Original hemi dart information

[Liteweight]

I haven't been able to spend much time here in the past while due to my schedule,but I have some great news. Paul Pittman who painted my car back in 1980 for Lou Vignognia contacted me last week & informed me he has pictures of my car when Lou owned it.Not sure at this point, if the pix are after he painted it or before with it's previous paint scheme. If they are with the prepaint, this will be a huge help in finding the next chapter for my unknown soldier. I will post my findings when I get these pix.
Jimi V., any luck finding your pix yet???

Liteweight
Daryl

[Paul Ceasrine]

Daryl and Mark J,
As you know sometimes you have to go through the back door (other car history) to pick up some neat information on the 68' Hemi cars.
Try this one, Motion Performance, L.I., NY. A couple of mystery pictures
with Bill Mitchell racing against a 68' Dart with his 68' Camaro in
A/MP (Which Chrysler did not want any factory-backed cars to do back then). Wonder who the Dart was owned by? East-coast racer..
Paul

[jarn05]

Originally Posted by Liteweight

Jimi V., any luck finding your pix yet???

Liteweight
Daryl

no daryl no pics , i have one more room to go through, i am missing at least two boxes of pictures , my mom took pictures of all types of race cars at dover,englishtown, island etc. those were the boxes that had the dart pics in them.

paul or one of you guys who post on the dover web site, there is a distant cousin of my dads (i think it is joe vignogna) his wife posts all types of pictures on tha site of race cars from dover dragstrip, i have been told she has pics of my dads 64 belvedere , maybe she had odd pics of this dart.

[68hemiss]

Daryl,
Great news - keep me informed on the pics! Paul, I think that I have seen the picture that you were talking about in one of the old east coast mags - looks like the Dart is still in primer - I alwats wondered if that was the car that had Manhattan Speed on it. I think they just show the front fender forward and Mitchell's Camaro?
Mark J

[Paul Ceasrine]

Mark J.
Good pick-up there. The picture with the Bill Mitchell Camaro and Hemi Dart is from New York National. Noticed that the Dart does not have a front side-light marker. Thought it was Charlie Castaldo's car, but his
first car had a side-light marker.
I'm guessing that photo must be from 68', later in the year. Mitchell ran his 68' in A/MP. The Dart's hood is painted though. As for the
Manhattan Speed Parts car, I'm 90% sure that it was at Englishtown, and did run against Charlie Castaldo. Wonder if that was at the late-March/early-April 69' points meet (crash date).
Paul

[marfen]

Heard a couple of the tents at the Russo steele auction blew away Thurs. jan 21 in AZ. Only 1 minor injury to someone ...couple of BO29 barracudas (one a S&M car) were scheduled to be sold there plus some impressive street hemis. Hope no serious damage.

[Liteweight]

paul or one of you guys who post on the dover web site, there is a distant cousin of my dads (i think it is joe vignogna) his wife posts all types of pictures on tha site of race cars from dover dragstrip, i have been told she has pics of my dads 64 belvedere , maybe she had odd pics of this dart

Jimi
What is the official website for Dover? I can't seem to find it.

Liteweight
Daryl

[jarn05]

Originally Posted by Liteweight

paul or one of you guys who post on the dover web site, there is a distant cousin of my dads (i think it is joe vignogna) his wife posts all types of pictures on tha site of race cars from dover dragstrip, i have been told she has pics of my dads 64 belvedere , maybe she had odd pics of this dart

Jimi
What is the official website for Dover? I can't seem to find it.

Liteweight
Daryl

www.doverdragstrip.com

[Liteweight]

Originally Posted by Hemi Moose

So what happened here, anything?

Here's the latest update on my car. Spoke with Paul Pittman in regards to him painting the car for Lou Vignonia back in the early 80's. He emailed me a couple photos of it, in pre-paint condition, but unfortunately the car is stripped to bare metal, so there are no traces of it's previous paint scheme prior to 1980. There is a red Lakewood 3 point bolt in roll bar that can be seen installed in it tho, with a fire extiguisher bolted to the rear bar. Paul does remember (sorta) that it was painted silver with a red inlay down it's sides. Jimmi Vignonia (Lou's son) has told me he has pictures of my car when his dad purchased it in the late 70's, but has not had the time to search for them. Jimmi is THE key to finding the next chapter to this car, so I am waiting (patiently) for this to happen.
I spoke with John Olorie from Olorie Crane a few weeks back because of a lead from this forum. He told me he never owned any Super Stock Hemi Darts. He had a 67 GT Fairlane that he pulled the 390 out of & installed a 427, but he's never owned any Mopars.
So, there you have it, I'm still stuck with history previous to 1980.
At least, with all the help from you guys keeping this thread alive, there is still a chance of me finding my cars background. I'll keep plugging along. Every lead is worthwhile, no matter how small you might think it is.
Thanx
Liteweight
Daryl

[Liteweight]

Originally Posted by Hemi Moose

Interesting, so one person remembers the Hemi Dart as being Red with Silver inlays (Jimmi) and another remembers the Hemi Dart being Silver with Red inlays (Paul) by going by old memories it looks like they have their colors mixed up. This leads me to my next question then, have you ever checked to see if it might be the old "Cookie Duster" Hemi Dart, or a Hemi Dart called "Wild Fire", or have these cars been accounted for already, does anyone else here remember these cars. Here's a recent ad of an old photo of one of them painted in simular colors.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Drag-Racing-Phot...item2eaecaaefc

Hemi Moose
The Cookie Duster was campaigned as a 4 spd. car. My car has never had a 4 spd. in it. There are some similarities in the Wild Fire car,. This is the next direction I am going with the help of Mark Janaky & Jimi Vignonia. We'll see where this leads.

Paul C.
Any input here????

Liteweight
Daryl