Since we are posting old pics....I found some

This is the 63 I referred to in Johns thread. This would have been in 81 while I was a senior in high school. Got the street treads on it here for a show in the local mall. The awesome N-50 Pro-Tracs.........LOL!!!

This was at the 82 Street Machine Nats. Carried it up to do a little late night street racing. Car had been in the 9s by this time. Did well until I came up against a 64 Max Wedge Plymouth from Detroit.........he smoked my azz and I was pretty fast. He was damn fast

Sweet!

Love me some '63 Dodge!

After getting my azz cracked, I decided I needed some bigger shoes. This was 83, because that Mirada beside it was an 83 and my folks had just bought it

Had this dart for a while in the mid 80s.........as you can tell by hood scoop.....LOL!!!!

That shot is at Huntsville and you can tell it's old by what you DON'T see......pits full of enclosed trailers

Shot of GTX when it was still a show car......probably late 80s. Wish I still had this tilt bed trailer. It was sweet

93? probably.......... Fastest Street Car Shootout in Memphis

Street ride..........Still have this car, Lil Red Truck, 63 and GTX of course

That is even cooler that you still have these rides Monte.

Had already done a LOT of work on 63 here. This was my first car, bought it at 14 with lawn mowing money. Paid 100 bucks for it with a worn out 383. Guys wife had forgot to move park lever and it had rolled off and center punched a tree in the front end and he let it sit after that. Think his wife was tired of looking at it and hearing about it, so they let it go. Found out later it IS a factory Maxie car. Judging by quarters, I had been "trying out" the Firestones this day......LOL

Yeah, but I'm a Mopar "hater" haven't you heard...........LOL!!!!

A few I wish I had back

What heads were on the engine you ran in the '63?

A set of my dads old 906 Super Stock heads that we ported after he quit using them. Well I don't think we ported them. Think they were sent to Racing Head Service. Before class racing petered out locally, he was going to build a motor to run the Challenger in Modified Production. It was so dominant locally in Super Stock, they nobody would show up in his classes any more. The car was a SS/GA national record holder, so it was hard to beat on the local level. So the plan was, alum rods, ported heads, the tunnel ram, lighter pistons. Class racing dried up totally around here and he refused to bracket race. So he parked the car and the M/P motor was never finished. THAT was the motor we put in the 63.

Not gonna lie about it, I had it made as a kid. My dad had a race car when I was born, so I was brought up in that world. Both my parents had good jobs and he bought the best of the best and I got the old stuff, which was VERY good. His best friend in high school was Clayton Harris, who went on to be a Top Fuel world champion. I have sat in Clayton's lap while he did burnouts in the fuel car in his neighborhood. Grew up at the track, hanging out in Clayton's pits and my dad racing the super stocker. Was the same age as Billy Glidden, John Muldowney, Kurt Johnson and others. Well, me, Billy and Kurt are same age, John was the old guy....LOL!!! We terrorized the pits together......LOL!!! My dad could do anything. He built his own motors, trans, rears and painted the cars. Had keys to local machine shop and did his own machine work after hours. I still have his old Kwik-Way valve machine, Sunnen hone and a bunch of other cool stuff.

Here is a pic of one of Clayton's championship cars

Nice ZZ Top paint jobs , certainly set the time
Thanks for sharing

Tex

Very cool, have you got any pics of your dad's Challenger ? Did he butt heads with Paul Rossi ?
Oh. and your Dart looks more like a Plymuth Scamp ?
Mick

Damn Monte, nice rides !!!

Very Cool!

Very nice monte, thanks for sharing. Crazy how us old timers had to modify crap and we enjoyed doing it sooooo much. I still have a hard time getting rid of the old parts and sometimes walk over to the shelf just to make sure they are still safe. I finally sold off my Old TRW pistons a few years ago but still have my 906 heads that ran 9.82 on my stock crank, stock rod 440 and 3 old 750 lift roller cams. It would brake my heart to sell them. Lol

Hey Monte what color was the 64 Plymouth from Detroit that you raced? I have a friend that was king of street racing back in the day and he had a mx wedge car. Just wondering if maybe it was him.

