Muscle Car Review – September 2019

 The bodywork and

beautiful LL-1 Dark

Turquoise Poly acrylic

enamel and clearcoat

were accomplished by

owner Scott Dahlberg.

To quote Jay Leno,

about the trunk in his

1966 Coronet 500, “You

could rent that trunk

out to a family of four.”

MUSCLE

56 SEPTEMBER 2019

HAMMERIN’

“What’s the Fastest Car You Got?”

I

n early 1964, Plymouth completed the brand new 426ci

Race Hemi V-8. It was an engineering marvel based on

the RB 426 block and aviation-influenced cylinder heads.

The Race Hemi debuted at the Daytona 500, where King

Richard Petty won the Daytona 500 driving his signature Petty

Blue 1964 Plymouth No. 43 car. In fact, four of the top five finish-

ers were Hemi-powered B-body cars. The Hemi engine went on

to dominate NASCAR that 1964 season, earning Petty the 1964

NASCAR World Championship.

Chrysler had a winner on its hands, but it needed to keep NAS-

By Arvid Svendsen

CAR and other sanctioning bodies happy. Homologation rules for

1966 motivated the creation of the 426ci Street Hemi as a produc-

tion engine. The Street Hemi was made available in all 1966 Plym-

outh Belvedere/Satellite and Dodge Coronet B-body intermediate

cars. The Street Hemi was a detuned version of the Race Hemi,

with a milder 10.25:1 compression ratio, twin four-barrel Carter

carburetors on an inline dual-quad intake manifold, a hydraulic

cam, and exhaust manifolds instead of headers.

For 1966, Dodge offered two versions of the sleek two-door pil-

larless hardtop, the 440 and the 500 models. In that same year,