Whither 1966 D Darts for Stock

[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

[bill dedman]

Alan,

Good luck with this quest!

I'd love to see it happen, but if they don't come off this 275 HP figure and assign a realistic (250?) factor to these cars, it will all have been for nothing... My 2-cents.

Bill

[Myron Piatek]

Bill, it does make sense to grab 50 in a row. But that could be an exception instead of a rule. I just don't know enough about the proceedures and hoped it would give people who do know more something to consider.

I'm pretty sure specialty cars like Challenger T/A's, Dodge Charger Daytona's, etc. were not sequential. But it would be interesting to find out how smaller runs of other special cars were done. (i.e.: '68 Hemi Cudas and Darts (they had VINs, didn't they?), the 383 Darts that Mr. Norm got and converted to 440s, aluminum-nosed cars from '64, etc.)

[X-TECH MAN]

Originally Posted by Myron Piatek

Bill, it does make sense to grab 50 in a row. But that could be an exception instead of a rule. I just don't know enough about the proceedures and hoped it would give people who do know more something to consider.

I'm pretty sure specialty cars like Challenger T/A's, Dodge Charger Daytona's, etc. were not sequential. But it would be interesting to find out how smaller runs of other special cars were done. (i.e.: '68 Hemi Cudas and Darts (they had VINs, didn't they?), the 383 Darts that Mr. Norm got and converted to 440s, aluminum-nosed cars from '64, etc.)

Who knows why and how as its been a long time ago. In 1962 (1963 model year) Chevrolet assembled 25 1963 Z-11 Impalas. Then they assembled 25 more on a second run. Then when the racing ban was put into effect they assembled 7 more with the left over parts to use them up and yes it was an RPO (Regular Production Option) assembly. Some of the other manufactures pulled the cars from the assembly line and had an outside contractor finish the cars. Can we say Thunder Bolts, 1968 Hemi Cudas and Darts, etc.

[bill dedman]

Terry,

If there were 57 Z-11's built by Chevrolet for the 1963 model year, why were they never legal for Super Stock (they weren't, back then.)

It's been 46 years ago, and I frankly can't remember, so maybe the rule was for 100 cars built to be legal for S/S... but there weren't 100 '68 Hemi A body Barracudas built, and I don' think the Darts would fall under the same "umbrella," so that probably waan't the case.

Maybe you'd remember, or Chuck, or Tony Janes... it just escape me. Sorry for the hijack, but I've always wondered why those Z-11's were forced to run F/X.

[RJ]

First thing would be to adjust the factor, 275 is pretty steep.

[X-TECH MAN]

Originally Posted by bill dedman

Terry,

If there were 57 Z-11's built by Chevrolet for the 1963 model year, why were they never legal for Super Stock (they weren't, back then.)

It's been 46 years ago, and I frankly can't remember, so maybe the rule was for 100 cars built to be legal for S/S... but there weren't 100 '68 Hemi A body Barracudas built, and I don' think the Darts would fall under the same "umbrella," so that probably waan't the case.

Maybe you'd remember, or Chuck, or Tony Janes... it just escape me. Sorry for the hijack, but I've always wondered why those Z-11's were forced to run F/X.

Bill....GM may have built all 57 by the time the winter Nationals was run but not enough were sold and in racers hands by then so they ran the ones that showed up with slicks in A/FX. The ones that teched in with 7 inch caslers were thrown into a made up class called L/P (Limited Production). Why they did that is anyones guess??? After the winter Nationals they all ran A/FX and the L/P class designation disapeared. Its been a long time (CRS setting in) but the reason is for them not running S/S was NHRA had a requirement of 100 cars min. to be built back then. The T-Bolts of 1964 were about 100 units and there were a couple of thousand Max Wedge cars built over the 3 model year time frame and thats why they could run S/S. You could get the Alum. front ends over the counter for the Mopars after Mopar said they had sold enough cars with the lite wt. package.