Hidden away for 27 years,...
Hidden away for 27 years, the Sites' kept this amazingly forgotten piece of Mopar race history a secret until earlier this year. Original plans consisted on turning the Landy Charger into a street Hemi car with a rebuilt elephant powerplant, replacing the acid dipped front clip, and stripping off the signature blue, silver, and red paint. Thankfully, other priorities got in the way.
"By [now], we could read the handwriting on the wall," Dick Landy laments in September's issue of Super Stock magazine in 1970. "It evolved to the point where there was no sense even going out to race. We just couldn't even afford to pay our crews and the fuel costs to go to the races and race under those conditions. We'd just start to get dialed-in, and, six months later, they'd change the rules, put an extra half a pound per cubic inch, or what have you." The NHRA was in a state of continual shift; officials said it was to adhere to the current trends of increasing insurance rates and federal regulations on vehicle safety and emissions, which weighed heavily on the automotive industry, slowly tightening its stranglehold on the musclecar world. This paradox of showroom cars impeding upon the racing world would cause some of the biggest players in professional auto racing to search for new, feasible alternatives.
Landy added in a candid interview with Mopar Muscle, "We kept racing, and, finally, they created Pro Stock, which was a class where all these type of cars that we had been match racing could all get together and race. So, we actually fought and lobbied to get them to create this class; they finally agreed." Racing under the newly formed Pro Stock bracket, Landy and his driving force including his brother, Mike, and team member, Bob Lambeck, piloting different makes of vehicles: a '70 Dart, two '70 Challengers, and a '70 SS/E Hemi-powered Charger, all of which were increasingly modified within the boundaries established by the ever-changing NHRA rulebook. Landy brandished one Challenger that was a C/MP competitor and another that was for AHRA Formula 1, sporting a single carburetor 426. Landy's forces were divvied up between match racing, Pro Stock, and Modified Eliminator in the '70 season, making his fleet of Dodges a force to be reckoned with.
It wasn't until this year's...
It wasn't until this year's Chrysler's at Carlisle show that everyone was able to cast their sights on this miracle of survival. Emerging from Ron's trailer, the forgotten Landy Charger immediately drew the attention of those savvy enough to recognize the color scheme.
Landy admits that "factory pressure was one thing," when it came to deciding upon the '70 Dodge Charger as the platform for his intermediate-size Super Stock entry. Landy had used second-generation Chargers before (1968 and 1969) with considerable success. The large coupes were incrementally heftier than its Coronet brethren and considerably bulkier than the competing Chevelles, 4-4-2s, GTOs, Fairlanes, and Comets. Landy's Northridge, California, team (DLI, Dick Landy Industries) were savvy to this and made amends by slightly tweaking their Chargers within the grey boundaries between the class regulations. The new-for-'70 bumper joined the hood and fenders in the acid tank, which stripped off unnecessary poundage. The decade-old trick of racers helped to shave off excessive weight from the already bulky Charger. Within the rules of the Super Stock class, suspension needed to remain all but untouched.
Maintaining the factory configuration, the engineers at DLI fabricated an extra leaf for each spring, making the Super Stock leaves count in at six and seven rather than five and six. In addition, angled shackles moved the springs inboard an additional inch. Along with the inner lip of the rear wheelwells folded in, these tweaks allowed for a wider slick to be tucked up into the factory well, since mini-tubbing was not allowed. No subframe connectors, driveshaft loops, or rollcages were allowed as they would offer additional structural stability to the unitbody design. Ordering this particular Charger with the venerable 426 elephant provided the factory-installed torque boxes, giving the big B-Body some rigidity it desperately needed. Landy did opt for the sizeable bus battery mounted in the trunk for better weight distribution, taking from the front and moving it over the rear wheels. Landy would coat the Charger in his company's signature colors and bolt on a set of polished 15-inch Cragars making the setup all but complete.
Not much has changed since...
Not much has changed since 1970. Showing the staying power of high-performance manufactures, most of these parts builders are still in business today making go-fast goodies.
