrupt the elegance of what this original Dodge Polara looked like. There were fine-looking models in the future, but none were as good as 1960.

This next model may not be all that familiar to many readers because this is a car that you basically would not find outside of Australia. Starting with the 1960 model year, Chrysler Australia built its own successor to the Dodge Custom Royal, called the Dodge Phoenix. For the first few years, the car was essentially an Australian version of the Dodge Dart, but starting with the 1965 model year, the car was completely overhauled to instead by a rebadged version of the Plymouth Fury III. It is this iteration of the Dodge Phoenix that makes this list.

The 1965 Phoenix is almost the opposite of that 1949 Wayfarer when it comes to its shape. The Phoenix opts for straight lines, whether that be the hood, the top of the car, or the metal stripe that goes down each side of the vehicle. The straight line aesthetic extends to the car's grille as well. The entire thing is a tight-knit collection of a ton of vertical and horizontal lines that looks like a true grate for air rather than anything sleek. That bluntness pairs so well with all the straight lines of the rest of the vehicle. The other interesting design piece is the decision to stack two lamps on top of each other for each side of the headlights, rather than have them next to each other like the Custom Royal or Polara had. It makes the car feel taller and more impressive, giving the front an extended vertical line to be perpendicular to all the horizontal straight lines. The 1965 Dodge Phoenix is an underrated gem.

There is something just so pleasing about the design of a classic American muscle car. The way the car is shaped makes it look like it needs to charge ahead even when it is just sitting still. Dodge has a number of these in its history, like the Charger and Challenger, but for the car that gets at this styling at its most simple and classic, you need look no further than the 1971 Dodge Dart. Although this particular look of the Dart began with the 1970 model year, it is 1971 that refined this aesthetic to its most beautiful, making it truly fit the car's new name of the Dodge Dart Demon.

The true sign of this era of muscle car is the incredibly narrow front grille. The lip of the hood pushes past the grille ever so slightly, which somehow makes the grille look even more narrow than it already is. The somewhat small circular headlights are situated directly next to the grille that just continues the narrow straight line to the edge of the car. Outside the front, you have the classic, gradual swoop down from the top of the car down to the back end of the trunk. Certain trims of the Dart are also fitted with dual hood scoops that simply make the car look like it can go way faster than it probably can. The 1971 Dodge Dart Demon may not have the classic status that the 1969 Charger or 1970 Challenger may have, but if we are talking just about looks, the Dart Demon may just take the cake.

Although most of the best-looking Dodge models that have been produced are cars, that does not mean that the company has not created some really lovely larger vehicles as well. Chief among those would have to be the 1974 Dodge Ramcharger, the company's first SUV. For most of the time this it was out in the world, the Ramcharger's appearance was not all that special, emphasizing the utility of a sports utility vehicle. However, this was the very first model year of the Ramcharger, and that first year is easily the best it ever looked.

What makes it beautiful is in its unassuming nature. In many respects, it has the styling of a Dodge sedan of the time. It has that same narrow rectangle shape from the front grille that you would find on a Dodge Dart from the same year, along with the terrific Dodge name branding stretched across the front of the hood. However, what really separates the 1974 Ramcharger from the model years that follow is that this is the only one that features half doors built into the body. The Ramcharger comes with a removable roof, and with this half door setup, the tops of the doors would be taken off with the roof. Starting the very next year, full doors would be used, and it would end up looking like any old pickup truck rather than a large, extended convertible. Uniqueness is important when you want a vehicle's look to stand out, and for the 1974 Dodge Ramcharger, it is this seemingly small thing that adds so much to its look.

For a more modern audience, the name Dodge Magnum conjures up images of a truly ugly station wagon the company produced in the mid-2000s that looked like the awkwardly stretched and lumpy cousin to the Chrysler 300. However, that was a revival of the Magnum nameplate, as that name was first used by Dodge back for the 1978 model year for a very forgotten mid-size coupé. This 1978 Magnum XE is the final entry on the list, and while its look may not hit everyone at a first glance, it has a certain charm to it that is somewhat inexplicable.

This late into the 1970s, Dodge had pivoted away from many of the design elements that had been prevalent in the late 1960s and early '70s, but that does not mean they were any less appealing. The most striking difference is in the Magnum's headlight design. For so long, Dodge had been using circular headlamps, but the 1978 Magnum XE implemented rectangular bulbs that are fitted behind slanted coverings. Automatically, these change the entire face shape of the car into something that maybe makes you think it's a different brand. Even the Dodge branding had been obscured, as it just appears in small letters on the driver's side headlamp covering. Even the traditional rear windows were replaced by three opera windows on each side of the car, giving the car a more luxurious look.

Ultimately, this Dodge Magnum never really took off, lasting just two model years in the United States, but looking back, Dodge took an aesthetic risk with this that really works.