Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Ceasrine
Tim,
On the article, he got the first 68' Hemi Dart at the end of February 68'.
Supposedly via railroad box-freight.
The first one was set-up as an automatic, in match-race trim.
The second one, as a legal SS/B 4-speed.
NHRA didn't approve them for S/S class, until just before the 68'
Springnationals at Englishtown. But several cars were out their
running in S/S in May.
Paul
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Hi Paul
Thought I would put my 2 cents worth in here since I was the guy that found & documented the Landy 4-spd. 68 Hemi Dart. I actually purchased it from Steve O'Neil from a National Dragster 2 line ad back in 1996. Both of us did not know this was Dick's car at the time. It looked like just another wore out, beat up old race car, but it was a real LO car, so I dragged it home.I started scratching down the paint on this thing to find Landy's colors. Needless to say, this was a very cool find, & after about a year of convincing Dick I had his car, he & his wife Jean came up to Canada. I picked them up at the airport in my original 70 hemicuda. Dick thought this was very cool, but not as cool as I thought it was driving the Landy's around town in this thing. By the end of the day, he had documented it as his original 4 speed Hemi Dart
Anyway, one of the many stories he told me, he said that the 4 spd. Dart left the Hurst facility with no drive train what's so ever. When he placed his order for two of the Hemi Darts, they only had Autos available, no 4 spds. Dick wanted the cars NOW, so he instructed Hurst to send one Dart ,as an automatic,complete., & then send a second one to him minus engine & trans. so he could convert it to a 4 speed. This one got shipped in the belly of a 747 due to time constraints to complete this car for competion. Once in California, Dick built it as a 4 speed & it never got an auto installed while he owned it.
When I decoded the original fender tag, sure enough, it was tagged as an Automatic car.
Thought I'd share this with you.
Liteweight
Daryl