1965 Plymouth 2% A/FX cars

[Jeff Peterson]

And as far as the AWB "droop", this is the cure.

 

[440 PHIXX]

Here’s an interesting car. Built by Blair’s Speed Shop out of Pasadena. The picture is from Spring ‘65, a ‘65 Chevy II, it supposedly had the first Mk. IV Big Block on the West Coast. They clearly borrowed a few ideas from the Chrysler Camp.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Here’s an interesting car. Built by Blair’s Speed Shop out of Pasadena. The picture is from Spring ‘65, a ‘65 Chevy II, it supposedly had the first Mk. IV Big Block on the West Coast. They clearly borrowed a few ideas from the Chrysler Camp. View attachment 1385741

Ultimately, the scheme was about hook for the power houses finding their way into every engine nest. Set the engine back, place the wheels forward and get there first.

 

[topside]

Jeff - interesting pillar photo. Seems also visible in that photo of Lee Smith's car. I'll have to ask about that.
Sorry for the S&M HT confusion - somehow that old story came out of the recesses - the ex-S&M is pictured above in B&V livery.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Jeff - interesting pillar photo. Seems also visible in that photo of Lee Smith's car. I'll have to ask about that.
Sorry for the S&M HT confusion - somehow that old story came out of the recesses - the ex-S&M is pictured above in B&V livery.

Here's the most written on the 2%centers so far that I know of. It's an old October 1964 issue of Speed And Custom mentioning the curiosity of these mysterious '64's. It's basically a picture story showing certain parts but not much more than that unfortunately. I suspect that somewhere there are hidden troves of imagery of the cars in construction over at The Alexander Brothers shop and in hot mode at the track. The project was too secret and anticipated for them not to document the whole thing leading up to the '65 2% and 10/15 program. Note: that Jim's car here still has the door vent wings in place, indicating that this photo must have been taken very early on in the program.
This of course doesn't mean that a current journalist couldn't unearth the idea and go treasure hunting for images and the info as things unfolded. I guess 8 cars (with some of them crushed or lost) isn't worth it. Time will tell.

 

[topside]

Great stuff - I'll have to look for that issue. Top paragraph reference to Tom Grove would be one of the Melrose Missile cars, I guess VI (Hemi sedan)
Reading the photo caption, where that car was Wedge-Hemi-Wedge, explains some of the difficulty in nailing down a standardized list of modifications.
Note Max Wedge scoop, vent windows, and 4 headlamps.
Arguably the most fascinating & convoluted periods, yet without interviewing everyone involved, the whole story may never be known.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Great stuff - I'll have to look for that issue. Top paragraph reference to Tom Grove would be one of the Melrose Missile cars, I guess VI (Hemi sedan)
Reading the photo caption, where that car was Wedge-Hemi-Wedge, explains some of the difficulty in nailing down a standardized list of modifications.
Note Max Wedge scoop, vent windows, and 4 headlamps.
Arguably the most fascinating & convoluted periods, yet without interviewing everyone involved, the whole story may never be known.

Word!
There was so much cross pollination of parts, ideas and the cars themselves that it has become a "When, why, how and who done it" kind of scenario. The first Hemi-head motors were a little disappointing until the carburetor /fuel and valve train gents stepped in and cleaned the whole mess up. Perhaps that explains the back and forth between "New Tricks On the block" and old and proven ones such as the highly coveted Maxie.

Here's a 1965 theory and only a theory because I obviously wasn't there, but at times things happen serendipitously to advance things and so, my Detective Columbo meets Kojak meets Maverick spidey sense comes into play.
When I acquired an original set of A990 fenders, I gave them a long inspection and thickness evaluation keeping in mind that a factory memo IIRC stated that they were .020 thickness (theory has it that these fenders were either dipped or stamped, depending on who you are talking to) but my fenders were reading 0.18 all across its regions. No signs of dip feathering at the edges, Acid sink holes, thickness irregularities across its flats, etc.
What gives?

Here's my theory.
Whether the factory wished to make them out of .020 at first and thus created a memo for NHRA staff approval, but figured out either on paper or real world testing that the fenders were too fragile and collapsing under wind gusts or their own weight remains to be guessed. I think that the end results were a fragile mess of wafer thin fenders that were not going to leave an impressionable factory image and they changed the gauge to a more manageable .018.
That being said, these (8) mission impossible cars probably went through the various tests, switching and pitching just the same.
As to the dip vs stamp argument, later in '65, the factory didn't correctly figure out the dipping process for their 10/15 tubs and thus ended up with some rather transparent and twisted cars at the end, so my sense is that stamping was the call of the day when it specifically came down to the A990 body parts just like the stamped aluminum parts for the A-864 cars the year before. Just my theory.

