just got a clean 74 swinger. i love everything about the car, but the horn is....well. absolutely pathetic. A single note bleeper that sounds more like a tugboat horn (minus the amplification), and would be more in place on a Kia or Daewoo, than on any Dart.

i'm askin'. Do all of your Dart Swingers & Dusters have this tinny little honker? While this car is all-original, I can barely believe it; the horn on my 64 Dart blows this one out the water with merely a tap on the rim.

Basically along with air pollution, came a call to put a more muted horn in the A-body due to noise pollution...I notice the 60's Valiant will wipe out the 70's "Goose Horn" in volume...maybe time to wire in a diplomat dual horn?

-D.Idiot

Basically along with air pollution controls, came a call to put a more muted horn in the A-body due to noise pollution...I notice the 60's Valiant will wipe out the 70's "Goose Horn" in volume...maybe time to wire in a diplomat dual horn?

-D.Idiot

Cost control. There were no nationwide car horn noise pollution control laws in the '70s (NY was a different matter), but there's no gold star on any Federal fridge for cars that have better horns (lights, seatbelts, glass, mirrors, brakes) than the minimum required by the Federal standards. As far as the law is concerned, there are only two kinds of horns: legal and illegal. The small '70s horns were cheaper to buy than the bigger '60s horns, and the smaller items draw less current, permitting the use of lighter-gauge wire. Cost control!

This is easy to rectify in the aftermarket with any of several solutions. The so-called "Freeway Blaster" horns from FIAMM, which you can buy from any parts store, aren't worth messing with. They're almost as pathetic as the factory horns.

There are air horn kits consisting of a 12v motorised compressor and two or three trumpets; my employer sells such a set and other companies do, too. These are not my favourite solution, though; I find the tone is too high in pitch, same objection I have to the "Freeway Blaster" units.

The ones I like are the big ø5¼" Bosch Supertone horns, the ones that are illegally loud for use in Germany except on emergency vehicles. These puppies are pretty enough to mount in front of the car (like a pair of fog lamps) and are really, really, really loud.

NY State in the '70s had special horn regulations requiring quieter horn operation below 25mph (or maybe it was below 30mph), to make NYC traffic jams less obnoxious.

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