It was 1999 when The Walter P. Chrysler Museum opened to the public-a vision that began when ground was broken for construction on November 19, 1996. The tri-leveled building covers approximately 55,000 square feet and rests on 10 acres at the southeast edge of Chrysler's North American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The building's exterior of polished red granite and black glass reflects the neighboring Chrysler Technology Center. The museum looks more like an extension of the headquarters than an afterthought.

Mopar Muscle's Club Directory is a listing of Mopar clubs and associations around the world. Contact them for more information. To add or update your club's listing, contact Mopar Muscle, Club Directory Listing, 9036 Brittany Way, Tampa, FL 33619. Or via email at mopar.muscle@sourceinterlink.com

These 5 companies are sponsoring our Young Guns Club Sweepstakes. Each month a different sponsor will award a $250 GIFT CERTIFICATE to some lucky Young Guns Club registrant. To visit a sponsor website, click on the link.

Mopar Muscle Young Guns Club Sweepstakes Rules

Are you a Young Gun?

Ronnie Sox, the quiet, blonde-haired, southern gentleman known for his mystical mastery of power-shifting a manual four-speed transmission passed away Saturday, April 22, 2006, at his home near Richmond, Virginia. Ronnie succumbed following a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. His beloved wife Diane, family, and friends were nearby when the legendary driver took his last ride.

Drag racing changed drastically in the early '70s, and one driver whose career mirrored those changes was the late Don Carlton. He successfully drove for both Sox & Martin and Rod Shop, but will always be remembered best as the pilot of the legendary Motown Missile and Mopar Missile Pro Stock cars.

It's been said that all the good cars are already bought up, smashed, or rotting away in some guy's backyard. While this trend persists, we at the Mopar Muscle office have been beating the "clone" drum and preaching the gospel of turning grandma's cruiser into the ride of a lifetime. Tech Editor Dave Young turned a plain-Jane '68 convertible Satellite into a 440-powered, low-12-second GTX for his wife. Randy took an Army-green Valiant and converted it into one of the most highly regarded project vehicles that MM has done in years, and this author is still breaking his knuckles on his '69 Charger with aspirations for low-10-second, Hemi-powered, quarter-mile times.

In drag racing, some big names come to mind when you talk about certain classes: Big Daddy Don Garlits or Shirley Muldowney in Top Fuel, John Force or Don Prudhomme in Funny Car, and Bob Glidden, Warren Johnson, and Darrell Alderman in Pro Stock. However, there is one legendary figure who has competed seriously in NHRA competition for almost thirty years that many still refer to as the "best ever." He was one of the major players in the inception of the Super Stock class itself, and created a professionalism displayed by his Plymouth team that set the standard for years to come. His dominance in the class caused NHRA to make rule changes, and even after all these years his name commands awe and respect. His win record includes over 50 event victories in Super Stock and Pro Stock in an era when the national event schedule consisted of less than half of today's schedule. Fans young and old flocked to see him, and to many, Ronnie Sox is still the "Boss."

MOPAR MUSCLE YOUNG GUNS CLUB SWEEPSTAKES RULES
1. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE DOES NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

It's not just Mopar's cars that are collectible, so are its spin-off items, such as literature, dealer signs, neon clocks, and plastic promo cars. But one area that has escaped widespread notice is records-those quaint black discs we once used to store sound. Mopar has its share of cool records. We've put together a nice little overview, showing you some rare and some not-so-rare records from nine different categories. Some basic rules of record collecting are:

These 5 companies are sponsoring our Young Guns Club Sweepstakes. Each month a different sponsor will award a $250 GIFT CERTIFICATE to some lucky Young Guns Club registrant. To visit a sponsor website, click on the link.

Are you a Young Gun?

By now, everyone knows of the havoc caused by Hurricane Katrina. Never before in our country's history has such an enormous number of Americans suffered so greatly from a single-or even series of-natural disasters. There's nothing we can say about the devastation and tragedy that hasn't been said a million times already. To help the victims as best we can, Year One has started the Hot Rodders' Relief Fund to collect donations for the Red Cross relief efforts. Every penny collected will go to the Red Cross.

It's 1967, and musclecars are being offered by everyone. Then, along comes one that not only has a real performance package, but a catchy name to match-the Road Runner.

Who would have thought in 1981 that a small 500-vehicle car show would become the premiere Chrysler car show in the world? this year, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary. We have come a long way, and quite a few of you have been there from the very start.

Let your opinion be heard by taking this short survey. Your input is greatly appreciated!

Click Here to Take the 5 Minute Survey!

Though it has been many years since Ray Nichels and Paul Goldsmith have been in the racing spotlight, the contributions that the Nichels Engineering team made to stock car racing and Mopar are huge. In addition to building cars for their own in-house teams, the Nichels "Go Fast Factory" in Griffith, Indiana, did R&D for all of Chrysler's teams, built additional cars, inventoried parts for those teams, and even rebuilt their wrecks. In the period between 1963 and 1970, they amassed an impressive win record in NASCAR, USAC, IMCA, and ARCA competition.

When legends speak, people listen. And when the legends are from theperformance and racing industry and they share tales from their storiedpasts, people laugh, cry and, more importantly, remember the early days.Such was the scene at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona,Calif., where Wally Parks, Vic Edelbrock Jr., Alex Xydias, EdIskenderian and Ed Pink held court for 2-plus hours, keeping the pastalive and an audience of about 150 thoroughly amused during a paneldiscussion aptly titled "Living Legends."

