I owned it in the early to mid 1970s, when I was married to my first wife, and I guess I had it for about 3 years. I eventually sold it back to my father in law, from whom I'd bought it. I don't know if you'd call it a sports car. It was roughly the same size as a '56 or '57 Chevy, and it would have been considered a muscle car back in the day.TXlaw1 wrote:Cool wheels, TAM. Was that one of America's first sports cars? Sure looks sporty to me. How long did you keep it?
It was really fast, and all of the engine components were high performance parts. For instance, I once huffed the water pump driving it from El Paso to Los Angeles. I just kept pouring water in at every gas stop until I got to L.A., and then I pull the water pump and took it to Allied Auto (think "Pep Boys") in Pasadena. I hadn't even noticed, because I'm not really mechanically inclined, but the guy behind the counter pointed out to me that the impeller on the pump was made out of plastic to reduce weight. This was unheard of in 1956 motors for street machines, but was apparently common practice in high performance engines intended for racing, because less weight made it easier for the motor to pull revs. All the parts that the motor had to spin by fan-belt were like that.
As I said before, this car was a homologation special. I don't know what NASCAR rules say now, but back in the 1950s, a NASCAR racer wasn't a purpose built from the ground up racecar like they are now. They were just heavily modded street machines with real strong motors, upgraded suspension, gusseted frames, better brakes, and a roll-cage installed. For instance, my car had drum brakes all the way around (disc brakes were not really in use back then), but they were enormous drums with big cooling fins all over them. NASCAR rules at the time required a manufacturer to build 200 examples of a racecar platform for sale to the general public in order to homologate the car for competition. Most of the homologation specials were purchased by highway patrol departments, but a few fell into the occasional lucky private hands. The standard D500 engine for a street going Dodge car at the time was a 315 c.i. hemi, with a single carter 4 barrel carburetor. That was a nice setup. The D-550-1 engine like I had was the same 315 c.i. hemi block and heads, but with higher lift cams with appropriate timing, two 4 barrel carbs on a cross-ram intake manifold, with dual high-flow exhaust headers going to two straight back pipes with 36" glasspack mufflers. It wasn't just fast, it sounded nice and healthy too.
I believe that, in 1956, Dodge won the Daytona 500 with a car based on this homologation special, with an average speed of 165 mph, IIRC. MY car wouldn't go that fast, but it was really, REALLY fast. When I was a freshman at UTEP, there was a guy in my calculus class who had a '57 Buick homologation special with a 347 c.i. motor with a six-pack in the engine bay. I don't remember what Buick called it, but it was the same body as the '57 Chevy, and I believe that Buick won the '57 Daytona 500 with the car based on that homologation. Anyway, he lived over on the same northeast side of the mountain that I did, and the UTEP campus was way over on the northwest side of El Paso. He and I would frequently race one another over the mountain coming home. Sometimes he got me. Sometimes I got him. Good times.
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