1965 Dodge Coronet W051 Super Stock - Unrivaled

Chrysler made hundreds of minor modifications to the standard Dodge 330 two-door, including removing the two inboard headlamps, as well as the bulb brackets. A second grille was sacrificed, cutting up the portions of the spare grille to cover the exposed headlamp sockets. Nonadjustable A-100 van seats mounted on aluminum brackets were carried over from the previous year's Super Stock Dodge, as well as the spartan interior accommodations. Chrysler was hoping to get away with weight savings anywhere they could. Dealerships were encouraged to dissuade the average buyers from purchasing the race Hemi cars because they carried no warranty, required continual maintenance, and the 426 Hemi that advertised 425 horses, did in reality, produce somewhere between 540 to 565 hp from the Michigan plant.

Ed Strzelecki of Rochester, Michigan, knows all this. He owns a '64 Plymouth Savoy Super Stock clone. The clone is dear to his heart and gets plenty of looks, so when he stumbled across an Internet advertisement for a real '65 Dodge Super Stock Coronet, he thought he must have misread the ad. But sure enough, the lightweight '65 was the real deal. Traveling to New York in the middle of winter, he found an almost perfectly preserved S/SA automatic Hemi Dodge. It took a lot of grease to pry the Hemi out of the owner's hands, but Ed succeded and trailered home what is possibly the best example of an original lightweight factory race car.

Overall, there were only a handful of parts needed to complete the car. These were quickly furnished by collectors and historians Jim Kramer and Steve Atwell. The interior remains mostly untouched, though the carpet and seat covers might have been replaced some time earlier. Spending nearly three weeks on his back, Ed meticulously cleaned the frame and floor boards, exposing the original factory primer and overspray. The original engine and transmission were still intact, but Ed decided to rebuild the potent 426. The Hemi retains its factory specs with a simple freshening. For 1965, the Hemi engine package was coded A-990. It's a common mistake by enthusiasts to refer to the car by that identification; the term is only correct for the engine package. Schild continues in his Authenticity Guide, "The '65 426 Hemi used aluminum cylinder heads versus its predecessor's A-864 cast-iron heads and a specific-to-'65 magnesium cross-ram intake manifold. In addition, the previous year's K-Heads, though nearly identical externally, differed only by a wire-loom bracket." During the freshening, Ed preserved the originality of the '65-specific A-990 Hemi down to the smallest detail.