well, personally I dont think the old Dart was anything to write home about, though sure there are some that may be sentimental about it. Maybe your Mom drove you to school every day in one, or you made out with your first girlfriend in one. Other than some of the v-8's in those cars, there really wasnt much to them, so I have no problem with a totally new and different Dart. It is the 21st century, and they own the name, so they are entitled to call it whatever they want I guess. Just like I have no problem with the new 4 door Charger. They need to sell as many as they can, and a 2 door Charger would only eat into Challenger sales.
If they can make this new car a drivers car (light, nimble and quick) they may have something, but my guess is it will be a heavy slug with an anemic 4 made to move the masses. We'll see next month.
The old Darts had a well-deserved reputation for reliability. The GT series was a good way to get some luxury at an affordable price.
And, for some years, there was a good range of engine choices. For instance, a '69 Dart was available with a 198 and 225 slant six, 318, 340, 383 and 440 V-8s. And they didn't look like Euro or Japanese cars!
I owned a '66 Dart GT (with mildly modified V-8) from 1979 to 2002. It would pretty fun to drive. Averaged about 16 mpg and ran 40-60 mph in 4 seconds.