Monte the 63s scoop looks just like the one I have on my 65.Bought it in 71 was like 60 bucks.A lot back then.Do you have any pics of Big Bird pro mod?Rocky

Very cool pics!

Black. Think it was in a magazine a year or so later. It had red anodized Welds on it at the time, if I remember right

He outran Rossi a couple times in class run offs.....................and you are right, it was a Scamp. That was a long time ago and I owned that car just a short time

This was also at Huntsville.........For some of you old timers or KOS fans......That is Steve Bowman behind the car. He and Sheila came to this race to help us out

Not me, I let that junk go if somebody wants it...........LOL!!! I usually never had a problem selling parts off of, or motors out of my cars and don't hold on to old parts I know I will never use. Still have my dads last Super Stock intake setup and tunnel ram from 63, but rest is pretty much gone. Could probably dig out a SS roller cam or two.............My dad on the other hand had a barn full of old stuff over there. All the old race motors were gone, but still a lot of parts over there that I haven't had a chance to go through yet

Thanks for sharing the pictures and memories Monte. I still have one of those Formula 5000 scoops sitting on the shelf in my shop. I was going to put it on my Buick. Glad I didn't.

Cool pics Monte. tell us a little about the blue Daytona. When was that, what class, times, etc.

I looked back through the whole post for a Daytona lol

Thanks Monte !!!

Cool stories. love the history stuff! thanks for sharing

First it's a Superbird and second, it should be pretty obvious that's a blown alcohol Pro-Mod. The time frame was likely around 2000 or so. At the time only Hugh Scott and a couple other Outlaw Pro-Mods had been in the 3 sec zone. We went 4.06 on this day

Yep that's him. it was called the rat patrol. had max wedge with nos hidden under intake and plumed out the back threw firewall. tank was hidden under dash. his name is Bob Orlikowski. big bob or just Orlo to all off us. car stayed in Detroit area for years and was sold a few years ago to someone in british Colombia and just a few months ago got bought back and is back in Michigan. I have pictures of it but i'll need help from one of my employees to down load them for me. Hey thanks for the trip down memory lane with your pictures.

Jack a guy that was a member her bought Big Bird.Monte was working on it.I tkink BK thought he was going to make a million running it.If I remember it went overseas.I think he sold the molds to someone also.He found out its costly to run one.had a buddy with a nitro HD.he found out that 14 K for a motor was pricey especially when they didnt last long.Then add fuel, transport, driver etc.Rocky

Not exactly how that story went. BK flew me to Texas to look at the car. I looked at it, he bought it and I brought it home. We planned to run it at the time in Outlaw Street, with me driving and maintaining car. I went through everything on the car to get it race ready. BK spent a lot of money and I invested a lot of time and my own money. I ran the car a few times at Huntsville in Outlaw Pro-Mod. Then I took the car to St Louis for Monster Mopar or some event and BK and his kid were there. This was the first time he had seen car since the day he bought it. Shook the tires hard and broke the wishbone, so never made a good pass. But at this event, apparently his kids fire for racing came alive. After that, Dallas just couldn't get enough and all he cared about was cars, where he had never shown remote interest before. Dave(BK) made the decision that if he was going to spend that kind of money on racing, that he should do it on cars he and his kid could race. And they are still racing together today and has spent a boatload of money on it. So while I was obviously disappointed with not being able to continue with the Bird, I totally understood Dave's position and respected it. Which was watch your money race, or you and your kid use it to race. Easy call.

Very Cool!!!

Now that's a memory lane.

Cool pics Monte!

Any current pics of the '63?

Rat Patrol/Bob Orlikowski was featured in the 1985 Car Craft Annual. That's what got me excited about the early B bodies and Max Wedges. I was all of 14 at the time.

