Hi,
I'm Jim Holt, (Jolt), in Colorado since the Air Force brought me here in 89. I'm a life-long A-Body fan who burned out on the vintage and Mopar scene about 10 years ago aggravated by disillusionment with Damnler, (step on a Checker Taxi and call it a Charger?) Other than helping my son with his 98 Neon SCCA Street Mod racer, (340 HP at the wheels autocrosser), I went through 20 or so fun late models including a Porsche, Holdens, (sorry, GTO and G8-GXP), Vette, Honda S2000, Mustang Bullitt, WRX, etc etc. A few months ago I tripped over a 65 Valiant in El Paso TX that traced back to So Cal where it was obviously built as an outlaw street racer, I think probably in the late 70s based on what I see. The 440 is just the tease, the rest of the mods are pretty artful while maintaining the air of granny S-Box. I've had over 250 cars in my life and at least 50 of them were 65/66 Valiants and Barracudas but none were as nuts as 440 powered so I had to have it. The irony is that my love of these cars has been built around their unappreciated sports car performance derived from Scott Harvey's excellent, in fact near perfect chassis engineering. Some folks are aware of the Bob Tullius 66 Dart that nearly won the inaugural year of Trans Am as a pro series overlayed onto SCCA's A/Sedan class, but the story of squandered Mopar road-race potential is so much deeper than that. In the mid-70s I owned a 65 Barracuda that was built from new as an A-Sedan racer, including major upgrade with the 1970 rule changes (allowing significant body mods). I still have a suspicion it might have been the Formula S development engineering mule that Scott Harvey took home with him but I've never proved it. I converted the car to be street driveable (barely, remember 104 Octane SUNOCO 240 at the pump?) and subsequently am quite fortunate to be alive today. Ever since I have tended to mod A-bodies for total performance emphasizing handling and braking. The Pro-Touring thing has taken off... I'm still shocked the muscle car crowd discovered sports cars... so it's interesting and I expect humbling to pop back into a once obscure scene to see what's up.
Jolt :burnout:
I'm Jim Holt, (Jolt), in Colorado since the Air Force brought me here in 89. I'm a life-long A-Body fan who burned out on the vintage and Mopar scene about 10 years ago aggravated by disillusionment with Damnler, (step on a Checker Taxi and call it a Charger?) Other than helping my son with his 98 Neon SCCA Street Mod racer, (340 HP at the wheels autocrosser), I went through 20 or so fun late models including a Porsche, Holdens, (sorry, GTO and G8-GXP), Vette, Honda S2000, Mustang Bullitt, WRX, etc etc. A few months ago I tripped over a 65 Valiant in El Paso TX that traced back to So Cal where it was obviously built as an outlaw street racer, I think probably in the late 70s based on what I see. The 440 is just the tease, the rest of the mods are pretty artful while maintaining the air of granny S-Box. I've had over 250 cars in my life and at least 50 of them were 65/66 Valiants and Barracudas but none were as nuts as 440 powered so I had to have it. The irony is that my love of these cars has been built around their unappreciated sports car performance derived from Scott Harvey's excellent, in fact near perfect chassis engineering. Some folks are aware of the Bob Tullius 66 Dart that nearly won the inaugural year of Trans Am as a pro series overlayed onto SCCA's A/Sedan class, but the story of squandered Mopar road-race potential is so much deeper than that. In the mid-70s I owned a 65 Barracuda that was built from new as an A-Sedan racer, including major upgrade with the 1970 rule changes (allowing significant body mods). I still have a suspicion it might have been the Formula S development engineering mule that Scott Harvey took home with him but I've never proved it. I converted the car to be street driveable (barely, remember 104 Octane SUNOCO 240 at the pump?) and subsequently am quite fortunate to be alive today. Ever since I have tended to mod A-bodies for total performance emphasizing handling and braking. The Pro-Touring thing has taken off... I'm still shocked the muscle car crowd discovered sports cars... so it's interesting and I expect humbling to pop back into a once obscure scene to see what's up.
Jolt :burnout:
