favorite mopar

by Christopher Napolitano

I got the need for speed. There's nothing like the feel of Detroit steel. I'm a Mopar Man, pal. Long before Lee Iacocca, the biggest names at Chrysler were Plymouth Road Runner and Dodge Charger. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, these prom killers prowled the streets of suburbia with a predatory rumble. The 1992 video Favorite Mopar (Wild Motor Films) is a perfect introduction to these classics and the cult of Mopar, which is the generic term for Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth automobiles and performance parts. The video was filmed at a Mopar show at Raceway Park, Englishtown, New Jersey. Original cars, rare muscle cars, drag cars and show cars are on display and compete in drag races. It's a blast; the cars are intense.
Sean O'Leary, the track's announcer, calls it an awesome event. Spittle forms at the corners of his mouth as he breathlessly explains Mopar history: When Ford and GM were building high-revving small block engines (the glory days were from the mid-Sixties to 1974, when air-pollution controls sucked the horses and the fun from U.S. autos), Chrysler was building 4000-pound iron big blocks. And Mopar cars were cheaper than Mustangs and Corvettes. Remember the 440-cubic-inch motors (go along with me here)? Or the 383, 340 four barrel, or 426 Hemi motor? If you doubt the power of these engines, go down to your corner garage, tell the mechanics you inherited your grandma's Belvedere with only 10,000 miles on its 440 and watch them snap to attention.
Back to the tape. O'Leary notes that Mopar fans from as far away as England and Japan are in attendance. Classy. "You will not find a crowd that will go crazy like the Mopar crowd will," he says. "Rock 'n roll, drag racing, high horsepower, cruisin'; that's what Mopar and Chrysler are all about." Indeed, the Dick Dale-ish surf guitar soundtrack is most excellent. But it's the visuals that will make you watch this tape over and over.
The original Hot Rods and Tough Stuff are here: '69 Road Runners with air foils — the fastest street car of its day (just don't try to turn corners with it); Hemi Chargers; Barracudas and Hemicudas; Super Bees; Coronets; Furys; Satellites and, my personal favorite, Dodge Dart Swingers. I recently sold my '72 Dart Swinger to a mechanic way out on Long Island. It had a tiny racing steering wheel, aluminum mag wheels (the rear wheel wells had been customized to fit 14 inch tires), adjustable air shocks, dual exhaust with two glas-pack mufflers, and it was painted mat black.
The shit was bad — it was so loud, the vibrations would set off car alarms when I drove down the street. It terrified my wife — and scared the hell out of Chip (wimp). Anyway. A drop-top 426 Challenger bought in 1970 for $5000 sold for $125,000. In the words of O'Leary, "That makes Picasso look sick." (This from a guy who, when asked what his favorite Mopar was, says, "That's a tougher question than `Do you love me?' ") After Chrysler's lean years, they got some cash and put out the Mopar catalog to rebuild and turn the old muscle car into high performance. The cars in the video look brand new — except that they have style that today's aerodynamic cars lack. ("When you hold a light up to a Jap car, all you see is a shadow but no lines. The design of my car looks like someone really cared," says one guy about his Charger, tears forming in his eyes.) Miss Mopar, in her skin-tight pink top, agrees.
There's a rather boring interlude here with Big Daddy Don Garlits and Bill Golden talking about the old days and 3-9-1 gears. The thrill comes from the goosed up cars. They fuel up on 116 octane gasoline; their air-jammers are chromed out with eye-swivels. One guy shows off his 6-pack (6 carburetors) atop his engine; another argues that his '66 Charger (the Boss Hoss; pony cars have ponies under the hood but the Charger is all hosses) is rarer than a 'Vette: only 20,000 were made between '66 and '67. "Tell a 'Vette owner that, and they don't want to hear it," he says.
These guys research the month and factory when the car was built. They rattle off their favorite cars with ease: a 1970 lemon twist Hemi-Road Runner with air-grabber, white bucket seats and a four speed or a curious yellow 'Cuda with spoilers, rear louvred windows, Raleigh wheels and dash, etc. Mopar had some wild colors — plum crazy, citron yella and green go. My favorite part of the flick is a section built around old TV commercials. A Plymouth Fury is blasting over sand, racing dune buggies. Another ad has, I believe, Playboy's November 1969 Playmate Claudia Jennings (Queen of the B-movies) at the wheel.
I'll end this review with a call to action: Today, many politicians are pushing the bullshit program called the Clunker bill. That means that polluters such as Com Ed and other power companies get a $500 tax deduction for every pre-1974 car they decommission. (It's a better tax break than when they rebuild their own smoke stacks.) This is a shame! There are a lot of old beauties out there just waiting to be restored. If you've got a Mopar jones, subscribe to Mopar Muscle. Usually it has too many shots of the Dodge Viper, a car with real thoroughbred heritage, but it's still a fun read.