Much was still at the beginning; some news sound like the relevant events just happened. Sensational climax of the year 1969 - the appearance year of the role model from the modelcar the Dodge Dart 440 GTS, as the editorial team of this blog is presenting herewith - was certainly the first landing on the moon by Neil Armstrong. Shortly before, the Stonewall uprising on Christopher Street caused a sensation in the media; something that continues to the present day as Christopher Street Day. Left-wing extremists carried out attacks on Jewish facilities and the bomb attack on Piazza Fontana on December 12th, 1969 was the first major right-wing terrorist attack in post-war Italian history, with 17 dead and 88 seriously injured in Milan. Sounds like today too. And the pursuit of high-horsepower cars?
This celebrated its climax for the time being in the years of muscle cars. Provisionally? Sure, because strong cars inspire us all, only the popular top models in the 1960s and 1970s, often civilian basic models, stood out from the crowd more than is common today. This also applies to the Dodge Dart, the base of which was presented in 1966 as a very good four-door sedan. In 1968 the decidedly sporty Dart GTS Coupé with 205 kW / 279 hp moved to the top of the model range, which got its ample power from a 5.6 liter V8. And thus met the demands that the predominantly younger target group placed on a muscle car: relatively inexpensive coupés with large-volume eight-cylinders; in demand from 1964 to 1971. With the model year, the miniatures of the Dodge Dart GTS 440 fit exactly into this period.
Let us take a look at the modelcars: GMP again delivers perfectly handcrafted modelcars. With contemporary vinyl roof in orange as base color, the GTS 440 under the item number 1806404VT comes to the market in an edition of 432 pieces; of the version with solid orange it is 786 pieces (1806404). Both modelcars have true-to-original interior equipment, correspondingly lined trunk compartments, openable doors and hoods. The Americans from GMP also dedicated themselves to the details fo the engine compartment with much love. They also considered steerable front wheels. 1969 is really fun like that: Perfect in the modelcar, as it had never been in the original. One more reason to celebrate the Throwback Thursday, not only because of the CSD and moon landing.