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Afx cars-who's right??-lets clear the air

A few more from one of the best MOPAR weekends of my life:yes:

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I have come to the over whelming conclusion that the original AFX cars 9 (factory backed) were 2 door hardtop body's, with 2 door sedan doors installed. There were 12 'original' AFX cars, 6 - '65 Dodges, and 6 - '65 Plymouths,(one Plymouth being the 'test mule', and was kept on the testing grounds). But I have noticed that several of these cars appear to have a hardtop body with a 'post installed between the post of the sedan door, and the rear side window. If you check the picture of "Lee Smiths" '65 Plymouth AFX car in this forum with the door open, you can see what I'm talking about. I assume it's for strength. Is anyone familiar with this technique, and if so, does anyone know what was used . I would like to use this technique on my '65 Plyouth AFX project..
 
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What do you base this "theory" on? There are factory drawings and parts sheets available that were made available when these cars were new so people could build their own. Is this indicated there or are you making this up as you go along based on any kind of information that points to this?

I stated earlier in this thread that the Alexander Brothers shop in detroit built the first FXers and that NONE were ever built in a Chrysler factory. I offered proof by example of a specific book on 1964 Hemi race cars that was written by some one that researched all of this extensively. I was ignored or poo pooed. As indicated above, why would the factory make build plans available to build your own if they were building them in house? They were too labor intensive and too many deviations from standard assembly line models to do in house and that is why they were job shopped from the beginning.
 
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Let me share a little story about the Lee Smith and The Melrose Missle.

In 65' The Melrose Missle came to Cordova Dragway(Cordova,IL) to run at the World Series of Drag Racing. In the finals he ran against a local racer named Lee Smith. The Melrose Missle was one of the top cars that year if not the top and was a HUGE favorite. The Missle red lighted and lost to Lee. After the loss he was total pissed and was saying he would never come back and he was cheated.

My dad tells me this story everytime he sees a pic of Lee Smith or The Melrose Missle. Tells me that is was one of his favorite memories from back in the day.
 
Let me share a little story about the Lee Smith and The Melrose Missle.

In 65' The Melrose Missle came to Cordova Dragway(Cordova,IL) to run at the World Series of Drag Racing. In the finals he ran against a local racer named Lee Smith. The Melrose Missle was one of the top cars that year if not the top and was a HUGE favorite. The Missle red lighted and lost to Lee. After the loss he was total pissed and was saying he would never come back and he was cheated.

My dad tells me this story everytime he sees a pic of Lee Smith or The Melrose Missle. Tells me that is was one of his favorite memories from back in the day.

Lee Smith was sponsored by Learner's out of the quad cities.

I lived about 40 miles north of Cordova in Savanna Illinois. I sold Dodges new from 1968-1974. I spend many Friday and Saturday nights at that drag strip in the late 60s early 70s.
The Plymouth dealer (Ferris Motors) one block down the street from my dealership was on the factory race program from 1962 thru 1967 and had a 62, 63 Max Wedge, 65 A990, and a 67 RO SS cars. He also sold Larry Griffth his 1965 A990 RO SS 4 speed car. He sold a lot of hipo cars in the area including many to the Pontinac brothers in Oregon Illinois. Don't know if you know all of these names or not but they were all gearhead racers back in the day. Ferris and Griffith raced as a team for a while with the two A990s both locally and somewhat nationally. Ferris did not have a body shop but our dealership did. Our bodyman did the paint job on Ferris' 67 RO car and said that he nearly went blind masking it as you will be able to tell from the picture. These strips came over the fenders and on to the hood and trunk lid and came to a point. VERY cool paint job. White with blue stripes. The picture is of the car after Ferris sold it and the guy running it then simply repainted the name under where the stripes begin. Looks like it says Bettendorf Iowa under Plaza Gulf, which is close to the quad cities. Odd that it has some kind of dodge sponsorship on the car as it is a Plymouth.

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What do you base this "theory" on? There are factory drawings and parts sheets available that were made available when these cars were new so people could build their own. Is this indicated there or are you making this up as you go along based on any kind of information that points to this?