Landy says, "We ran that class and were whipping everybody, the Chevrolets and the Fords. Pretty soon [the NHRA] was letting small-blocks race big-blocks. you know, 500 and 426ci motors racing little small-block 327 Chevrolets and small-block Fords. But they had to handicap us to make it seem fair, so they kept handicapping the big-block cars continually. Literally, it almost put us out of racing at that time." To compensate for the heavy-handed handicapping system, the crew at DLI would invent one of the most important innovations to the elephant motor since cross-bolted main caps. Landy says, "We had been doing a lot work with the manifolds, the camshafts, and the headers. It appeared that to make a little change, and see an increase of 5 or 6 hp wasn't possible. We had to start playing with the cylinder heads a little bit. We had never ported and polished them, hogged them out, or done any flow work to them in the past because it wasn't legal in the handicap classes. But in Pro Stock, it was legal, and we redesigned our existing aluminum heads."
Landy's engineering team drew up a better exhaust port design along with improved headers. But what was most impressive was the advent of the dual-spark-plugs-per-cylinder cylinder head. He relates, "I picked the thing up back in Dodge engineering, something we saw and heard talked about, and it looked like it might work. So I went back home, and we sawed a bunch of cylinder heads up, and after about a month of work, we came up with a feasible way to do it economically." Landy shook the racing world when he pulled up for the first of the season. It's unknown whether this Charger officially brandished the 16-plug 426 as the engine was pulled and swapped for a 440 back in the late '70s. But other performance upgrades made by Dick Landy and his racing team include the installation of a B&M 5,000 rpm-stall torque converter, a reverse manual valvebody, line-lock, a DLI "cool can," steep 5.33 gears mounted to a spool, and dual electric fuel pumps, one dedicated to each carburetor.
Somehow, this B-Body survived...
Somehow, this B-Body survived the violence of constant quarter-mile runs without the assistance of a rollcage, subframe connectors, driveshaft loop, or link supports for the Dana. The underneath of the car is a little dirty, but in great shape.
Landy's '70 Charger would only race for less than seven months, finishing up the season with an all-time best of 11.29 at 124 mph-a national record for 1970. The manufacturer's statement of origin lists Landy as collecting the Charger on March 16, 1970. He didn't have it long though, as it was October 30 that same year that Sam Pannuty from Pat's Auto Sales acquired it.
It was a short time later, (March 5, 1972) that Edward Thomas would offer Sam his '69 Barracuda in trade for the retired Landy Charger. A pink slip, a set of keys, and some cash landed Ed the Hemi B-Body, and the once named "Slow Eddie" wasted little time in putting the Charger back on the track. The week of April 16, 1972, Ed would enter the Charger at Delmar, Delaware's, Super Stock Eliminator race at US 13 Dragway and win the event with an 11.55 pass. Ed would continue to compete locally with the Charger, pulling in wins in several brackets, making the moniker "Slow Eddie" nearly obsolete.
 It took us a while to make...  It took us a while to make sense of what we were looking at here. What you're seeing is a pedal extension for the clutch most likely to accommodate for a short driver's limited reach. |  The equation becomes more...  The equation becomes more convoluted with the Charger's automatic shifter on the column, as well as the vintage Hurst "dual-gate" shifter mounted on the floor. Often, during this period in drag racing, cars would be swapped from manual to automatic regularly. This allowed Super Stock cars to participate in twice the amount of brackets, thus doubling their winnings potential. |  Since Landy raced in SS/EA,...  Since Landy raced in SS/EA, and Ed distinctly remembers the Charger using a B&M-built automatic, the dual gate and clutch pedal must have been installed during the mid-'70s. |
 Tire rot is inevitable when...  Tire rot is inevitable when a car has been sitting for that long. Tire fitment was an issue in 1970, so the upper lips of the wheelwells were tucked cleanly back or simply cut off, allowing for wider slicks to fit in the factory well. |  The hand-stenciled Dodge signature...  The hand-stenciled Dodge signature for Dandy's Dodges is slowly fading into oblivion. Only minor surface rust mars the sheetmetal. |  Tire rot is inevitable when...  Tire rot is inevitable when a car has been sitting for that long. Tire fitment was an issue in 1970, so the upper lips of the wheelwells were tucked cleanly back or simply cut off, allowing for wider slicks to fit in the factory well. |