The Dakotas chassis old cars and trucks make great daily drivers, just like driving a Dakota from whatever vintage the chassis is from, with a cool old body on it.

That said, the biggest issues with 1930-1960 cars and trucks are keeping the inside dry and warm, and most important, keeping the windshield and side windows clear. The defroster system on the older stuff just is not up to par with the current stuff. In trucks, up to the mid 90s redesign, they simply were not concerned about keeping water out of the inside of the cab. Trucks that had functioning AC faired better, but standard non-AC cabs had issues with vent, defrost, and keeping the glass dry. Lets not forget the melting down the blower fuse because the defrost blower was on high all the time so we could see. Cars tended to see improvements in the mid 80s.

My 50 truck was mounted on an 80 Dodge W150 4x4 chassis. It was first built around 1996. As a truck it worked great, but any precipitation (rain or snow, or anything between) resulted in water running down the windshield posts, and fogged up windshield until it got warm (at least 10 minutes running around town fan on high). I carried a squidgy and added an extra fan pointed at the driver side windshield to keep the inside glass clear. The truck only had a single piece of metal overhead, condensation would drip on your head, until I added the Mylar bubble coated insulation, (then I suspect it merely ran off to the sides). The 50s cab simply wasn't designed to channel water out of the cab. Door and window seals were a constant battle. A trip out of town on a cold winter night was a cold drafty, hard to see proposition. In town, or during daylight wasn't a bad deal, but it was cold in the winter, and hot in the summer. The truck got killed when a lady decided to turn left in front of me. The cab was salvageable, the frame was toast. I wasn't wearing the lap seat belt. I believe if I would have had the lap belt on, my head would have hit the center of the windshield instead of the header above the windshield. I got 11 stitches in my forehead and a sprained thumb, the lady had airbags and was unhurt. Mounting that 50s cab works a lot better on a Dakota frame then it does on a full size truck frame.

My current 48 Plymouth business coupe is on a 90 Dakota frame. The long box standard cab frame was shortened 8" and the cab and drive train was moved back 7". I used the Dakota floor pan and firewall. The very rusty coupe body was trimmed to set over top of the trimmed to match Dakota floor & firewall, and the Dakota box floor completed the car's floor. I am using the Dakota heat/AC box (currently without the AC functioning) basically untouched (I had to trim the incoming air end to fit within the 6" narrower, at the firewall body.

The coupe had a fresh air vent on the cowl in front of the windshield, that has been removed, and a new cowl system was built and attached to the bottom 1/2 of the Dakota firewall. Except for a 3" x 4" hole up high in the cowl, the cowl is sealed off from the passenger compartment. I custom built the dash, and the defrost ducts, heat was not a primary concern, a clear windshield and dry feet were. The windshield is bonded to the car instead of being mounted on rubber gaskets. The windshield, dash, and cowl are dry, 3 years after construction. The defrost clears most of the windshield in a couple of minutes (about as fast as it did in the Dakota). There are compromises at the extreme edges of the windshield, by nature of the shape of the 48 body. The condition of the original body of my car is the issue currently with all year driving. The fit of the doors is not tight, and there currently is no weatherstripping around the doors. There is also not a sealed division between the trunk and the passenger compartment. Driving down the road in cold weather results in a cold breeze coming from behind the seat and across your neck. The car is a comfortable ride until the temp reaches about 40 degrees, then the cold breeze gets me. Probably with due diligence that can be resolved, but the car was not intended to be a winter driver. Even with a limited slip rear axle, the car is quite helpless in snow (which could be corrected as well, I suspect).

My conclusion, the old car and truck bodies can be great drivers for 3/4 of the year. In places that actually have winter, the winter driving can be done, but it will be challenging build with concentrated effort for those winter drives.

On more consideration you must make. Car insurance is difficult to obtain on a daily driver old car for anything more then liability insurance. Sometimes even just getting liability coverage is difficult. Just liability insurance means if you wreck your old car, its all yours to fix, the loss will be all yours. I can only get liability insurance on my coupe if I want to be able to drive it daily, or whenever I want. If I wreck it, I will have to fix or replace it out of my own pocket. Something to think about when you put the $5,000-$10,000 old car daily driver on the road. Gene