I stated earlier in this thread that the Alexander Brothers shop in detroit built the first FXers and that NONE were ever built in a Chrysler factory. I offered proof by example of a specific book on 1964 Hemi race cars that was written by some one that researched all of this extensively. I was ignored or poo pooed. As indicated above, why would the factory make build plans available to build your own if they were building them in house? They were too labor intensive and too many deviations from standard assembly line models to do in house and that is why they were job shopped from the beginning.
I would NEVER just make something up (if you knew me, you'd know better). Also,no one is stating these cars were assembled on a factory assembly line, "at the factory".... no one is saying that... The 1965 bare bones 'bodies' were pulled off the assembly line, and eventually ended up (I believe) a building next to Highland Park Engineering Center, (which was 'factory backed & financed). I believe the work actually started on these 1965 models in Oct 1964, - Dec 1964. I respect your input, and if I find 'more' evidence & facts to verify your statements that you mentioned of the contrary, I will post those facts. Thanks, and I respect your input... NOW about the post...., does anyone know anything about the 'post' on the hardtop bodies????????????? Check the picture of Lee Smith's 1965 Plymouth with the door open, that was posted earlier by HEMI-ITIS..
 
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Originally Posted by dvw
The cars were built by Chrysler. Not on the regular line. They used post doors with a hardtop body. They had no posts added to the body itself. Extra long torsion bars. My neighbor did the restoration on the Strickler car for a friend of mine. We actually had access to the original Chrysler blue prints. Some of these pages are in the new Ramchargers book as well. Brackets such as the jack mounts in the trunk were air chiseled off and not ground flat,pretty crude. The blue prints listed all the parts and procedures to assemble the car. I believe the Strickler car may have been the only stick. I was able to align the suspension on the car and got to drive it around the lot,pretty cool. I was able to get into 3rd on the test. The front end felt very light. I'm sure if I hit it hard it would have come up easily. I have a video if I can figure out how to post it.
Doug

Didn't mean to offend you, not my intent.

As you can see above, yes, he is stating that Chrylser did build them. I guess it is a matter of interpetation. Highland Park Engineering was an office of engineers as I understand it NOT an assembly facility. Typically when Mopar produced special cars they did the drawing, and sometimes had partial unibodies in house at engineering for actual hands on design. However what REALLY took place was the drawings, tech instuctions, etc. of what they wanted built and how they wanted it done. Then the found an outside vendor capable of doing the work and would send them the parts partial and/or complete standard unibody parts. The part numbers for the new peices required to build these special bodies could be made in house at an actual Chrysler facility or "job shop" by another vendor. The Alexander Brothers was a fab & assembly shop for these first cars. These cars were never assembled in a Chrysler OWNED large production facitity that build assembly line regular production cars. This is what I am saying. Were they Chrysler built cars? Yes, but they were build by an outside contractor with Chrysler designed parts and at the behest of Chrysler, so TECHNICALLY they were Chrysler BUILT cars, just not from a typical Chrysler assembly plant. No differnt than the 68 SS cars that were sent to Hurst as a PARTIAL unibody for completion. After these first 1964 cars were built the documents that showed how-to and parts needed to be ordered were given to racers that wanted to build their own. Some followed these plans and some were experimenting on their own prior to 1965 such as Landy.

I don't know if or which cars may or may not have been hardtop cars converted to post bodies or any kind of combination highbred and am not says so one way or another, just that there needs to be some proof of such things. maybe there is such proof and I have missed it.
 
This article is from the archives of Mopar Or No Car....And by this article, it appears that Dick Landy had built his own altered wheel base car out of a factory 990 car, prior to Chrysler building the factory 1965 cars. Which backs up the info for the factory 1965 cars...READ ON........In the fall of 1964 Landy decided to go "match racing" so he made several radical changes to his car. To reduce weight he removed all of the front suspension and replaced it with leaf springs and a solid front axle from a Dodge van. Because traction can be unproved by having the rear axle carry the majority of a car's weight, Landy relocated the rear axle forward about 8 inches. The front suspension was moved forward about 6 inches. These changes moved the majority of the car's weight over the rear tires. Landy used the car in this configuration for numerous match races in me last few months of 1964.

