ddartdude said

Mine has the first VIN number of the 50 built. It was also the first one delivered. Actually, Ted Spehar picked it up at the Hamtramck Assembly plant because he didn't want anyone driving it and blowing up the engine. This was a common occurrence in those days.
The scheduled build date for the D/Darts was Sunday April 17th. The actual build date of the cars was either April 28 or 29. The engine in Ted's car is stamped as being built on 4-27 and Ted picked up his car on the 29th. All the bodies were built, the bodies and fender tags were stamped for the April 17th build. While they were in hold for the engines to be delivered, some of the bodies were used for other builds. I was informed by the current owner of the Trans Am Dart that it has no radiator support or package tray stamped numbers. Another one has no radiator support number and the package tray number indicated it was for a car scheduled to be built on 4-27. They must have been scrambling around to find 50 Dart GT bodies with the 4-speed option. So April 28th looks like it might have been the real build date.
Ralph Costa and Ted partnered up on the car and raced it at Milan Dragway, Detroit Dragway, and National Trail Raceway. I have a dozen or so time slips from these tracks. It ran mainly in the 13 teens at around 104. It's best times were 12.92 and 105 mph.
Like most race cars, they raced it for one year and put it up for sale.

Click to expand...