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Hey A12 owners. Simple question: is living with an A12 hood a complete pain in the butt? Seems like anything from a oil change to a simple roadside repair would be complicated. And if you had to get to a problem under the hood quickly…? How do you deal with it?

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Rob, good question but for the most part there were two main reasons the A12's got a hood with no hood hinges....and it was all a result of a personal reason by engineer Dick Maxwell and his engineering buddies. There's rumor, folklore or whatever you want to term it that there was a rush to production for '69 when the 440+6 was really supposed to be a 1970 model year car and not a '69-1/2 "package". Rumor had it that the test mule 440 6bbl GTX was spotted at a Woodward hangout by some GM people in the Fall of '68. So in order to get the 3x2 440 out there they scrambled for parts and that meant getting a non-inhouse company to make an intake manifold (Edelbrock) and a hood that would feed more air than the '69 hood. The situation with the Edelbrock 3x2 ALUMINUM manifold bears out as to this day it is considered a better intake than the '70+ cast iron (some will say not but who is making a CAST IRON intake that anyone is BUYING ). Being better and not using it for '70+ models was because Chrysler only needed a temporay supply for '69-1/2 production. The LOH on the '69 A12's is the only mass PRODUCTION car that I know of that didn't have hood hinges or a way of mechanically (cable, lever, etc) or by vacuum closing off the outside fresh air access.

So the rush to production for mid year '69 had a lot to do with the A12 "package" and the second or best reason was that Dick Maxwell told me "Mike this was the last BADAZZ street car we were ever going to be able to build". And what better thing to do for a race car but to have a light weight fiberglass hood that could be lifted off and moved out of the way to tune between runs and to cool down the engine as best as possible. The hood was for a purpose or purposes; tuning, cooling, weight savings, ram air. Note that the scoop opening is above the hood surface as the intake air into the scoop moves faster than the "boundry layer" air close to the hood's surface.

It was a race inspired hood that somehow got into production and Dick Maxwell and another two engineers even "hosed down" the hood with GARDEN HOSES to prove to upper management that the A12 could survive and not shut down in a heavy rain or down pour That is right from Dick Maxwell

For the few that suffered and still suffer many took advantage of the LIFT-OFF-RACE-HOOD on the LAST BADAZS STREET CAR and the poster child of the musclecar era