In the fall of 1964 Chrysler was building 1965 production cars and several special race cars, the "A/FX's" for the upcoming 1965 racing season. About a dozen of these cars were to be built with the rear axles moved forward 15 inches and the front wheels moved up 10 inches. These were at first called "altered wheelbase" cars and they were intended to compete in N.H.R.A.'s "A", factory experimental class ("A/FX"). However, given an early preview of me first altered wheelbase car, the N.H.R.A. nixed this idea.






Also in late 1964 some unknown individual observed that the radically altered wheelbase Mopar's appeared somewhat silly-looking from the side view. The front wheels were almost touching the front bumper while the rear wheels were very close to the doors. This person came up with the phrase "funny car." Chrysler went ahead and completed several of the A/FX cars. They first raced at the winter A.H.R.A. meet in Phoenix in early 1965. Dick Landy received one of the altered Dodges and he ran at this meet. In films of this event the announcer was calling the Mopars the "first funny cars".

Note that Landy's 1964 Dodge was converted to an altered wheelbase configuration and was at the strips at least three months before the factory's '65's raced at Phoenix. Although the factory '65's had more "alteration" (10" front/15" rear versus Landy's 6" front/8" rear) it is clear that Landy's 1964 Dodge is truly a "funny car". Since Landy's 1964 Dodge was on the tracks first, it could legitimately claim the title of "The First Funny Car".

LANDY'S 1964 DODGE AND ITS PEERS
 
Here is some info from the Pete Haldiman book on the Landy car. The first FUNNY CAR????

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Some more info..........Gives a list of who got what car.........
Most historical sites say there were 12 factory AWB cars built; 6 Dodge and 6 Plymouth. But then other racers made an unknown number of copies. Some hardtops, some sedans. Some feel the original hardtop "test mule" was later made into the Golden Commando Club car. We're not sure. Supercar President Scott Dahlberg has spoke with many of these original drivers recently, and sometimes he does gets conflicting information. And that's right from the drivers. Of course, this all happened 45 years ago now. Does anyone remember everything from that long ago? I don't. So here is what has been complied for the real cars...
For the original 1965 Plymouth Hardtop AWB cars:
AWB Test Mule
Al Eckstrand & Forest Pitcock, Golden Commando Club Car
Butch Leal, California Flash
Ronnie Sox, Sox and Martin
Lee Smith
Cecil Yother, Melrose Missile

The bare bodies (real cars) were constructed at Chrysler's Los Angeles assembly plant, and shipped to an outside vendor for acid dripping. This process allowed the body weight to be reduced by 200 pounds. The mods were pretty extensive, so they could not be done on the regular assembly line. The bodies were then shipped to a contractor specializing in ambulance conversions called Amblewagon, and they were in Troy, MI. Obviously the forward relocation of the front and rear axles caused considerable sheetmetal work (unibody construction), and the front wheels were moved forward by installing special lower subframe rails and sectioning the inner fender panels. The upper control arm pivot and shock mount were moved 10" forward. A lightweight stainless steel K-member also bolts on the new frame rails 10" farther forward. The steering linkage was extended and longer torsion bars installed to compensate for the relocation. To move the rear axle forward, the floorpan was sectioned and a 15" section removed. The quarter panels were sectioned, and the standard wheel openings moved forward the appropriate amount. Sheetmetal filler panels were added to the sectioned areas, and everything was welded back together. A cross braced four point roll bar was installed for chassis stiffening. The front bumper was also fiberglass, and the rear bumper remained steel to maintain rear end weight. Inside the car were lightweight bucket seats on aluminum mounts, and carpeting. These cars weighed just 2,800 pounds when delivered, and the weight distribution was the best possible, with 56% on the rear.

The power for these was the 1965 A990 426 Hemi, and an actual A990 S/S car was cannibalized for the engine, driveline and interior for each car. They cranked out over 500 horsepower when carburated. Later during the 1965 season Chrysler engineered a fuel injection system using Hillborn injectors, with reworked mid-range and high-speed circuits. The velocity stacks varied depending on the transmission type, with tall 13-1/4" stacks on TorqueFlite cars, and shorter 7-1/4" stacks on 4-speed cars. Performance was increased with this system over the dual Holley carbs, from mid 10's, to high 9s. A speed of 140-mph were not uncommon near the end of 1965. They were the most notable wicked drag cars ever built, and the fans loved them!
For 1965 Dodge AWB cars:
Bobby Harrop, The Flying Carpet
Bub Faubel, Hemi Honker
Dave Strickler
Dick Landy
Jim Thornton and Mike Buckel, Ramchargers
Roger Lindamood, Color Me Gone
 
OK, I think we should start over here.