Him and his brother Ben were in an article called Motor City Madmess. One was a red '64 Savoy and the other was the black Fury. The red Savoy was running a claimed 10.61 @ 124 at the time.

Very cool pics Monte, but "old" would be flag man starts, Atlas Bucrons, fenderwell exit headers, and a 3 speed stick on the floor.

atlas bucrons..... we used to get those from the one gas station in town that sold used tires. anywhere from $2.50-5.00 mounted, balanced, and installed depending on size and how much tread was left. that was a day or two ago.

Awesome pics Monte! The guy in MI that outran you (Bob aka "Orlo") is the guy I bought my hemi heads from, lol.

Great 80s pics Monte....thanx for sharin

I would like to see more!

couple rat patrol pics from 1982 nationals

That was/is a wicked car. Loved the anodized Welds. They just fit that car. Some fast cars in that Detroit group. Think there was a Yellow Challenger and a Coronet drop top that were fast as well.

Here are a few on mine. The 58 Plymouth was from 1965

That black Plymouth is monster! What a sweet machine!

Monte...have any pics of your dad's SS'er or some of his old race cars?

My dad bought this car new, special ordered it. 440-6 RT, Tic-Toc tach, rim blow wheel, luggage rack, vinyl roof and some other options. It was bought to be a race car though.

I have a letter somewhere that he used to carry around all the time. It was from then Division II tech official, Buster Couch. The letter stated the non factory scoop WAS legal in lieu of the T/A scoop and that the manual outboard carbs he ran instead of the vacuum carbs was also legal........LOL!!!! Always prepared.

Local tracks had Super Stock and supposed tech guys, but it was pretty well known nobody was legal. They all had basically modified production engines or were big. They all knew we ran NHRA, but were positive we had a "cheater" motor for the local races because the car was so fast and had no trouble even against the illegal cars. They all pooled their money one Sunday at Huntsville to get him torn down. The tear down consisted of a P&G, pull a head and the pan. Must have been 100 people standing around when the head came off. They just KNEW it was going to be big, have ported heads and dome tops. Jaws hit the ground when it was dead legal.

At the time you could run 4 classes, yours and 3 higher. So we always ran D,E,F & G super stock. D was the domain of some HEMI cars and 427 Camaros. The only D car he couldn't handle locally was a good running HEMI Cuda from Montgomery that was there at times. If there was not enough cars, he would also run B & C, but B put you in the mix with Billy Orr and the "Honking HEMI". SS/BA car that wore a Barnett Automotive(they built Steve Bagwells motors) front plate and by the way it ran, it definitely had a Barnett HEMI in it. Orr had no competition locally and usually had to run Modified and Gas classes, which he still won most of the time

Here's Billy Orr's SS/BA car. He also had a SS/DA 67 Satellite HEMI car that was just as nice and equally lethal. Rumor was Orr had factory backing. Don't know if that was true, but Barnett definitely helped him. The B car was a national record holder in both NHRA and IHRA at different times

Is that the car Tony DePillo owns now?

I think DePillos car is a 64 and doesn't have the "G" on the end of Honkin

Tony's car is honkin Hemi but it is a 64 car and it is a made into. Used to be a 10 in tire car for nss.

Monte the corenet was orlo's cousin and he still has it

This is all awesome, keep it coming.

Monte can you share a little of the evolution of your GTX and what pushed that?

First time I saw the Orlikowski brothers cars was in Popular Hot Rodding in the mid 70's. I already ha a friend that was racing a black 63 savoy and that article lit a fire that has never went out.

Thanks!

x2!

