1970 Super Stock or Pro Stock Darts

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340

340

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Hi all, I am wondering about some pictures I have seen of 1970 Darts. They appear to have been running in Pro Stock. The cars are from Dick Landy, Melvin Yow and Larry Griffith. I know these were not factory produced race cars. I just figured they were 1968 Super Stockers the racers changed over to the 1970 body style or they just built them on their own.

Does anyone know anything about these cars?
 
In a lot of cases, racers would upgrade or change body panels to replicate a newer body style. In most cases the money wasn't unlimited. Plus 1970 was considered the first year for Pro Stock. One of the first races was held in Phenix Alabama.
 
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If you look through old magazines you'll see as the years went on they ran in a number of classes, including Gas classes. AMC got into some trouble with their S/S AMXs for changing some sheetmetal in an effort to run them as ( I think) 1970 models.
 
70 prostock darts,some was 68 rekinned 68s,my 71 dart i built it into a nostalgia pro stock,last pic is engine

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Back then you could buy a crated "BODY IN WHITE" and start from scratch i believe they are doing this now also
 
This is an interesting topic as there were a number of original Hemi Darts that were converted to 70 models for Pro stock. You have pictures of a few of them here. The first was converted back to a 68 model, I spoke with Landy about his 70 Dart but I don't believe that this was an original Hemi car, Larry Griffith's Dart was converted back to a 68 model, Melvin Yow's Dart, I have some history on it but it has not shown up. Last I understood, it was a bracket car in Tn, Ky (have to check my notes) the VIN tag was removed - if someone could find it they might get a cheap Hemi Dart, The next two pictures, I don't think they were factory cars. The Joe Edge car is a real Hemi Dart that is also unaccounted for. I spoke to Joe and it sounds like he was the money guy, a guy named Bob Coleman raced the car in TX. I think it might have been in the Chicago area back in the 70's/80's from an old National Dragster ad -not too many 70 Hemi Darts with Halibrand wheels, but it is also currently missing.
Mark J
68 Hemi S/S Registry
 
i have this 70 dart,although not a pro stock car,chassis was but by hodges ,who built the don carlton cars.has a 4 link thats very old school,also old school strut front end,engine set back,like they would of done it back then,also has motor fly whhels on the rear

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440outlawdart said:
i have this 70 dart,although not a pro stock car,chassis was but by hodges ,who built the don carlton cars.has a 4 link thats very old school,also old school strut front end,engine set back,like they would of done it back then,also has motor fly whhels on the rear

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Clyde Hodges is a legend......one of his saying that is perhaps my favorite is......"nothing is lighter than a hole"
I was fortunate to get to BS with him at Milan around 75 / 76 when he was crew chief for Don Carton while match racing the Hemi Dart (pictured above)

way cool you are still racing a car built by him.
 
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This is great, I hope there is more info added to this tread as the 70' Dart has been my favorite since my first one way back in 1974.

Jeff
 
SGBARRACUDA said:
In a lot of cases, racers would upgrade or change body panels to replicate a newer body style. In most cases the money wasn't unlimited. Plus 1970 was considered the first year for Pro Stock. One of the first races was held in Phenix Alabama.
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Keep in mind these were the VERY early years of P/S and the Darts & Cudas were the upper echelon in the class, anyway. Keep in mind just what car was the first P/S in the 9s & it wasn't THAT much different from its S/S configuration. Plus you had other racing organizations that would let these cars run other classes so among these things along with changing sheetmetal you could run your BO/LO29 car in a variety of classes for years. It's actually kind of surprising so many still exist, modified or restored.
 
This is obvious a very old thread however I'd like to hopefully get it started up again with more posts and a lot more pictures if there are many more.
I'm building a 70 pro stock tribute car myself.
I'm not running a hemi & probably won't unless I win the lottery lol
Things I've done so far for the look is the s/s wheel well openings (thanks @Malex )
and I bought the huge old pro stock scoop.
It's been a slow process but I just finished up the 8.50 chassis and finally have the car on the ground with wheels and tires.
Here's a couple pictures & I will be racing this in the Afx class.
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MOPARMAGA said:
This is obvious a very old thread however I'd like to hopefully get it started up again with more posts and a lot more pictures if there are many more.
I'm building a 70 pro stock tribute car myself.
I'm not running a hemi & probably won't unless I win the lottery lol
Things I've done so far for the look is the s/s wheel well openings (thanks @Malex )
and I bought the huge old pro stock scoop.
It's been a slow process but I just finished up the 8.50 chassis and finally have the car on the ground with wheels and tires.
Here's a couple pictures & I will be racing this in the Afx class.View attachment 1716234329View attachment 1716234330View attachment 1716234331View attachment 1716234332View attachment 1716234333View attachment 1716234334
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Yeah, it is an old thread now. I have a 1970 Dart I will be doing the Super Stock wheel openings to. I'm just tired of not having any room for big tires. Love what your doing with your Dart! Can't wait to see it when it is finished. When you did your wheel openings, do you think it would be any easier/better to cut the opening, then weld on the lip and trim the inside of the lip to where it should be instead of folding that 1/2 inch of metal. Your openings do look really nice!
 
