Dodge Wayfarer 1950 Sportabout Convertible

Dodge nearly killed off the roadster body style entirely in 1950 before quietly renaming it Sportabout and keeping the convertible alive, barely. Fewer than 3,000 of these left the factory that year, making this ragtop the rarest Wayfarer body style Dodge ever built. Here is the story behind a car most people have never heard of.

Dodge touted the new “roll-up window” Wayfarer in 1950 as “the favorite of all youthful America” “Heed the call of the open road in the sportiest car on the highway,” they coaxed. “The durable fabric top on its lightweight aluminum frame can be raised or lowered quickly and easily with one hand… Chrome-trimmed safety glass side windows that roll up completely with one-and-one half turns give a completely weatherproof car… You’ll enjoy the relaxing comfort of the extra wide, soft-cushioned knee-level seat with legroom to spare… the festive playtime look of bright interior fittings and colorful textile leather upholstery. Out on the road, you’ll thrill to the eager responsiveness of the big 103 horsepower Dodge ‘Get-Away’ Engine…”

Dodge’s own marketing department almost talked buyers out of a car that would turn out to be the rarest thing they built that year. Mid-year in 1950, Chrysler quietly renamed the roadster to Sportabout once they realized true roadsters just were not selling, a rebrand history barely remembers, but one that saved a genuinely lovely convertible from getting killed off entirely. Fewer than three thousand of these left the factory in 1950 alone, which makes this ragtop scarcer than plenty of cars that get far more attention at shows. What made Dodge’s cheapest full-size line worth saving when the roadster body style itself was already dying everywhere else?

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Renamed to Survive

The Wayfarer sat at the bottom of Dodge’s lineup, below the Meadowbrook and the range-topping Coronet, and it only existed for four model years total before Chrysler retired the name for good in 1952. That period ad copy promising the sportiest car on the highway was not just fluff, Dodge was actively trying to convince buyers that a proper drop-top could still sell in an era when most manufacturers were quietly killing off true roadsters in favor of easier, cheaper hardtops.

Scarce by the Numbers

Dodge moved over 217,000 Wayfarers total across the model’s short run, but only 2,903 of those were 1950 Sportabout convertibles, making the ragtop the rarest body style in an already short-lived nameplate. Under the hood sits the Get-Away 230 cubic-inch inline-six making a modest-sounding 103 horsepower, numbers that feel tame next to anything from the muscle car era proper, but that period ad copy sold as genuinely thrilling, and for 1950, running with the top down and the wind in your face, it probably was.

Why Prewar-Adjacent Convertibles Matter

Cars from this exact transitional period, after the war, before the real horsepower era began, rarely get the spotlight that muscle cars from the 1960s and 1970s soak up, but a genuinely scarce ragtop like this one tells the story of how American car culture got from wartime rationing to a convertible on every corner, one modest 103-horsepower six-cylinder at a time.

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