I bought the GTX off a used car lot in about 83,84,85, somewhere in there. Was black, worn out 440 with a six pack on it and a 4 speed. Solid car and actually pretty nice. Rebuilt that 440 and put an automatic in it. It was done for my soon to be wife, because I had the Road Runner convert pictured above. The interior was perfect and a few years later we put the yellow paint on it with the candy stripes. It was an ISCA Southern division champion on the show car circuit and was voted "Most popular Car" at the Mopar Nats in 1988. It was strictly a show poodle and driven rarely. When Lesa and myself got a divorce, I got the car, because even though she claimed it was hers, me and my dad had done all the work and spent all the money, so I WAS getting the car. About two days after the divorce was final, it was in the shop and I put a cage in it, because I was going to put the motor from the 63 Dodge in it. A little later I took the tunnel ram off, put a Dominator on, it got a nitrous plate, ladder bars, mini tubs and a coilover front end. Was strictly a toy. I was the track manager at Huntsville Dragway and would take the GTX over on race nights every now and then and just make passes during down time. We had a LOT of pretty fast small tire cars in the area and soon got up a little "series" locally with about 4 tracks. We pretty much had somewhere to race about every weekend. We were running on treaded tires at the time and the GTX was the first car in our series to go in the 5s on treaded tires. That was probably around 92 or so. That winter, after being first in the 5s, I put a set of INDY heads on the 446 shortblock that was in the car. This was also the time that HOT ROD started the "Fastest Street Car Shootout" deal. I hurt the motor a couple weeks before that first race and couldn't take my car. So we took David Lemmond's Chevy II on some tiny 10" slicks we begged off somebody and with me tuning the car, he got a "Top Ten" jacket at that first shootout. After we got back from that HOT ROD race, the rules in our series changed and allowed slicks. I and a couple other local cars immediately started going 5.70s. Hot Rod added the small tire Super Street class the next year and I took the GTX and got myself a Top Ten Super Street jacket. The next year at the HOT ROD race, I hurt a piston and in the rush to get the motor back together before next round, I put a rod cap on backwards and the next round it kicked a rod out at around 1000ft. That's when I built the B-1 motor and HOT ROD started their own series and I was the 1996 Super Street World Champion in the HOT ROD series that was run 1/8 mile. Basically from 95 to 2000 I ran the car in Super Street at the HOT ROD races, NMCA, NSCA, local races and took in a few KOS races. Finished in the top ten in points in every series, every year I raced. During this time though, our local series had dwindled to nothing, because myself and a couple others who took it seriously and were also running the other series, were just murdering the locals, so they quit coming. The GTX was nearly unbeatable in our local stuff. Around 2001 I was going to get really serious with the car, as Super Street had basically morphed into Outlaw 10.5 and I was out of car and motor. I hacked the floor pans out of it and built a 25.1 chassis under it, to run Outlaw 10.5. At the time, the rules were still weight per cubic inch and I gathered the parts to put together a 415" B-1 TS headed motor. I picked that size, because that's how light I thought I could get the car. Custom Donovan 9.2 deck block, drilled to take the Wayne County pattern 4.840 TS heads. 3.450 stroke billet crank and everything else. I ordered the block blank in the lifter valley and sent the block to LSM and let them put the lifter bores in it to straighten the pushrod angles and they also ground a one off 60mm, rifle drilled, billet cam for it. Rules required a cast intake, so we took two Dart Big Chief intakes, cut them up and MADE an intake for the TS heads and shot blasted it. Before I finished the motor, Outlaw 10.5 dropped the weight per cube rule and everyone went to big motors. I had so much tied up in the TS motor project and for sure nobody wanted that oddball [censored], that I was done. I couldn't afford to just set all that stuff aside and build a 600 inch motor. The TS motor was never finished and the car hasn't been down the track since

And before anyone asks........YES, it is a REAL GTX and YES, it had perfect, rust free southern floor pans and I hacked them out.........LOL!!!! The candy paint went away after an incident at Huntsville, where it carried the front end about 3 ft high for about 200 feet and when I finally let it down, it had drifted right, it bounced the front end and tagged the wall, flattening the whole right side of the car. New door, fender and quarter, plus went ahead and put a quarter on left rear and painted it Viper yellow, which it still is

