Wild Daytwo Streetstrip 1967 Plymouth Gtx Will Live Again as Project Hacksaw

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Wild Day-Two Street/Strip 1967 Plymouth GTX Will Live Again As Project Hacksaw

Sometime in the tardily 1970s at a gas station in the lilliputian town of Warren, Arkansas, longtime Mopar enthusiast Wayne Johnson saw a 1970 Challenger that piqued his interest. He went over to the possessor, complimented him on the car, and began to swap Mopar stories. The owner eventually bemoaned the fact that his girlfriend had concluded that he liked the car more than he liked her. For that reason he wanted to get rid of a 440 motor that had just received most $2,800 worth of race parts and quality machine work. The troubled suitor was so drastic to delight his beau that he told Wayne he would give him the RB engine for free.

When Wayne arrived at the Challenger possessor'southward home after that twenty-four hours, the 440 was there, but it was sitting in a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX. Drastic to please his girlfriend, the Challenger owner told Wayne to but have the car and motor out of his yard. Wayne obliged and towed the car back to his domicile. Love is a many-splendored matter.

The motor in the newly acquired GTX was inspected and found to take high-compression pistons and a large cam. Wayne thought that the 440 might have been original to the car, but since it was then heavily modified, he adamant that his freebie GTX would be the jumpstart for building a very fast Mopar that could be used at both the dragstrip and on the street. Wayne installed four.56 gears in the 8 3/four Certain Grip rear, perfected all the car's mechanicals, and mounted big tires for the rear.

The rear wheelwell openings on 1966-1967 Mopar B-Bodies were ridiculously restrictive, then back then the common practice was to cut the quarter-panels and radius the wheelwell lips to brand room for bigger tires. Employing a bit of hyperbole, allow's just say that Wayne broke out his hacksaw and redesigned the rear quarter-panels. He never had a tire clearance trouble after that.

Drag Auto Persona

The car was occasionally drag raced at Prescott Raceway in Prescott, Arkansas, for a few seasons. It might have fifty-fifty participated in a street race or ii—who knows? During those days, Wayne removed the front bumper, cut the lesser leading edges of the fenders, and poked a bunch of holes in the original GTX hood. Wanting to accept on the 1980s drag car persona, he had one of his buddies pigment the car in striking reddish, blue, and yellow.

Erstwhile in the mid-1980s, Wayne parked the GTX. It sat in his building until 2003. At that signal the car was sold equally roller, sans motor and transmission, to Mopar guru Paul Slater. Soon, Slater sold the car to Marking Pallas, who placed the GTX in storage for what would become 13 years, pending the time that he could restore it to its onetime glory.

In 2017, 1966-1967 B-Body hero Joel Nystrom heard about this real bargain GTX roller with an interesting history, which was now bachelor for buy. With visions of a nostalgia drag car in his head, he hitched upwardly his trailer and readied himself to evaluate this potential project. The "RS23L" in the VIN verified that it was a existent GTX, originally equipped with the Super Commando 440-inch, 375hp engine, with a TorqueFlite 727 iii-speed automatic transmission with column shift. (Aye, the console and floor shifter were optional equipment on the 1967 GTX. )
Fifty-fifty though the fender tag was missing, Joel could run into information technology was clearly originally a red car with blackness interior. Though weathered and worn, the interior floor pans and engine bay retained the factory PP1 Bright Scarlet pigment. The hacked-upwardly quarters and wild paint scheme merely added to the car's charm. Joel struck a bargain with Marking Pallas and brought it home to his store in suburban Minneapolis.

While he was enamored with his newest GTX and its bad-boy persona, Joel was forced to weigh it against the priorities of a number of other projects already in his shop. His determination was to find a good home for the GTX. Long story short: That home became the slot that had once been occupied by our Projection MaliBeater at Midwest Musculus Cars in Lake Zurich, Illinois (mwmcars.com). Readers, run across Projection Hacksaw.

