Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock

[ddartdude]

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

[dart4forte]

Originally Posted by ddartdude

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

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.

[bill dedman]

Originally Posted by ddartdude

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.

Alan

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

[qwiked]

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..

[bill dedman]

'Scuse the hijack, but I saw that "Butch Ball" Pinto run at a points race in Marion South Dakota and it was virtually as fast as Buddy Ingersoll's car; 9.80s @ 134 mph, pulling the wheels on every shift of the Doug Nash 5-speed. I THINK Butch had the NHRA AA/MC record at that time. Impressive car...

Too bad NHRA killed those cars; they were among the most exciting and fun to watch I've seen in my 54 years of watching drag cars do their thing! If I were ever going to build a "nostalgia" car, that would be my choice...


Bill

[ddartdude]

Bill,
I know that Paul Canizzaro wrote that there were about 25 D/Darts built.

This is what I've dug up on the car so far. When my first one was registered with Galen back in 2000, it was one - of - six in his registry. He sent me a list of the VIN's and S/O numbers that were registered. The last number he had listed had a VIN ending in 937. In 2002 I bought "The Politician" from Al Adam. It had a VIN number ending in 888. So, 888-937 would be a 50 car build. The 417 in the S/O number indicates that the cars were built on Sunday, April 17th.

Since 1998, I have collected VIN and S/O numbers from 5 other D/Darts. All the VIN's and S/O's fall between the 888 and 937 cars. The number that I didn't include in my previous post was the Porach Dodge. The original owner had the paperwork from the car when he bought and raced it. The car is long gone now.

So I have 10 VIN's of cars that currently exist. I'm not sure if they were race cars or not.

D/Dart Race Cars of that time were:
The Politician (*)
The Bounty Hunter
The Coronet Dodge
The Suburban Dodge Boys
The Baby Goat
The Little Ram Charger
The Mount Vernon Dodge
The Porach Dodge (*)
The Newcomer
The Sam Brown Dodge
The "Big Bad Dodge" Jr
The Yakima Dodge

Plus -- A D/Dart owned by John Bedell - Pictures on the D/Dart website.

(*) -- Have the VIN numbers of these 2 race cars.

That's a total of 22 cars.................please feel free to add to the list of race cars. Please include stuff like car names, driver names, tracks raced at with - city and or state. ----- thanks in advance.

dart4forte,
Been following the build of your 64 Dart on FABO. Nice looking car. Still have the PM from that site on the D/Dart. Any help with the numbers would be appreciated.
Alan

[Myron Piatek]

Originally Posted by ddartdude

Bill,
I know that Paul Canizzaro wrote that there were about 25 D/Darts built.

This is what I've dug up on the car so far. When my first one was registered with Galen back in 2000, it was one - of - six in his registry. He sent me a list of the VIN's and S/O numbers that were registered. The last number he had listed had a VIN ending in 937. In 2002 I bought "The Politician" from Al Adam. It had a VIN number ending in 888. So, 888-937 would be a 50 car build. The 417 in the S/O number indicates that the cars were built on Sunday, April 17th.

Since 1998, I have collected VIN and S/O numbers from 5 other D/Darts. All the VIN's and S/O's fall between the 888 and 937 cars. The number that I didn't include in my previous post was the Porach Dodge. The original owner had the paperwork from the car when he bought and raced it. The car is long gone now.

So I have 10 VIN's of cars that currently exist. I'm not sure if they were race cars or not.

D/Dart Race Cars of that time were:
The Politician (*)
The Bounty Hunter
The Coronet Dodge
The Suburban Dodge Boys
The Baby Goat
The Little Ram Charger
The Mount Vernon Dodge
The Porach Dodge (*)
The Newcomer
The Sam Brown Dodge
The "Big Bad Dodge" Jr
The Yakima Dodge

Plus -- A D/Dart owned by John Bedell - Pictures on the D/Dart website.

(*) -- Have the VIN numbers of these 2 race cars.

That's a total of 22 cars.................please feel free to add to the list of race cars. Please include stuff like car names, driver names, tracks raced at with - city and or state. ----- thanks in advance.

dart4forte,
Been following the build of your 64 Dart on FABO. Nice looking car. Still have the PM from that site on the D/Dart. Any help with the numbers would be appreciated.
Alan

I've never been really into restos, numbers, etc., but I'm under the impression that consecutive production numbers don't usually mean that they would have been similarly equipped. In other words, there could have been regular 6 cyl and 273 Darts mixed in with that particular group of numbers.

[bill dedman]

Myron,

Your point is well taken, but if they had a run of 50 IDENTICAL cars, (like a "fleet" order) wouldn't it just make sense to assemble them all at one time, since they had to bring that specific accessory/equipment package to the assembly line, anyway.

I'm not disputing what you say, it just makes me wonder why they'd choose to split up an order for 50 cars that were exactly alike in terms of equipment.

I'm just asking...

Bill

[dart4forte]

Originally Posted by ddartdude

Bill,
I know that Paul Canizzaro wrote that there were about 25 D/Darts built.

This is what I've dug up on the car so far. When my first one was registered with Galen back in 2000, it was one - of - six in his registry. He sent me a list of the VIN's and S/O numbers that were registered. The last number he had listed had a VIN ending in 937. In 2002 I bought "The Politician" from Al Adam. It had a VIN number ending in 888. So, 888-937 would be a 50 car build. The 417 in the S/O number indicates that the cars were built on Sunday, April 17th.

Since 1998, I have collected VIN and S/O numbers from 5 other D/Darts. All the VIN's and S/O's fall between the 888 and 937 cars. The number that I didn't include in my previous post was the Porach Dodge. The original owner had the paperwork from the car when he bought and raced it. The car is long gone now.

So I have 10 VIN's of cars that currently exist. I'm not sure if they were race cars or not.

D/Dart Race Cars of that time were:
The Politician (*)
The Bounty Hunter
The Coronet Dodge
The Suburban Dodge Boys
The Baby Goat
The Little Ram Charger
The Mount Vernon Dodge
The Porach Dodge (*)
The Newcomer
The Sam Brown Dodge
The "Big Bad Dodge" Jr
The Yakima Dodge

Plus -- A D/Dart owned by John Bedell - Pictures on the D/Dart website.

(*) -- Have the VIN numbers of these 2 race cars.

That's a total of 22 cars.................please feel free to add to the list of race cars. Please include stuff like car names, driver names, tracks raced at with - city and or state. ----- thanks in advance.

dart4forte,
Been following the build of your 64 Dart on FABO. Nice looking car. Still have the PM from that site on the D/Dart. Any help with the numbers would be appreciated.
Alan

I had a 66 273/4 speed car several years ago that I was going to do a D/dart clone. It needed a lot of body work and i ended up selling it to a guy in Nebraska. Bob Kropp was going back to Carlile with an empty trailer and hauled it back for me.
As far as the 64, It's coming along, still alot to do. I'll probly fire the motor when i get back from SpringFling. If I get to look at Butvh Balls car i'll try to get some numbers.

[bill dedman]

I just learned that the aluminum Edelbrock/Mopar- Performance aluminum intake manifold has been accepted by NHRA for use on the 235 HP "Commando" motor in Stock Eliminator.

That should make a positive change in the breathing, I would think.

Bill