Custom 880's. Where did they come from ??

The Custom 880 series was introduced to the Dodge line-up in mid-year 1962 this was to give Dodge a 'big' car and to fill a gap left by the demise of the Desoto which produced it's last vehicle on November 30, 1960, just 47 days into production of the 1961 specification models. :-(
Desoto's had been produced for 32 years and they put a total of 2,024,629 vehicles on the road since the summer of 1928.

The story goes that Chryslers "spies" heard that Chevrolet and Ford were down-sizing their cars for 1962, This prompted the development of the 116" wheelbase Darts for 1962, these were 10" shorter (overall) than the previous year. Chev and Ford were downsizing but with new product lines (Nova and Falcon), they retained the larger vehicle lines ( Impala and Galaxie etc.). This meant that Dodge had to quickly "throw" together a larger car for 62, no mean feat when they normally had a 2-3 year development period for the new models.

The Custom 880's for 1962 were a mixture of 1962 Chrysler body with the front end from a 61 Dodge. They rode on a 122" wheelbase and were 213.5" long overall (215" for the station wagons). There were 17,505 units made in all body styles ranging in price from $2964.00 to $3407.00

	1962 Dodge, Custom 880 4 door hardtop station wagon
	1962 Chrysler, New Yorker 4 door hardtop
	1961 Dodge, Dart Phoenix 4 door hardtop

1962 CUSTOM 880 SERIES
Model Number	Body/Style Number	Body Type & Seating	Factory Price	Shipping Weight	Production Total
SD3L	613	4-dr Sed-6P	2964	3655	11,141
SD3L	614	4-dr HT Sed-6P	3109	3680	1,855
SD3L	612	2-dr HT Cpe-6P	3030	3615	1,761
SD3L	615	2-dr Conv-6P	3251	3705	684
SD3L	658	4-dr Sta Wag-6P	3292	4025	1,174
SD3L	659	4-dr Sta Wag-9P	3407	4055	890