People have also asked why I didn't put some of those other motors back in the cars, the GTX and 63. Easy answer is because I don't have any of them. I sold the old M/P stuff when I built the INDY motor. When the INDY motor sent the rod out, I sold what was left to build the B-1. I then sold all the B-1 stuff to build the TS motor. Nobody wants any of the TS stuff, because it's small, all custom one off and basically useless. Since that Donovan block is solid, I had visions of knocking the sleeves out, putting a 1" deck spacer on it, new sleeves and making a 10.2 deck block and building a 632 from it with the TS heads. But it's not a raised cam and alum rods would hit the 60mm cam. Not sure how much stroke I can run with that big cam core and alum rods, but that still may be an option, or just pony up for a new block and be done...........But the latest thing, is Joe from Street Outlaws wants the TS motor to put twin turbos on and put in the Dart. It would be a bad azz small cube turbo motor. He wants to swap an all alum, 632 Big Chief Chevy motor he has for the TS motor. So the next motor the GTX sees will likely be a Chevy. I did have the foresight that when I built the new chassis, that the rails are narrow enough in the rear for big tires, even though it was going to be a 10.5 car. So its probably going to get the stock type suspension off the front, install struts, get big tires, a Chevy motor and be a big tire grudge car, no prep car........whatever. Just need to do SOMETHING with it.

I DO still have the warmed over 440 six pack motor that was in the GTX when it was a show car, so have thought about dropping that in the 63 and just make it a Pro-Street "driver" type deal. Be fun, but I KNOW me and I would think it was a turd and couldn't leave it alone...........LOL!!!

So the more likely home for the 6 pack motor will likely be either the white Challenger or the Lil Red truck, which are both in the process of being freshened up. The Challenger is just a 318 car and the 360 in the truck swallowed a piston and hurt the block. Could sleeve it, but it would be cool with the 6 pack motor

I really haven't done anything with any of my cars in a long time, because well, LIFE gets in the way. In the last 12 years, I have built a new house, got divorced(again), started a business from nothing, had quadruple bypass heart surgey, both parents passed, stay busy with work and tuning other peoples cars and other assorted things. Just now getting where I CAN do something

QUOTE [last 12 years, I have built a new house, got divorced(again), started a business from nothing, had quadruple bypass heart surgey, both parents passed, stay busy with work and tuning other peoples cars and other assorted things.]

Holy smokes! I THOUGHT my last decade was busy and keeping me out of the garage more than I like. Wow...

Good stuff, thanks for sharing.

I love seeing old school stuff. Everyone takes cell phone pictures now and if you don't back up your pictures on a site like photobucket they are all gone when your phone crashes. Save them up youngsters as you with be happy that you did as you get OLD like us dinosaurs. Lol

then make sure you stuff 'em in old shoe boxes so you can't find 'em like i do. i need to do a big sort out this winter when i get snowed in.

I got sick and ended up in the emergency room 7-23-16 and had some health issues that needed addressed real quick. I was semi house bound for 3 plus weeks and when I started feeling better I started cleaning up my house. Being divorced and not much of a house cleaner I hit it and hit it HARD. Cleaning kitchen cabinets, then the hall closet, then boxing cloths out of my closet that no longer fit, and finally gathering and organising my old 35mm pictures. Most of my digital stuff is on my computer and backed up on PhotoBucket so it was kinda neat finding pictures I haven't seen in YEARS.

was that indianapolis, if it was I was there

Great post and i remember reading this when Monte first started it. Rat Patrol was a bad dude back in the day, the Detroit street racing was good times.

[align:center][/align]

If you are looking for a response from Monte, it won't come. Monte passed away a few years ago.

While this post is brought back up, can anyone contribute and give the history or “story” of Monte, and how he became involved with cars, engines, and his wealth of knowledge? I think it would be nice to know. And unfortunately, I just don’t know alot sbout him.

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthread...monte-smith-passed-away.html#Post2265224

Read through this post, and Monte tells all about it. He basically grew up in it.

my dad, 75 senior pic....

Miss him a lot!

Still bangin gears with ya buddy!

No Springfield Il. That hemi was a monster.