Bookin'The Tales Of "Big Daddy"Fans of "Big Daddy" Don Garlits have a lot to look forward to with the release of Tales From the Drag Strip, a first-person account of the biggest icon in fuel drag racing penned with Bill Stephens. Having lived on the edge through a half a century of nitromethane-burning exploits, the countless tales of races, racers, race fans, and race tracks are recounted in this must-have book. A life filled with triumph and tragedy at the helm of the Swamp Rat series of dragsters told in the colorful manner that only Don Garlits himself is capable of. Sports Publishing's Tales From the Drag Strip can be found at all major bookstores in hardback, as well as the Don Garlits museum for around $20. Log onto www.sportspublishingllc.com or www.garlits.com for more information.

Targeting and attempting to cater to a wide variety of consumers is a risky proposition in any business-automotive or otherwise. Often, a lack of identity and a watered-down product are the result of serving a customer demographic that is too broad. Nevertheless, that is the exact strategy Plymouth undertook in 1970.

While a lot of racers probably won't admit it, drag racing is an addictive sport. Jack Werst knows all about it. After all, Jack was in the middle of the fray during the glory days of factory racing in the '60s, moving from Super Stock to Pro Stock. By 1972, when the Detroit conduit was running dry, Jack wisely decided it was time to do something else. After leaving Chrysler, he went to work for Winnebago Industries-a career spanning 20 years-before returning to a dragstrip. Now, with a couple of years back in the saddle in a Max Wedge car built by Jerry Stein, "Mr. 5 and 50" is loading fuel into a Hemi again.

Outrageous. Decadent. Insane. Rebellious. All words which succinctly describe America in the waning years of the ’60s. The country was feeling its oats, and industry was quick to tap into this cultural vein in any way profitable...er...possible. Extreme was “in,” and that went double for the automotive scene.

How and why the musclecar came to prominence during this brief span of history is a dog we don’t need to kick again. The monster engines, gonzo performance, loud colors, and often garish styling spilling out of Detroit, Auburn Hills, and Dearborn between 1967 and 1973 were, simply, a reflection of the broader spirit of the times. And while the inferno lasted only briefly, the flames haven’t quite cooled 30-some years later.

Although shadowed by General Motors and Ford Motor Company in terms of production numbers, Chrysler played no small part in feeding the musclecar frenzy. In fact, the perennial underdog status of the Dodge and Plymouth divisions which persists to this day was present in full measure during the ’60s. The Pentastar’s marketing and engineering gurus found interesting ways to level the playing field with their dominating competitors then, and that same dark horse spirit is still seen today in models like the Viper, PT Cruiser, and Prowler.

Chrysler was fully ready to play the horsepower game when the raucous decade dawned. The Max Wedge engines and the 426 Hemi that came online in 1964 proved that Chrysler understood horsepower and its implications as a production car seller. Similarly spicy, yet less rowdy, small-blocks like the 273, 318, and 383 were also waiting to be tapped.

Indeed, no one could question Chrysler’s musclecar potential in the early and mid-’60s. But while the beef was in the barn, so to speak, styling was downright Victorian by the contemporary standards. By the ’67 model year, Ford and GM had made considerable gains in shedding the stodgy, boxy styling still clinging to much of the automotive industry, what with such models as the Mustang and Shelby fastbacks, Corvettes, Cobras, Camaros, and Firebirds. Chrysler, on the other hand, hung onto the edgy-and-chrome thing with seeming passion. Granted, the Dodge Charger and Plymouth Barracuda showed signs of a new era dawning, but popular models like the Dart, Coronet, Belvedere, and GTX exuded a suburban white-bread persona that, frankly, seemed disparate with the youth movement. And it was the youth that sat squarely in the sights of The Big Three automakers.

Chrysler started to get its act together with the ’68 model year. The Dart GTS hit the showroom for the first time—presenting buyers with a big bark for a little budget. With its standard 340 engine, the Dart GTS packed a serious punch. For a few bucks more you could opt for the 383, which turned that punch into a profound wallop. Changes were also afoot on the B-Body front. The already popular Charger received yet another design change, as did the Coronet, and the R/T versions of these two models—coupled with the midyear introduction of the Coronet-based Super Bee—presented Dodge with a stable of fresh, exciting, and honest-to-goodness groundpounders.

Hot cars all, but they needed a common thread. That’s when the marketing department stepped in. Taking a cue, no doubt, from the infamous hipsters Martin, Davis, Sinatra, Lawford, and Bishop—affectionately called the Rat Pack—Dodge planners decided that their cadre of hot cars fit the good times, bad boy image of the original Packers quite well. With a reverent nod to the Vegas crew, Dodge fired up the coals and branded its A- and B-Body screamers the Scat Pack.

November 2002 • Volume 14, Number 11

FEATURES

28 DODGE’S ROUGH BOYS
What was the Scat Pack?

32 THE STING
The Kanellis family’s ’71 Super Bee.

46 KING OF THE COMPACTS
This ’68 Dart shows why Dodge dominated the market.

50 PINK ALL OVER
Daniel Banker’s dream becomes reality.

OTHER FEATURES

54 STREET TEACHER
This ’69 Road Runner screams, “Class in session!”

70 SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
This ’70 AMX was a hand-assembled dream.

72 THE LONG ROAD TO VICTORY
Behind the scenes of the Bill Davis Racing team.