Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Back in 1966, Dodge built some high performance 273 4bbl engines (factory rated at 275 hp) with a radical cam, sizeable AFB on a good intake manifold, pop-up high-compression pistons, and headers, for action in what was then D Stock. They called them "D Darts" in reference to their intended class.

Unfortunately (according to the best information I can find) only about 25 of these cars were built. That is according to a guy who worked on the project at Chrysler, at that time.

I'm not sure if they were ~ever~ in the Stock Car Classification Guide, but now, they are in there ONLY as a Super Stock combination. No listing at all for Stock. Weird...

I was wondering if anyone on this BB might know how this came about. It looks to me like it could be a mistake, because if Mopar built it for Stock, and it didn't fit the requirement for 50 units that is in the rulebook, it follows that Mopar must have petitioned NHRA to allow it to race.

But, if they built it as a D Stock car, why would they ask NHRA to put it into Super Stock? That's where it is.

I asked the "braintrust" at Glendora tech, and they have NO IDEA why it's listed as a S/S legal combination, but not as a Stocker. They tried to look it up, but found nothing, not surprisingly.

Isn't that amazing??? They DO write the rules, don't they? But, they don't know...

Any old timers remember the D Darts and have any info about this conundrum?

As usual, any information will be greatly appreciated.

Bill

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Here is an interesting page about the D Darts.

http://www.seriousviewers.com/D-Dart/ddart.htm

LOng ago I was thinking about replicating one them but never could find a 66 Dart in good condition to start the project.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Huh, who knew. I just went to that historical site and started browsing around, and I found out that I guy I know fairly well (Ted Spehar) actually owned the first one of these produced ("The Politician"). I had no idea...I just e-mailed him to get his side of the story. We'll see if he responds...

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

D Stock Dart package came with a Holley carb.
Headers were supplied in the trunk.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

The D Dart site stated that 50 cars were made.That would be interesting to see a dual quad 273 in stock.

Ed F.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

More info here, maybe someone you can contact:

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/...gonew=1#UNREAD

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Bill, you have too much time in your hands digging out skeletons... :) The "D" dart is not the only car that has been built for SS applications only and not Stock.

I have a copy of the complete Chrysler data package submitted and approved by NHRA buried somewhere at home. They built 50 cars. Headers built by Jr Headers; the Holley carb has the same specs as the race Hemi carb. The intake manifold is a cast iron single plane intake as used in 273/318 marine engine applications. Solid lifter cam 0.520" lift made by Racer Brown and domed pistons. 4.88 rear end gears, stick shift only car.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

bob banning had one that a tried to buy back then
it ran 12.75 et
i tried to get bucky to build a 273 235 for is son
thats the combo i like

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

what class would this combo be in SS?

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

I've told him that for years......he won't listen !!! :-(

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Dave Reitz drove/ tuned the Bob Banning Dodge d-dart. I race with him pretty regularly at Capitol, he had a lot of tricks to make that car as fast as it was. I was under the impression that it isn't a very competitive combination anymore? My Dad's set on building one, just not to run class legal.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

I remember reading about those cars. Never saw one.
I think the reason we didn't see them (I see there really were a few out there) is because NHRA only went by factory advertised HP back then and those cars were overrated.
I don't think they would have been competetive in D/S.
Pretty much the same deal as the 271 HP 289 Fords.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

David,
That engine retains its original 275hp rating... no "factor."

At 2945 pounds shipping weight for a GT 2 door HT (no post cars/sedans listed) its natural class would be SS/I, coming in at 10.71 pounds per hp.

It's also listed as a convertible at 3,055 pounds (shipping wt.), with a pounds-per-hp power-to-weight ratio of 11.11, putting it in the top of SS/J. Good luck finding a '66 GT Convertible... lol!

Seems like the good deal (if there is one) for 273's in Stock would be the recently de-factored 235hp 273, reduced to only 210 hp.

Division 6's Angela Bushmaker (daughter of Bill Bushmaker of "Willy B"-car fame) has her '65 235 hp '65 Valiant running 12.0's in K/SA. Not bad for a car that hasn't had a lot of time for extensive r & d, I think.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Ed Fernandez said, "The D Dart site stated that 50 cars were made.That would be interesting to see a dual quad 273 in stock."

Ed, they never built them with two carbs. I thought they had an AFB, but as someone pointed out, that AFB was a Holley... my bad.

