Thanks @IROC78 for this awesome trip back in time!!! Nothing beats original material from back in the day.
My thoughts:: - are these plastic covers for additional protection on the backrest of frontbench?
- interesting wheel-combo: stylish chrome one ins front, standard steelies in rear, but BOTH slim! The nice 62 behind the 66 wears the exact same combo! Or was your Dad at moment of photo just changing the 4 chrome wheels from the older to the newer car?
- interesting lifting-device, never seen that before!
- nice on-dash tach :-)))
- pic one shows how “bare” these Belvedere I’s came, even no chrome arround side-windows, love it!
- in contrast to that, I always wonder why Ma-Mopar put on the long beltline chrome-trim? Would have looked better/cleaner without and less holes in the sheetmetal (a.k.a. rust-traps) too. They could have just used that short “Bevedere I”-portion. They dropped that trim on the 67, but that has a lower rocker trim. - cool your Dad removed the “Hemi” badges...more fun with/surprise to the general public on the road.
- as you mention the small enblem on front of front-fender, I think that is the “Commando V8” enblem. The models with the other V8’s (no-HEMI’s) came with that enblem. So I conclude your fathers car was an early car, that did not have the “426 HEMI”-enbleme (would be an lower rear of front fender, just below the “Belvedere I”-enblem). But instead your fahters car was a car built prior 01/01/1966 and thus only having a “HP2”-enbelem at FRONT of frontfenders, just where on your Das car know is the small red&chrom “Commando V8”-enblem. So your father substituted the “HP2”-callout and substituted it with the “Commando V8”-enblem. Very discrete!
So was your Dad’s car an early built car? When ordered, when delivered?
- if you have friends or family with law enforcement, DMV or insurance, you might be able too still track licence-plate-# and VIN#.
