1966 Dodge D/Dart ~ 'Mystery, Myth and Misconception'
Alan,
Two of the previous owners of your car are being inducted into the Drag Times Hall of Fame this month ( in another week or so, basically). Your car owner's shop had some pretty unique vehicles parked in front of his shop. Many times Ted had the full support of the near by Chrysler Engineering team, and had specially parts delivered to the back door for either street testing, and /or strip testing. Not only was strip testing important but the selling of these cars on Mondays at the dealer. As car number one, your car especially had some unique features. Aluminum bolts and aluminum engine mounts, (maybe not currently), but at one time. These guys did not like to lose, so the Woodward Avenue D-Dart was unique.
It may not have been the fastest of the class at the time, had the best power to weight distribution, etc. but these guys had quite a bit of factory support, and it may have been a distraction from the failed street Hemi in 66. Obviously, Ted's former employee, Jimmie Addison had the fastest street racer around. The engineers sold him the car for a dollar. Ted did some amazing things with both the small and the big blocks at that time. I think it was the success of the drag Hemi that prevented further development of the small block at that time, but who's to say. Obviously the small block was within range of pulling Hemi sales. Strip success was great, but the Hemi option was rather expensive for many.
Within 2-4 years of the DDart you had Hemi Darts and M Codes.
And maybe because of the shortcomings of the 66 they were already by-passing further development, in favor of something else.
Jon Rasbach and Joe Flynn were the 2nd owners of the D/Dart. Al bought it from them.
I'm trying to talk the wife into making the trip up to Henderson. Its about 800 one way. There's a 50/50 chance we might make it up there. Real early this year I heard that they were going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame and thought about having the D/Dart stripped, painted and lettered for the show. Decided not to. Don't have a trailer and that would be a real long haul for a novice.
Ted's old car still has the following items:
-- the aluminum motor mounts and the aluminum bolts holding the fenders on
-- the Model 240 - Stewart Warner electric fuel pump
-- the chrome pulleys as seen in the SS&DI article (chrome thermostat housing is gone)
-- the chrome throttle cable bracket
-- the shortened battery tray (Group 26 Battery)
-- the redrilled rear axle to 4 1/2" bolt pattern
-- the numbers matching engine block
-- the radiator
-- the 5.33 gears
-- the lightened front buckets -- half of the bottom springs were removed
-- the rear windows only go down half way.
-- the jack and spare tire tie down brackets were removed
-- the brackets that tie the floorpan to the rocker panels were removed
I think Al Adam added:
-- S/S springs --- stamped with non "P" numbers
-- Lakewood Scattershield
-- Aluminum case Hemi 4-speed -- crashbox
-- Some ungodly high lift cam with a 436 grind profile?