Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock

[Real Racer]

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.

[Jim Wahl]

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

[Travis Miller]

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

[bill dedman]

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

[Alan Nyhus]

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