Going back to the first post in this thread you are asking about 12 original cars.

There has been a lot of confusion throught this thread mixing info on 64 and 65 models.

My comment have been primarily about 64 cars.

I am not sure if there were ANY cars that can be considered FACTORY built after the first initial 4 1964 cars modified in the Alexander Brother's shop that are listed in the page I am showing here. Maybe there were but it would not make much sence for them to do this as they made the part numbers and how-to info available for racers to do it themselves and it appears that Mopar had no interest in building them after making this info available. I don't know where this number of 12 comes from and what it includes? All cars that are known to have been build regardless of who or where they were built?

The attached page here is again from Haldiman's book because I personally don't think that any cars other than the ones listed here can be considered as "factory built." I believe that these cars were done so it order to get the team cars out there to compete exclusively in the 1964 FX class and to create complete cars that followed the how-to instructions and the parts list that were developed from this venture.

Regarding the torsion bars vs. straight axle cars, I think that the straight axle cars came about because it allowed for the racers to experiment with different front and rear wheel placement without having to deal with relying on Mopar providing various length torsion bars. Remember, these bars were not something that just anybody could make as they are designed to be twisted in order to work as designed. I believe that Landy was likely the first one to start experimenting with these different wheel placements with his original 1964 car that I have included info on in my previous post. After that there were obviously other cars done with different wheel placements and as far as I know they were all straight axle cars, and therefore the only special torsion bars that Mopar ever made available were the ones listed in the parts from the original 1964 cars modified by the Alexander Brothers. Does anyone have any proof of part numbers of any other bars made available from Mopar for these later different wheel placements?

NOTE:
Haldiman's book on the pages of the Landy 64 car states that CHRSLER BUILT built 11 AWB cars in 1965 with LONGER torsion bars, does anyone have a part number of these bars that is different from the ones made for the 4 1964 AWB cars?

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Some more info..........Gives a list of who got what car.........
Most historical sites say there were 12 factory AWB cars built; 6 Dodge and 6 Plymouth. But then other racers made an unknown number of copies. Some hardtops, some sedans. Some feel the original hardtop "test mule" was later made into the Golden Commando Club car. We're not sure. Supercar President Scott Dahlberg has spoke with many of these original drivers recently, and sometimes he does gets conflicting information. And that's right from the drivers. Of course, this all happened 45 years ago now. Does anyone remember everything from that long ago? I don't. So here is what has been complied for the real cars...
For the original 1965 Plymouth Hardtop AWB cars:
AWB Test Mule
Al Eckstrand & Forest Pitcock, Golden Commando Club Car
Butch Leal, California Flash
Ronnie Sox, Sox and Martin
Lee Smith
Cecil Yother, Melrose Missile

The bare bodies (real cars) were constructed at Chrysler's Los Angeles assembly plant, and shipped to an outside vendor for acid dripping. This process allowed the body weight to be reduced by 200 pounds. The mods were pretty extensive, so they could not be done on the regular assembly line. The bodies were then shipped to a contractor specializing in ambulance conversions called Amblewagon, and they were in Troy, MI. Obviously the forward relocation of the front and rear axles caused considerable sheetmetal work (unibody construction), and the front wheels were moved forward by installing special lower subframe rails and sectioning the inner fender panels. The upper control arm pivot and shock mount were moved 10" forward. A lightweight stainless steel K-member also bolts on the new frame rails 10" farther forward. The steering linkage was extended and longer torsion bars installed to compensate for the relocation. To move the rear axle forward, the floorpan was sectioned and a 15" section removed. The quarter panels were sectioned, and the standard wheel openings moved forward the appropriate amount. Sheetmetal filler panels were added to the sectioned areas, and everything was welded back together. A cross braced four point roll bar was installed for chassis stiffening. The front bumper was also fiberglass, and the rear bumper remained steel to maintain rear end weight. Inside the car were lightweight bucket seats on aluminum mounts, and carpeting. These cars weighed just 2,800 pounds when delivered, and the weight distribution was the best possible, with 56% on the rear.

