Start with what the Dodge Polara is: a 4-door sedan / 4-door wagon / 2-door convertible / 2-door hardtop / 4-door hardtop / 4-door hardtop station wagon with 383 CID V8, built from 1960, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. What it meant takes a little longer.
The background
The Dodge Polara is an automobile introduced in the United States for the 1960 model year as Dodge's top-of-the-line full-size car. After the introduction of the Dodge Custom 880 in 1962, the Polara nameplate designated a step below the full-sized best-trimmed Dodge model; the Polara that year had been downsized to what was in effect intermediate, or mid-size status.
In its various forms, the Polara name was used by Dodge until 1973, when its position in Dodge's line-up was replaced by the Dodge Monaco. The name Polara is a reference to the Polaris star in a marketing attempt to appeal to the excitement surrounding the Space Race during the early 1960s.
The engineering
The engine is 383 CID V8; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 3880 lb approx.. Drive goes through a 2-speed PowerFlite auto / 3-speed manual. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 118 in / 122 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
In the Dodge line-up the Dodge Polara has a clear place: it replaced the Dodge Coronet (1959 full-size); it handed the line to the Dodge Monaco; the factory was Hamtramck, Michigan (Dodge Main Factory), United States. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Mini Mini, the Jaguar E-Type, the Nissan Patrol. Its Dodge stablemates include the Dodge 1500 and the 1955 Dodge.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Dodge Polara — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.