Bill begins the odyssey.
Will he wrangle this Road Runner and show up that old Coyote or will an ACME Anvil be his fate? Keep up to date by grabbing the RSS feed.
Here is Bill’s latest video
More coming up the ’68 Road Runner including a good video on replacing the vapor barrier in your Mopar car.
I’d like you to take a look at one of my constant readers classic muscle car. First let me say that Bill has been an a long quest to find a car to replace this car: Back in the day. It was a long search with lots of phone calls with many …
With such names as Fury and Barracuda and Valiant, you would expect the 1964 power plant offering for Plymouth to be some monsters, maybe even a Wedge tossed in.
But no, the Wedge 426 cid (Stock Max Wedge Stage III) was only available as a $500.00 racing option. The standard fair was the straight 6’s (170 and the 225) and the 318.
Dubbed the Valiant Six the 175 was an inline (straight) 6 cylinder iron block. It had overhead valves and a bore and stoke of 3.40 x 3.125. Fair enough compression ratio of 8.2:1 with solid lifters and four-main bearings. Top it with a Carter single barrel carb (BBS Model 3839S) and you’d squeeze 101 ponies out of it.
Valiant Six
The Barracuda had a straight 6 in it as was well. It was the 225 cid with 3.40 x 4.125 bore and stroke, same compression as the 175 (8.2:1), as well as solid lifters and overhead values. Using the same carb as the 175, you could must up to 145 hps.
But don’t think the Valiant and the ‘Cuda were left to struggle with less than 150 hps – nope there was a V-8 available as well. That engine was the 273 cid and it ran a compression ratio of 8.8:1 with it’s cast iron block, overhead valves and bored to 3.62 and stroked of 3.312. It sported 5 main bearings, solid lifters and was topped with a Carter 2 barrel carb (BBD 3767S). As outfitted it produced 180 hp.
The other V8 of standard production was the 318. Having personal experience with this engine, I can say it was (is) versatile and solid. You could do a lot with this hunk of iron. For 1964 it had overhead valves, cast iron block with standard bore and stroke of 3.906 and 3.312 inches. 9.0:1 compression ratio with five main bearings, solid lifters and 5 main bearings breathed though BBD two barrel Carter carb (Model 3682S) and produced a respectable 230 hp.
The 318
Yes…you can do that to 318!!!
As mentioned there were some competition engine available that year but you didn’t them in average street cars. There was the Super Cammando 426cid Hemi (available in early Feb ’64) for competition use only. There was the de-tuned street 426-S(street). Also available were the Commando V8 383 in 305 hp and 330 hp versions as well as Commando 426 (Street Wedge) with 426 cid and 365hp.
According to my research there were 6,359 Dodge and Plymouth cars built with the 426 engine in 1964. Of those only 271 were racing Hemi’s.
The Chrysler 413 is an interesting engine because it lived a long life in multiple roles and a very wide range of equipment. Hot rodders like to think about the hot rodded Max Wedge 413 (that gave way to the Max Wedge 426) and luxury car people like to think of the powerful and smooth Imperials and other cars that were shoved along by it, and finally truck guys will tell you that the 413 was a stalwart gas power plant offered in big trucks until 1979. That is a heck of a run for a mill that showed up on the scene in 1959 and was used in cars until 1965.
The videos below aren’t about floating Imperials or sneaky big Polaras. Nope, the videos below celebrate the most BangShifty application of the engine in the form of the 420hp Max Wedge 413 as offered in a small number of Plymouth and Dodge models in 1962. Combating the Pontiacs and Chevrolets, the “Super Stock Dodges” were quickly recognized in songs and popular culture. The Beach Boys talked about the cars in their song “Shut Down” while Jan and Dean were singing about the “Little Old Lady From Pasadena” who happened to also be driving a Max Wedge powered Chrysler. Rated at 420hp at 5,000 RPM this engine was a harbinger of things to come from Chrysler who really took the gloves off the next year when they expanded the engine to 426ci and later when the Hemi was introduced.
