Dodge

The Dart was introduced late 1959 as a lower-priced, full-size Dodge. It was developed to replace Plymouths for the Dodge dealer network. Dodge dealers had been selling Plymouths since 1930, but divisional restructuring took the Plymouth brand away from the Dodge dealer network. The Dart was a successful model that quickly outsold the full-size Dodge Matador and Polara and also affected sales of the competing Plymouths. Chrysler executives however, did little to stop the infighting between the divisions. 

For 1963, Dodge made a last-minute decision to drop the Lancer name in favor of Dart for Dodge's newly designed compact car. Consequently, in just three years the Dart evolved from a full-size car to a compact car. It was an instant market success though, with 1963 sales up sharply compared to those of the same-size 1962 Lancer. The Dart remained extremely popular through the end of it's production run in 1976 in comparison to the Ford Falcon and the Chevrolet Nova.