The power for these was the 1965 A990 426 Hemi, and an actual A990 S/S car was cannibalized for the engine, driveline and interior for each car. They cranked out over 500 horsepower when carburated. Later during the 1965 season Chrysler engineered a fuel injection system using Hillborn injectors, with reworked mid-range and high-speed circuits. The velocity stacks varied depending on the transmission type, with tall 13-1/4" stacks on TorqueFlite cars, and shorter 7-1/4" stacks on 4-speed cars. Performance was increased with this system over the dual Holley carbs, from mid 10's, to high 9s. A speed of 140-mph were not uncommon near the end of 1965. They were the most notable wicked drag cars ever built, and the fans loved them!
For 1965 Dodge AWB cars:
Bobby Harrop, The Flying Carpet
Bub Faubel, Hemi Honker
Dave Strickler
Dick Landy
Jim Thornton and Mike Buckel, Ramchargers
Roger Lindamood, Color Me Gone


I have some problems with the above bolded portions of this info.

1. I believe the K frame was aluminum not stainless steel.

2. Are these tosion bars spoken of here the same size as the first special length bars mopar made or are they saying these are ANOTHER special size made?

3. This reads that they cannibalized OTHER complete A990 cars to build these? This would make no sence to me since they are saying that they shipped complete cars form LA to Ambelwagon. Why wouldn't they just start with a complete A990 car and modify it? Seem to be taking a lot of unecessary steps to complete a car when the end result could be done much more simply. Also I believe that all of the A990s were built in Detroit which is where Ambelwagon was. As far as I know there were never any Hemi cars built in the LA plant during this time, if ever. Why would they build bodies in LA, send them to Detroit, and them rob existing A990 cars for drivetrains when it ALL could have been done in the Detroit area? This doesn't add up to me.

I think there is a lot of wrong info floating around about all of this.
 
K frames where Stainless the 64's used the stock lenght torsion bars. A-990 cars where parted out for the A/FX Hardtops.
 
The bare shell was assembled in Ca. Not complete cars Landy over saw the acid dipping of the Bare Shells.They were then shipped back to Detroit for conversion.
 
The bare shell was assembled in Ca. Not complete cars Landy over saw the acid dipping of the Bare Shells.They were then shipped back to Detroit for conversion.

Where does your info come from and can you answer the questions I asked about the different torsion bar sizes and part numbers?

Were the aluminum K members available later then through Mopar or were they built by an aftermarket vendor?

Were these "parted out" A990s unsold cars or ones that people already owend and were racing? If so, were they simply buying new bodies to have converted to AWB cars? Why in the world would they start with an LA built car to ship to Detroit?
 
Try not to read something into it that isn't there...The reference to "cannibalization of a A990" car is just a reference to taking a A990 motor . Only meaning they took a A990 Hemi motor and interior, to use for these cars in '65. Also the torsion bars were stock Imperial Torsion bars that were used on the '65 cars. No modifications at all on the bars......just plain old stock Imperial torsion bars. That's it. Also, nobody is saying that they used A990 cars to build AFX's out of, and nobody is saying the A990 cars came out of L.A.. Your just assuming that. READ FIRST SENTENCE OF THIS POST.
 
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Ahhh, from YOUR post:

"and an actual A990 S/S car was cannibalized"

I believe I read it very closely and am assuming nothing. I did't SAY they were A990s from LA and was only questioning what was stated.
 
They used more then motors,they had to part them out to complete the acid dipped shells.This is all well documented fact.
Try not to read something into it that isn't there...The reference to "cannibalization of a A990" car is just a reference to taking a A990 motor . Only meaning they took a A990 Hemi motor to use for these cars in '65. Also the torsion bars were stock Imperial Torsion bars that were used on the '65 cars. No modifications at all on the bars......just plain old stock Imperial torsion bars. That's it. Also, nobody is saying that they used A990 cars to build AFX's out of, and nobody is saying the A990 cars came out of L.A.. Your just assuming that. READ FIRST SENTENCE OF THIS POST.
 
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