(Continued) when I got back from the army and called back to the Foundry it was late 1975 and things had changed due to gas/oil embargo etc. Chrysler had tightened its belt and yard storage of blocks was eliminated. Don't remember seeing the HEMI blocks. The out of production blocks were gone too and don't remember seeing that tooling anymore. The plant (originally the American Foundry in the 1890s, before being purchased by Chrysler around 1949 and officially becoming the Chrysler Indianapolis Foundry in 1958) was closed by the 'braintrust' of Daimler in 2005 and subsequently bulldozed. Its rich heritage was producing the 426 Hemi blocks that won the 1964 Daytona 500, thousands of 340s (including the TA and race blocks), 360, 383, 400, 413, 426w, 440 and production 426 HEMIs. Even the 2.2,2.5, 3.9, 3.5 and later 4.0 L Jeep blocks were produced there. I'll end this long winded note with this info: one of the accountants at the plant gave my a copy of the Plant Gross Production Record from 1961 thru closing. Columns list blocks by displacement and I was told the 426w & 426 Hemi could have been combined in 1964 (evidently not all accountants are car guys!). Anyway the list showed the following rough 426 castings poured in the following years (numbers in 000): 1964-3; 1965-3; 1966-11; 1967-0; 1968-6; 1969-3; 1970-3; 1973-1; 1974-1.
I have a few more interesting Foundry related docs I'll try to get out here in future. Tom