The Grump and his “deuce” at Indy. The L79 Chevy II provided the hemi cars some tough competition in A/S that year.
Perhaps one final thing to mention for the sake of perspective was that Chrysler had already built more specialized drag cars than any other manufacturer by that time, not even including the Street Hemi – there were still dozens of Max Wedge and Hemi cars built in the 1962-65 era racing. In 1966, GM was putting together a few choice pieces – the aforementioned A/S L79 327/350-horse Chevy II, the B/S GTO (which Arlen Vanke successfully ran until Chrysler gave him some factory support after the NHRA Bristol race that June), and the rare but very gnarly C/S Olds W30/L69 Force-Air tri-carb 4-4-2. Ford
was still relying on the larger Fairlanes and Comets for special duty programs in the stocker ranks; when finally released for S/S, they were immediately outlawed by NHRA due to the use of fiberglass body parts and ended up in the FX/Gas divisions. So except for the Grump’s winning ‘66 Deuce, these models all basically flew under the radar that year. Meanwhile, the Dodge and Plymouth cars from 1963 on were all still capable of getting a trophy on raceday, and NHRA was probably relieved that Mopar didn’t unleash yet another 100 race-bred Mopars in the mix for ’66.
The eventual 1967 package car was milder than what had been planned for 1966; it featured a basic Street Hemi engine with a modified inline intake and steel heads. In fact, the aluminum head program was never revived again for Super Stock during the 1960s, though the cross-ram would grace the ‘68 Darts and Barracudas. Aluminum heads would only return with the updated D4 head of the Pro Stock era.
The 1966 Hemi option came in some interesting configurations, the most notorious being a couple of four-door examples that were done for law enforcement. In 1967, the 426” street motor would be limited to the new Coronet R/T, Plymouth GTX and the Charger, all with pretty substantial base costs. The only exception to this was the race package cars built on the RO/WO coding, which were the aforementioned basic Coronet and Belvedere designs.
Of course, the rules changed substantially in 1967 as well – NHRA decided to take the factory-built racecars and other somewhat modified door slammers and move them into their own Super Stock division, complete with ten classes. Sox and Landy came back to the door cars with a vengeance as a result, and, within three years, a whole new class called Pro Stock broke away from this NHRA SS classes. But that is a story for another day…