The H.E.M.I show is back, Saturday, March 7th, 2015. 8 AM -3 PM. Sponsored by Universal Technical Institute and Mopars Unlimited of Arizona. The biggest all Mopar car show in Arizona has a NEW LOCATION. This year the show will be at UTI, Universal Technical Institute, 10695 W. Pierce St, Avondale, AZ 85323.
The H.E.M.I show is back, Saturday, March 7th, 2015. 8 AM -3 PM. UTI, Universal Technical Institute, 10695 W. Pierce St, Avondale, AZ 85323
More space, more vendors, more swappers, food trucks, and over 50 professionally judged classes and all Mopar.
Vintage, Classic, Muscle, Truck, Jeep, FWD, Neon, Prowler/Viper, AMC, new Challenger, Charger, and Dart classes, survivor class, and a display only class plus many more. Stock and modified in most classes.
Personal Touch Dynamometer chassis dyno on site all day. See which Mopar will make the most power at the Dyno challenge. Special award for the highest horse power Mopar.
Come, see, and hear, the largest all Mopar show in Arizona.
Go to moparsaz.com for more info and to register show cars, swappers, and vendors, Just print and mail in the form by February 16th for reduced pre entry fee for show cars.
Entry is free to spectators. Show car $20 pre register by Feb 16th, $25 day of show, $15 Display only, Swap/Vendor space $20/$50, Dyno Challenge $30 2 pulls, enter as often as you like.
If you blinked, you missed it. The limited-edition Mopar ’14 Challenger, the latest Chrysler Group LLC vehicle to come straight from the factory already upgraded with Mopar products, has sold out in just the first day after being made available to dealers.
The Mopar ’14 Challenger is the most recent limited-edition vehicle offered by the brand, continuing the success of the Mopar ’10 Challenger, Mopar ’11 Charger, Mopar ’12 300 and Mopar ’13 Dart in demonstrating how owners can personalize their rides with Mopar products — even before driving away from the dealership. With only 100 built, the Mopar ’14 Challenger is the rarest limited-production Dodge Challenger offered to date.
A couple posts back I wrote on my chance meeting with the Maserati – Chrysler TC Club….no it’s fine go back and look…we’ll wait. (Insert whistling sound.) One response mentioned that the Maserati/ Chrysler TC was …”two years late to market.” (Bill February 10, 2014 at 12:00 PM).
That didn’t occur to me about the TC but I had just finished reading an article in Hemmings Motor News the Muscle Car Profile section – 1969 Plymouth Baracuda 383. It was written by Terry McGean.
The article chats about the 383 and the Formula S package. But the article starts out by saying That Chrysler peeps are pretty sure they started the “pony” car craze by revamping the Valiant line of cars to come up with the Baracuda just before Ford released the Mustang. And that is the case but unfortunately the A-body wasn’t up to par with the Mustang and the Camaro in the performance department and both cars left the Valiant platform in the dust or as Terry wrote “…Ford mastered the art of re-skinning an economy model as a sporting coup, or else these cars would have been called ‘Fish cars’…(I’m inserting a chuckle here.)…From there Plymouth seemed to be chasing the Mustang and not long after the Camaro and Firebird twins.”
This ties in to what I thought about when Mother Mopar came out with the Charger. It was a horrible attempt at recapturing the ‘pony’ car era. Ford had already re-invented the Mustang buy then and Chevy gave the C6 Corvette a retro ’60’s style shape and then came the Camaro and still Chrysler didn’t have the answer, until the Challenger. That was nicely done and I love it, but it was still late to the party again.
I thought they might make a hit with the ‘Dodge Dart’, I considered that a pony car of sorts, but instead we got a Dodge Neon.
’65 Cuda
’65 Mustang
’65 Camaro
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Rare 65 Plymouth Baracuda (East Bend ) $4000 http://t.co/yi6ZSjs7Fb http://t.co/qW3XHkYLLY
Make: Plymouth Model: Baracuda Year: 1965 Body Style: Sedan Exterior Color: Red Interior Color: Red Doors: Four Doors Vehicle Condition:… Collectible – Classic Cars Plano.
I love book and the movie, and I even started considering collecting one. When I was a kid (back in the early 70’s) across the road from our house, in a field, sat an old Plymouth Fury – can’t recall cars year but it did have fins.
