Quote:
Originally posted by TerryH
There were a handful of Hemi Dusters built by the factory for the strip only. Heard they were very scary and almost impossible to keep on a straight line because of all the mods to the front suspension to make the motor fit.
Kmhemi, post some photos of your beast!
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They actually sold "bodies in white" to Pro Stock teams, who subsequently finished them. No Duster/Demon ever left the factory with the hemi actually in it. I'm kind of picking the fly ***** out of the pepper on this one, admittedly, as that was the intended combintation.
The closest there was to a "factory" MOPAR race team was the Motown Missile; an "A" body Demon that was renamed the "MOPAR Missile" when Dodge got more involved with them. There were a number of heavily supported cars, but much like Porsche's race efforts, they relied on customer cars to carry the flag for the most part.
Sox and Martin were one of the more successful teams, along with Dick Landy. One of Dick Landy's original cars showed up here in the Northwest, running Division Six races in the '80's. There was no VIN, no title, nadda... It had been originally delivered as a body in white.
The NHRA (and NASCAR for that matter) killed the hemi. NHRA with "weight breaks"; the hemis ran Pro Stock at a car weight of 7 lbs per cubic inch. Small block Chevys ran 6.25 lbs per cubic inch, and Ford Cleveland head small blocks were 6.75 lbs per cubic inch. This pretty much handed Pro Stock to guys like Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins with his mouse-motored Vegas, "Dyno" Don Nicholsen with his 351 Cleveland powered Pintos, and later Gapp & Rousch with their four door Maverick "taxi cab". Same Jack Rousch we all know from NASCAR, by the way. NASCAR killed them with restrictor plates; different sizes for different motors. That is why MOPAR left NASCAR and took almost 30 years to come back.