 

[topside]

I've heard the stories of thin-gauge panels being stamped in the regular dies; that's possible, I guess, if the machine(s) can be adjusted. Separate dies would seem seriously expensive for a limited run. And then there's the aluminum panels to consider...yikes. Gotta wonder about scrap & test pieces, eh ?
The places for chemical milling (aka acid-dipping) were allegedly in CA because of the aerospace/aircraft industry, and the story is the cars were shipped there, dipped, and sent back. Seems spendy, but I guess in the golden age of factory competition, it was win at any cost.
There are photos of the carbureted Hemi tests at Lions, where the comparison Maxie was basically a wash; IIRC, that was fixed with a switch to the larger Holleys. In the photos, there's also interesting stuff in the background. I think I found them chasing a rabbit hole on Allpar.com a few years ago.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

I've heard the stories of thin-gauge panels being stamped in the regular dies; that's possible, I guess, if the machine(s) can be adjusted. Separate dies would seem seriously expensive for a limited run. And then there's the aluminum panels to consider...yikes. Gotta wonder about scrap & test pieces, eh ?
The places for chemical milling (aka acid-dipping) were allegedly in CA because of the aerospace/aircraft industry, and the story is the cars were shipped there, dipped, and sent back. Seems spendy, but I guess in the golden age of factory competition, it was win at any cost.
There are photos of the carbureted Hemi tests at Lions, where the comparison Maxie was basically a wash; IIRC, that was fixed with a switch to the larger Holleys. In the photos, there's also interesting stuff in the background. I think I found them chasing a rabbit hole on Allpar.com a few years ago.

Yes, the cars were shipped to CA for their chemical jacuzzis and came back to the Amblewagon facility hardly together.

I went to dinner with Ted Spehar one time while visiting in Detroit and he told me that his boy had about 10 of the aluminum dashboards inter-stacked on top of each other in the garage or basement. This was of course many years back. They were extra stamps with excess aluminum material. I was floored.

I can never get enough of this stuff.
Either way, hopefully this answers a lot of questions for the original post up by member 318Poly65 about those 2%'s.

 

[Big bill]

Back in 2013 I was working on a coronet that had one of those dashes. It looked factory I could not believe it ... I think the sedan door frames were alluminum with fiberglass doors on the 65 2% cars , and fist run at the 65 Winter Nationals in California.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Back in 2013 I was working on a coronet that had one of those dashes. It looked factory I could not believe it ... I think the sedan door frames were alluminum with fiberglass doors on the 65 2% cars , and fist run at the 65 Winter Nationals in California.

Back in 2013 I was working on a coronet that had one of those dashes. It looked factory I could not believe it ... I think the sedan door frames were alluminum with fiberglass doors on the 65 2% cars , and fist run at the 65 Winter Nationals in California.

Here's a '65 2% at work.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Here's a '65 2% at work.

View attachment 1386526

Wrenching or tubing on a '64 2%

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Wrenching or tubing on a '64 2%

View attachment 1386528

Two 2%'s at each others throat

 

[topside]

Tom looks a wee bit late in both photos...
Note the Maxie scoop on VI.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Tom looks a wee bit late in both photos...
Note the Maxie scoop on VI.

That Tasca surely has a task to keep from being overturned by the Titanic B. Looks almost like a volkwagon beetle to a Cadi.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Two 2%'s at each others throats

View attachment 1386529

 

[rmchrgr]

Found this on Moparts from several years ago.

This is a print of that car I've had for years, sorry for the dust! In this pic it looks like it has a straight axle in the front.

 

[fullmetaljacket]

Found this on Moparts from several years ago.
View attachment 1390848

This is a print of that car I've had for years, sorry for the dust! In this pic it looks like it has a straight axle in the front. View attachment 1390849

These two cars (perhaps both the same car in different eras) are most probably homemade altered cars. Depending when these photos were taken (could be later in 1965-66-67) it could be that these were already past down A864 aluminum nosed Hemi cars that got the shade tree alterations by their owners in the midst of the altered wheelbase craze. The four 2% mystery cars had no vent wing windows on the doors and these two have them present. It must have been rather hot conditions inside those 2% cars during the summer months.
Nevertheless, this High and the Mighty is a cool car.

 

[rmchrgr]

I never realized the 2% cars didn't have vent windows! The windows look like Lexan.

The pics of the High And The Mighty car appear to be/are two different bodies, you can tell by the front wheel opening. Seems probable the one with the red windows is a recreation.

Looking at the pic of the original H&M car at the track though, the front wheel openings look pretty much the same as the Ramchargers. I'd say you are correct in that it was likely a factory Hemi race car but definitelty not a 2%. They clearly benefited from "shared" factory info though.

So the four 2% Hemi cars were 1) Ramchargers, 2) Strickler/Jenkins, 3) Melrose Missle/Grove and 4) Golden Commandos?

From 1964 – WELCOME THE T- BOLT and RACE HEMI!

WHEEL BASE ALTERATIONS
"Later in the year Chrysler engineers twigged to the idea of moving the rear wheels fwd, which aided in weight transition and traction. They produced 4 factory 2% AWB (Altered Wheel Base ) cars for the Indy US Nats. 2% was the maximum allowable under FX rules. These cars never competed in S/S eliminations….but the new Hemi powered Dodges and Plymouths destroyed the 427 Comets and others in FX at Indy ……giving Ford motivation to develop a purpose-built race motor for 65…..and paving the way for something ‘funny’ to happen."

 

[rmchrgr]

Huh.