Bill

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Since my days of drooling over and memorizing the pages of the Direct Connection "Bible", I've always liked that package. Too bad it only came in the ugly '66 Dart. Man, there just no way I would want to show up in one of those! Now if they could sneak it by in a '66 Valiant, that might make it more aggreable. Homely but cute in a way. Of course I drive a Rambler product so what do I know about looks!
I don't think I would want to race a D Dart in SS/I against things like 340 Dusters for example. Basically in SS the D-Dart offers no more than more compression and a Holley carb over a 273/235 engine. Granted, that's significant but to be competitive it probably needs to loose 40+ HP. Could be possible, start your letter writing campaign for this winter's project!

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

This is a direct quote from a guy named "Paul Canizzaro" who say he worked on the D Dart project at Chrysler until it was finished. Paul says, "We argued that we should not produce a half-baked project, but somebody up there in the head office wanted the cars out there. Really it was cover your butt project. Though there are claims that 50 cars were produced in April of 66', the truth is about 25 or so were built. To this day, I have only seen (2) D-Darts race. "

That is from the web page that David Lee posted the URL for. Lots of imformation and pictures of D Darts there.

http://www.seriousviewers.com/D-Dart/ddart.htm

Check it out, if you're interested.

Bill

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

I thought the dual quads was a later addition.and the website did say there were 50 cars built,incorrectly.

Ed F.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Gents, one of the "D" Darts was sold new here in Columbus, Georgia thru Chuck Hutton Dodge. An employee of the dealership named Jackie Cadina ordered the car and ran it some at Phenix City but it was never seriously prepared. He also drove it on the street as his daily driver and eventually it disappeared intil about 1980 when I saw it in a junkyard in Phenix City, of course everything in the yard got crushed eventually.

Jimmy Parker

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

In the summer of '67 my dad bought a Dodge dealership in New Smyrna Fl. With that dealership came a "D" Dart that the sales manager used to race. I won my very first trophy with that car. I still have the trophy. I wish I still had the car. It's name was "The Lamb Charger" and on the back lid it said "Little Damn Ram". the car was a maroon '66 Dart GT with a stick. I wish I knew what happened to to that car. Jim

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

The few I have seen in person or in photos over the years were all sedans. No GT hardtops.
Of course one or two may have been built.
There was one that used to race regularly at Dragway 42.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

As I remember them, all the factory cars were GT's (see http://www.seriousviewers.com/D-Dart/spec.htm). I know our car was. Many of the cars were owner "made" D Cars. Jim

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

I remember seeing a D/Dart that ran at the old Bluegrass Dragstrip in Lexington KY when I was racing back in 1966. It was a yellow hardtop and it ran D/S. I can remember seeing the car with the hood open. It had a holley carb. As best I remember it won the D/S trophy a few times. The reason it ran D/S instead of Super Stock was in 1966 there was no S/S eliminator. S/S was the top class in Stock eliminator. S/S did not get its own eliminator until 1967.

The reason the D/Darts got to run Stock without enough being produced was back then the specs were sent to NHRA preproduction. Cars were put in the classguide with the understanding that enough cars would be built in the model year. Sometime in later years it must have come to light that not enough D/Darts were built for Stock class forcing them into S/S only.

Travis

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Thanks, Travis. That all makes perfect sense.

Jim posted a website that told how to convert a 235hp 273 into a D Dart spec race car. It gave then-current prices for the parts, not including the Doug's headers, which can't have been cheap.

Minus the headers, the cost was $415.32 in 1966. That is the equivalent of $2,738.04 in 2008... not a cheap conversion. With that inflated 275hp rating to deal with, no wonder more weren't raced.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion. I appreciate all the good info!!!

Bill

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

I happened upon the remains of an original 'D' Dart a year ago on my way to a rifle match. I stopped and talked with the person that owned the property where it was sitting. He told me that the cars owner had said "...it was some sort of race car right from Dodge." The key was in the trunk and when I opened it up there were the rusted out remains of the original Doug's Headers, the cast iron intake, an Edelbrock LD318 alum. intake, one cylinder head, valve covers and some other small stuff. There was sticker on the trunk with the name of a CPD dealership that was known for selling a lot of high perf MoPars in that area.

All of the original 'D' Darts were white with red interiors. The one I looked at had blue seats in it, but the rest of the interior looked correct. The weird thing is that the blue seats were correct '66 Dart seats..just the wrong color. How the car ended up with blue seats would be a good story, I'm sure.

