I'm trying to help a friend find more background on this car, maybe someone here has heard of it?

A Plymouth Hemi Belvedere competed in the 1965 Daytona Continental. The Continental was an FIA sanctioned sports car race and part of the World Endurance Championship. This unusual entry seemed to take place when NASCAR outlawed Chrysler's Hemi for stock car competition and Chrysler sought other racing venues to highlight their products. Unfortunately the entry was not particularly successful, retiring on about the 60th lap and never appearing in competition again. In order for the car to compete it had to be homologated or approved by the FIA, which it was in January of 1965. Attached is an extract from an FIA list of missing Homologation Papers. You can see that the Plymouth AR 2 SS was homologated under number 189 and the Dodge AW 2 SS under number 190. An extract of that manual is also attached. Have any of you ever heard about this car or any similar ones? Do you have any other information on the car or this Model Code? If not, do you know who may.

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30 The car is not available on a photo Plymouth Belvedere - Plymouth 6975 cc N/A GT+3.0
Plymouth Div. Chrysler Corp. (USA) Closed bodywork
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Driven by: Scott Harvey (USA)/Peter Hutchinson (USA) Result: did not finish (Engine)
Grid: 11th (2:12.000)
Sponsors: PLYMOUTH Colours: unknown
Tyres: unknown


You might be able to get some info on the car at the Team Starfish website. Just email Mike.

I believe that was the same car as pictured on another thread here a week or so ago. Naturally, I can't recall the thread's "name", but it had a photo I've seen before: the car sitting still, left door open, Scott Harvey sitting next to it with some other guys. It was kind of the fore-runner of later USAC efforts, which were more successful.

Haven't been on here in a while ----- I talked to Scott Harvey about this 65 Ply - He stated that he really wasn't thrilled about driving a "tank" against the sports cars. Said all he knew about the car was that it was prepared, ready to go when they flew him in to drive it. Said he had no clue what happened to it except it was shipped back to Chrysler -- Reed in Neb.

Interesting story, I've never heard about any of these 65 Hemi Plymouths or 65 Hemi Dodges running these type of road courses before, but do recall seeing some old photo's of a 65 Hemi Dodge running some rally road courses. It must have something to do with Nascar outlawing the Hemi motor back in 65 and they needed a different outlet to race, remember when Richard Petty switched to drag racing and raced a Petty Blue Barracuda.

I've never seen that picture before but I have some pictures of an even stranger combo. In one of my old books there is a '65 Coronet set up for rally type racing. The car is lifted and has what appears to be light truck tires. It also had a 426 Hemi engine in it. The caption says it was factory sponsored.

Think I can contribute some information to this thread.

The Dodge that is referenced earlier, competed in the Canadian 1965 Shell 4000 Rally with David Pearson as driver and Fred Browne, an engineer form Cleveland, OH, as navigator. Browne would navigate other Chrysler factory rally efforts. The car may have been a WO car and was prepped to rally standards by Scott Harvey. After the Rally, the car was returned to Chrysler and reportedly converted back to a drag car, but not before it was lent to Martyn Schorr at Hi Performance Cars magazine. He drove it on the street and wrote an article on it for the magazine. If anyone has the article I would like to see it. The car is said to exist today in drag racing configuration.

The rally effort was not successful with the car retiring on the first day (of six days in total). New for 1965 disc brakes failed, while the car’s lack of a heater/defroster made it unsuitable for cold weather operation. Another story says that Pearson, used to turning left, simply drove off the course every time the road turned right. After his retirement from the race he very eloquently stated “Ah’m not gonna bust mah keaster on this thing no more!”.

There are pictures of the rally car in Jim Schild’s book “Proving Ground” and Martyn Schorr’s book “Mopar: The Performance Years”.
Both the Rally and Daytona Continental efforts were the result of NASCAR’s Hemi ban in 1965. Chrysler stated publically they would seek other venues to showcase their products.

The Continental Belvedere may have started life as a stripped 318 powered car before it was sent to Chrysler stock car development, where the late Peter Dawson lead its conversion to a road race car. Dawson would serve as Team Manager for the race and Harvey and the late Peter Hutchinson would drive the car. I have spoken with Harvey. Larry Adams was also said to have been involved with the car, but I haven’t been able to locate him. Does anyone have any contact information?