340 said:
Yeah, it is an old thread now. I have a 1970 Dart I will be doing the Super Stock wheel openings to. I'm just tired of not having any room for big tires. Love what your doing with your Dart! Can't wait to see it when it is finished. When you did your wheel openings, do you think it would be any easier/better to cut the opening, then weld on the lip and trim the inside of the lip to where it should be instead of folding that 1/2 inch of metal. Your openings do look really nice!
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One thing I think could work is using the folded metal to tuck and weld the outside tub after you manipulate the tubs, then weld a strip for a lip. That would give a nice thick panel that you can weld too
 
Theis thread got resurrected at a good time. WHile not a Dart, I'm doing a Duster P/S clone/tribute car ( Bobby Yowell's) using a Chris Alston Chassis. Looking over these old pics I figured an Alston chassis was about as close to an old P/S chassis. So far it's in in the chassis shop with its suspension installed and a lot of its body work done. I eliminated the drip rails as was done back in the day and plans call for recessing & narrowing the bumpers. If I could find a way to acid dip the doors & decklid I would. I'll try to post some pics when the chassis shop has more of it together. The one thing I found odd & forgot about was the door bars back in the day. If one looks closely you'll see these bars actually went up to head height on some cars---Judy Lilly's 'Cuda for one. Nowadays those bars wouldn't be allowed, and I can see why, but how did one get out of the car if they had to? they were WAAAAAY in the way of any easy exit.
 
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I bought an art Morrison 10 pt cage and added a couple extra bars in, this is my first drag car build or any build this extensive for that matter.
I finished the cage in March and now it is certified 8.50
I have an entire build thread over in the racers forum but know the kind of car I want to build would be found over here with the hemi guys.
Here's a little of the chassis, I did start off thinking I was going to use my factory floor pans but things changed, I also narrowed the rear frame rails using factory rails just for a fun thing to do and it was free besides my time.
Now I'm building my own floor, that is pretty much the next step of the build after I get the rear end squared up perfectly.
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That's a lot of nice work for a reproduction. May I suggest you get a copy of the Sox& Martin book from Autotechbooks. While they didn't run a Dart in their stable they did runa Duster (a-body) and their '68 'Cuda was one of the factory cars. I've built 3 Hemi Darts to date and my current project is a Hemi Duster P/Ser. One thing I noticed in your pics was the "dash bar"---it looks like it'll go outside the dashboard, possibly limiting leg room. On my present car we put two small bends on either end of the bar allowing it go behind the dash, out of sight for a more stock appearance and a bit more leg room. IIRC, Judy Lilly's '68 "Cudas had an exposed dash bar and it seemed to take up a bit of room once everything else is put back in the car. Nice work overall. I wish I had your skills!
 
hemicop said:
That's a lot of nice work for a reproduction. May I suggest you get a copy of the Sox& Martin book from Autotechbooks. While they didn't run a Dart in their stable they did runa Duster (a-body) and their '68 'Cuda was one of the factory cars. I've built 3 Hemi Darts to date and my current project is a Hemi Duster P/Ser. One thing I noticed in your pics was the "dash bar"---it looks like it'll go outside the dashboard, possibly limiting leg room. On my present car we put two small bends on either end of the bar allowing it go behind the dash, out of sight for a more stock appearance and a bit more leg room. IIRC, Judy Lilly's '68 "Cudas had an exposed dash bar and it seemed to take up a bit of room once everything else is put back in the car. Nice work overall. I wish I had your skills!
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Thank you for the suggestion, I will definitely get a copy of the book.
Thank you very much for the compliment, I appreciate it.
My dash bar is up high, just above the factory steering column, I'm going to be needing quite a long steering shaft/ column, which I'll put together hopefully soon, but I planned it to hold my steering shaft/column.
Also I'll be sitting pretty far back in the car so I have lots of leg room.
 
None of the LO or BO cars were body-in-white. They were finished off at the Hurst factory. As others have mentioned some racers re-did their '68 cars so they could compete a bit longer in P/S. Oddly AMC tried that with their S/S AMX cars for S/S but NHRA refused them. Mopar seemed to get away with it in P/S.
 
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