I remember asking my Dad why we didn’t drive it and he said it needed a carburetor. It seemed in my young mind’s eye that the carburetor wasn’t much more than a can looking thing with a butterfly looking think in the middle. So I fashioned one out of a soup can and the metal dividers in an ice cube maker – yes kids it was before ice fell from a frig with a push of a button.
Stephen King said he chose a 1958 Plymouth Fury to play the inhuman title character in his book from the year prior because Furys “were the most mundane Fifties car that I could remember. I didn’t want a car that already had a legend attached to it like the fifties Thunderbird, the Ford Galaxies etc… Nobody ever talked about the Plymouth products.”
Enjoy this article at the link below (and go pick up a Hemmings periodical). You’ll love them.
Spec Page is a new series where we explore a particular model’s DNA.
This post is covering a car that I’ve frankly never heard of before. Plymouth Belvedere sure is recognizable as a 60’s muscle car (yes properly powered they were muscle cars) and Suburban as big hauler. The 1954 Plymouth Belvedere Suburban was a hauler, but power house it wasn’t.
Plymouth Belvedere Suburban
So lets start with the engine. Weren’t a lot of choices in 1954 and the standard for working class cars was the Plymouth’s flat head six.It was an iron block with L-head valves. It had a bore and stroke of 3.25″ 4.64″ and a compression ratio of 7.1:1 and displaced 217.8 cubic inches. Topped with the a single carb barrel downdraft (normally a Carter Type BB model D5h2) help produce 100 hp.
Flat Head Six
All that power was transferred to the wheels was a 3 speed synchromesh on column and a Hypoid 3.73:1. Once underway stopped by 4-wheel hydraulic drum with double front cylinders. And those will be need to get this 3,000 plus pound, 189 inches (nearly 16 feet).
Supporting all this mayhem was a double-channel box frame with side rails and 4 cross members and Briggs all-steel body. The suspension was independent in the front with coil springs and torsion sway bar with tapered leaf springs and 6.50 x 15″ tires and press steel safety rims.
You could buy his car with some added option like push-button radio, heater, two-tone paint, wire wheel covers, white side walls, bumpers guards, tissue dispenser, exhaust extension deflector locking gas cap, mirrors.
The Drive By is new way to spotlight cars. As the name states these are cars that I see where ever I’m traveling.
The 1966 Barracuda wasn’t much when compared to the 1970’s younger brothers.
1966 Barracuda – old school.
Often referred to as the Formula S – 2 door coupe fastback with the V8. I don’t know if this one was the V8, I would have had to see the if it was badged properly to determine. (Small medallion placed below the ‘Barracuda’ script. The V8 would have been the Commando 273 CID with a two barrel carb – about 235 hp and a 10.5:1 compression when topped with a 4bbl Carter AFB.. The 6 cylinder was the Valaint Signet slant 225 CID with about 145 hp with a single barrel carb. They came in convertible as well – only 2570 of those were produced.
We have a couple of debuts’ this week and a couple of Birthdays.
First up on Sept. 23 in 1969 the iconic and now recreated Dodge Challenger.
From this:
1969 Challenger
And this:
The Iconic General Lee
To this:
The 2012 version.
Virgil Exner was born on the 24th of Sept in 1909. Who was “Ex”? A car designer. Oh…ok…of what? Just a couple of designs, like all of these:
Studebaker Champion
Studebaker Starlight
Chrysler C-200
Chrysler 300 letter series
Chrysler 300 non-letter series
Chrysler New Yorker
Imperial 1955-1961
Chrysler Diablo Concept with Ghia
Plymouth Savoy
Plymouth Belvedere
Plymouth Fury
Plymouth Suburban
Plymouth Valiant
Dodge Coronet
Dodge Firearrow Concept
Desoto 1961
Desoto Adventurer
Bugatti 1965 concept with Ghia
Mercer-Cobra 1965 concept
Duesenberg 1966 prototype with Ghia
Stutz Blackhawk
Bill France was born on the 26th in 1909 in our nations capital. Mr. France was an American race car driver. He is best known for co-founding and managing NASCAR, a sanctioning body of United States-based stock car racing.
The final debuts was on Sept. 26, 1967 when AMC released the Javelin.