I went through there about 6 mos. later and the car was gone. The property owner told me the cars owner had picked it up was starting the restoration on it. He was reluctant to give me the owners name of where he lived, though.

For what it's worth..... -Al

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Back in 1968 I had a 67 Dart GT with the Hypo 273 and a 4 Speed.I was at a Dodge dealer in Rockville Center NY (Long Island) and they had a Clinic on a Weekday evening with Dick Landy.After Speaking with Dick he gave the Parts Manager (Al Kirchenbaum later of Hot Rod and Car Craft)some Part #s and We ordered them.I already had Hooker Fenderwell headers on the car and was told all the parts were the D Dart Package.I received a Racer Brown Cam and Springs,an Edelbrock Manifold and a Holley carb.After installing all these parts the Car picked up a full second and with 7" M&H Slicks went a 13.58(At the old Westhampton NY Dragstrip) and would spin to 7000rpm.I even had a 53 Desoto clutch in this thing.I would sidestep the Clutch at 6000 RPM and the car would scream.The following year I got involved with Pontiacs but that car made me a closet Mopar Fan for the last 40 years.By the way,I am still at it as seen in this video.
Thanks
Ray T
http://northshoremusclecars.vidiac.c...6a00fc4fc1.htm

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

In 1966 Chrysler decided to compete in D/S with the D/Dart, they aimed the car at the 271 Mustangs and Fairlane 500's. The car was built for "stock" and "stock" only not SS.

Many went to factory racers and some were sold to private racers. Dodge told the NHRA that they made 50...how many is still under debate but at that time you had to have built 50 of anything even to get it into SS.

Today it would make a fun car but would give up too many inches to be competitive.

BTW there is a guy down here in FL that has two of them, he drives one the street and has the other for sale...$25,000.00. It has a frozen engine, manifold and carb is gone as are the headers, every panel on the car needs replacement....it was outside in a Oklahoma hail storm...he's going to fix it up.

Jim

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Jim,

It took me two weeks of phone calls, and talking to three different people at NHRA Tech, back in November, to finally get an answer on the "Stock = NO, Super Stock = YES" question.

Their answer after all of that?

'WE DON'T KNOW." (The "now, leave us the F**** ALONE" was implied....)

The main problem, I think, is time. None of those people were BORN yet when the D Darts were released.

I would imagine that if somebody who has some clout with NHRA decided to build one of these little jewels for Stock Eliminator, there's a good possibilty that they could get NHRA to come off their current position (since they can't even explain how they got there), but THAT's not gonna happen unless NHRA takes some HP off it.... like about 30-40. The 340 Dusters and Demons would eat it alive at its current factor of 275...

So, it's probably just going to slip into obscurity;a failed project that could have made some waves if the people responsiblle for the program had REALLY wanted to to succeed. But, obviously, they didn't.

And, so it goes....

Bill

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Jim Wahl, was that Dynamic Dodge in new Smyrna ? A guy I knew named George Nelson who was the service manager built the engine for the Little Damn Ram but I thought it was a 235hp car. I recall a guy who worked for NASA building the headers. I was away in the service after it was built and run once or twice. Dont know what happened to the car. George died 2 years ago in Daytona of cancer

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Jim Wahl, was that Dynamic Dodge youre talking about ? A guy I knew, George Nelson was the service manager there in 1965/66 and he built the Little Damn Ram car but I thought it was a 65 273/235. I left for the service shortly after it was done and only got to see it the first time out. He died of cancer in Daytona a few years ago. Id sure like to hear any info you have about the car. I dont know what happened to it. I recall a welder for NASA built the headers for the car at night

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

mtkawboy,
Wow! you remember? It was called New Smyrna Dodge at the time. I loved that car. The car was an original factory D/S package car. I saw the paperwork with my own 15 year old eyes! Bill Patton was the G.M. then and he drove the car before my dad bought the place in '66. We used to drive it to the air strip and the Daytona Timing Assn. races there every Saturday night. I don't remember the header deal you spoke of but I do remember George. I have pictures somewhere. We should talk! Jim

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Sorry about the double post, I tried to edit the original and ended up with two posts. Email me at mtww55@msn.com or 406-259-1059 mst {2 hours earlier then Fl.}. We almost wadded the car, trailer & Georges 56 F100 coming down the big bridge over the St Lucie canal on the turnpike. The f100 had a built 312 and he floored it and finally got it straight again. I has wondering what the hel# he was doing because the trailer was trying to pass us and was winning !!

