Ray Claery, a high-end salon and spa owner in Bethesda, MD, says he got into owning Hemis “at the wrong time, in the last 12 years or so, right when they started getting really expensive.” He now owns four Hemi-powered rides, including this fan-favorite ‘63 Plymouth Belvedere that he campaigns in Heavy Street with occasional forays in local Outlaw 10.5 action.
Despite an early infatuation with Camaros and Corvettes, Claery, 66, admits that even back when they were new he fell in love with the ’63 Plymouth and always dreamed of owning one. So when he spotted the object of his desire about 25 years ago, awaiting repairs at a garage near the oceanside town of Lewis, DE, he set about prying the owner’s name out of the mechanic, then by his own admission proceeded to pester the car’s original owner, a retired tugboat pilot, for about six months before the $1,400 transaction was completed.
“I think I just broke him down,” Claery says, “but I never did tell him my plans for what I was going to do with it because he probably would’ve never sold it to me.”
From the beginning Claery intended to create a cloned 426-wedge car and says work started almost immediately to transform it into a low-12-second street bruiser. Eventually, of course, the need for more speed took hold and Claery decided to boost power with new Edelbrock heads and a stroker crank, as well as having the car mini-tubbed at Lawson’s Racecraft in Maryland.
“Then in the middle of mini-tubbing it I ran across a Keith Black Hemi, so I decided
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