The picture mentioned showing the car surrounded by those involved appears with an internet article on Dawson by Roger Meiners located here:

http://www.moparmagazine.com/2009/may_june/grassroots_engineering.html

The Continental effort was not successful as the car retired after about 60 laps. After that the trail goes cold. I am interested in any and all information on the car and/or its participation in the Daytona Continental.

Don't forget the HEMI powered McKee

http://www.hemimckee.com/html/hemi_mckee_can_am_racer_variuo_0.html

And the A.J. Foyt driven Hussein

http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z11315/Mecom-Hussein-MK-I.aspx

Marty
Marysville, OH

You should talk with Tom at Rocketresto.com. He just bought a 65 plymouth that was a famous old nascar/road racer. I cant remember who drove the car but he said it has quite a history. He showed me a few picts on the web of the car racing a road course. Tom knows a lot of stuff about the old road racers and there where abouts. I have seen the car he just bought and its amazing how crude it was. I wouldnt be caught dead racing that thing.. lol

There was an ad in a 1965 or '66 issue of Car and Driver that showed a '65 Hemi Belvedere rally car going over a rise in the road. I have the magazine and if I find time, I'll look for it.
This is the first time in decades that someone has finally brought this to light...

Thanks Scott!

Found a Car and Driver article on the car from Mike Volz's collection here at Rocket. It is an article on the race and only has pictures of the big boys (Ferrari's, Ford GT, etc) but they have a little note at the end of the article:

"There was also a legally-homologated Plymouth GT car, a hemi-engined monster with two four-barrel carbs, a NASCAR roll cage, the biggest drum brakes you ever saw and various other goodies, along with Chrysler engineers Scott Harvey (the rally driver) and Peter Hutchinson as drivers.

They laughed when Harvey sat down to drive, but stopped soon afterward when he qualified the noisy beast in 2:12 (the Ford GTs were at 2:01 and 2:03 for the 3.81 mile course). Harvey had the 11th fastest time. They blew it up after about two-and-a-half hours, but while they were around this small, rather informal attempt by some Chrysler people to learn what this roadracing business was all about was impressive. If you've never seen a Plymouth blew off a Ferrari GTO or a Porsche 904 (the GTO eventually finished seventh, the Porches were fifth, eighth and ninth) you've missed a lovely sight."

I own a 65 Plymouth that was a Permatex car and raced at Riverside in 70, 71, and 72, have attached a picture of it.

Hey tom!

I forgot all about this post.. I guess I had better go look for that mag..

I thought Brock Yates did an article on driving the 65 Hemi Coronet around. I don't think in a race, just for an article. Maybe that was the Martyn Schoor article.

This morning I wanted to pose a question about the type of brakes that may have been used on the Daytona car.

There are references in various articles about the car using disc brakes all around, on the front only and drum brakes. In addition, an article on the rally car mentions disc brakes being fitted to the front end from the police package. Lastly there is an SAE bulletin on racing brake development at Chrysler that says when discs were tested at Sebring in 1965, they proved unsuccessful.

All of this is a little confusing, as disc brakes were not introduced on B body cars until 1966, C body brakes wouldn’t have fit and 1965 police package cars were fitted with oversize drum brakes. I think I have all that right.

We know that the rally Valiants used Girling disc brakes at the 1964 Monte Carlo Rally, A and C body cars got disc brakes in 1965 and that Hurst/Airheart disc brakes were used on race cars in this period. It would not be unusual for the car to have been homologated with non-production Chrysler disc brakes for competition use.

Does anyone have any thoughts or insights on what may have been used on the Daytona car?

Thanks, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Found a photo of the 65 Dodge Coronet with a 426 street hemi that I was talking about earlier. It was taken in the summer of 64 with Marty Schorr standing beside it. So what ever happened to this 65 Coronet, did it end up being some Chrysler rep's personal car or did it end up being someone's race car. Also from other photo's seen of this 65 Coronet it was a hardtop and not a sedan. And what's with the underside of the hood being blacked out.