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Bob Banning Dodge had one of these at Capitol Raceway in 66. I heard it was BBjr's 1st racecar.

AMXRON

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

When I first heard of the "D Dart" package, I was running a reasonably competitive '66 273 Barracuda in AHRA L/SA. When I asked AHRA Tech Director Vance Brady if he would allow the "D Dart" package as a legal combination, he replied, "Sure! In F2 D/HR!"

Unfortunately, I think only the old AHRA guys will enjoy that one.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Bret,

I raced a '64 max wedge dodge all around Texas and at other AHRA strips about the same time. One thing about the AHRA is that you always got an immediate answer to your question...you might not like it but at least you got an answer....unlike the NHRA which takes a study group and a two years to make the decision!

Jim

BTW last time I saw you I was part of Cleo Chandler's crew, what a lady!

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

I kind of remember that the D/Darts were offered so late in the '66 model year (close to build out) that most of the factory guys' buzz was more centered about the anticipated '67 Plymouth 426 Hemi RO23 package. I also remember the impending implimentation of Super stock was much more on the minds of the guys with the max wedge and A864 and A990 B bodies. I just don't remember alot of talk and enthusiasm about these cars. I could be mistaken but I also think they used the Chrysler factory race car flagship A100 red bucket seats.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

[QUOTE=Jim B; I could be mistaken but I also think they used the Chrysler factory race car flagship A100 red bucket seats.[/QUOTE]

Your mistaken.....they used stock OEM seats that all the rest of the Darts came with.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

There were 50 cars built on April 17, 1966. They were all white GT's with red bucket seats, 4-speeds, 4.86 gears, radio delete, and rear seat belt delete. The Doug's headers, y-pipe and hubcaps were shipped in the trunk. The fender tags listed them as being LP23's but the VIN's were LO23D62653888 thru 937. The S/O numbers were 417-71120 thru 417-71169.

As far as I know, there are 10 D/Darts still around -- Pa (2), Ga (1), SC (1), Ca (1), NJ (1), Ohio (1), Nev (1), Ka (1), and Fla (1). I've heard of many more that are still around and have asked for VIN info but haven't rec'd any yet. If you have any info on the D/Dart, please PM me. You can also send an e-mail to Alan Lewis on the D/Dart website listed in this thread.

To correct a statement that treessavoy made, I did own 2 D/Darts at the same time. I did sell the one that was for sale. The one that I still own is the first one that was built. It was campaigned in the Detroit area by Ted Spehar and Ralph Costa and was known as "The Politician". I believe it may have been raced in Reading, Pa area by Al Adam. It has not been driven on the street -- except -- for a couple of trips around my subdivision.

Alan

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

There's a guy by the name of Butch Ball that has one here in Yakima, WA. I've been trying to get a gander at it for years. It was sold through Yakima Dodge.

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

Alan,
This from Paul Canizzaro, who worked on the project in '66:

>>>"We argued that we should not produce a half-baked project, but somebody up there in the head office wanted the cars out there. Really it was cover your butt project. Though there are claims that 50 cars were produced in April of 66', the truth is about 25 or so were built. To this day, I have only seen (2) D-Darts race. I have never seen a true D-Dart at any Mopar meets."<<<

He also said: "I worked for Chrysler from 1964 thru 1969. I worked with the Special Performance Group, under the direction of Dick Maxwell and Tom Hoover. I worked on and helped prepare the 1966 D-Darts during the spring of 1966."

Pretty good credentials, if that's true, and I have no reason to believe it's not.

Check out his story at: http://www.seriousviewers.com/D-Dart/story.htm

I'm no expert; I only report what I read, but somebody's wrong about how many were actually built.

Bill

Re: Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock
 

There's a guy by the name of Butch Ball that has one here in Yakima, WA. I've been trying to get a gander at it for years. It was sold through Yakima Dodge.

Dennis Lester's step father Harry Smythe, owner of Yakima Dodge, at the time of the D dart intro. drove one as a "demo". --Contact Dennis at his car lot -- he might be able to "hook you up" historically speaking -- Butch Ball et. al. butchered a wagon for D/MP but I don't know about a D dart-- Butch was last seen blowing up a Turbo Pinto and getting "hosed" by NHRA factoring..