Speculation

Once the GTX arrived at Midwest Muscle Cars, pictures from back in the day were examined. Until we get the proper information from Chrysler Historical Services, we can only speculate as to how this GTX was equipped when information technology rolled off the assembly line. The earliest pictures supplied past Wayne Johnson show that the car is wearing the optional blackness sport stripes, which announced to be mill. 1 bucket seat was included in the bargain, and it has the optional headrest. Whether headrests were original to the motorcar is yet to exist determined. The column-shift car came with manual steering and manual drum brakes. There is no evidence of whatever major standoff damage. Maybe someday it will be restored to bone-stock original status, only the missing engine and transmission make it less appealing as a rotisserie restoration candidate.

For the fourth dimension being, nosotros program to leave the exterior of the car alone. Some of you probably hate the look of the butchered quarters, just we choose to embrace them. For that reason, the radiused wheelwell lips are staying, but the floor, trunk, and bottoms of the quarters will be fixed. A bulletproof drivetrain and functional interior volition be installed. Project Hacksaw will be a continual celebration of twenty-four hour period-two and street machine components that typified muscle cars prowling the streets and dragstrips in the early 1970s. Stay tuned.

While Joel Nystrom owned this car, it was tucked away in 1 of his buildings. The previous owner stored the machine for thirteen years; prior to that it had been stored for about 20 years. In other words, it's not a barn notice. Information technology's a car that was stored for a long fourth dimension.

Everybody knows that a Mopar must ever tow a Mopar. Loaded up from Joel Nystrom'south edifice, I stopped to run into my Mopar buddy Gene Mosbek, and and then headed to Midwest Muscle Cars.

The VIN authenticates the car equally a real GTX. "R" stands for Plymouth, "S" for Special, "23" for the two-door hardtop, "Fifty" for the Super Commando 440/375hp engine, "seven" for the model twelvemonth, and the second "seven" considering it was built at the St. Louis, Missouri, plant. The last six numbers identify this particular car.

For 1967, Plymouth offered 2 engines for the Belvedere GTX. The aforementioned 440 Super Commando was standard, while the 426/425hp Hemi engine was optional. The original 440 is long gone, merely a code-correct 440hp short-block and correct 915 cylinder heads were included with the car. The block and heads might be the basis for a future restoration motor.

The brakes have already been rebuilt, a large plus for getting this car roadworthy. When Wayne Johnson congenital the motorcar to race, he used fenderwell headers. That is why the inner fenderwell panels have been cut on both sides. Options include fixing the metal or installing fenderwell headers.

A 1967 GTX with automatic transmission came standard with a column shift. The console and floor shifter were optional. The legendary Jimmy Addison 1967 Silver Bullet Plymouth GTX was originally equipped with a column shift and 440 Super Commando engine. Chrysler supplied Addison with a stroker 426 Hemi engine for street/strip authorization. Might history kind of repeat itself?

The passenger floorboard rust probably looks familiar to a few Mopar guys. Nobody likes to come across rust, but information technology'due south not the terminate of the world. It will get new metal.

The driver-side door seems to be original to the car, while the rider door is a tossup. The door is solid, even in the seams.

Best guess is that moisture sat at the bottom of the spare-tire well and created this apparition. Squint just a scrap and yous run into the Chicago skyline. A rust-complimentary OE spare-tire well came with the machine, so this area volition be patched.

I had these 15x4 Cragars with Stahl front end runners in my parts collection and could not resist putting them on the machine. When Wayne Johnson raced it, he used Mopar Rally wheels all around. Afterward he installed Cragar Super Tricks up front. Though I'm not settled even so on cycle choice, Keystone Kustomags would wait Sox-and-Martin-right on this machine.

The greyness primer panels need to get abroad. Top relic pigment guys volition be approached to brand this situation right. Getting this angle to look correct with the rest of the paint will be a major challenge.

Project Hacksaw, the Backstory

For many motorcar collectors, part of the enjoyment of having an old machine is assembling its history. We will endeavor to assemble the entire owner history of this GTX, though that might not be possible. What happened from about 1979 to the nowadays is already known. I'm going to effort to find the guy who gave Wayne Johnson the GTX.

A after article will describe the process of going through FCA Historical Services to obtain information from its database (based on IBM cards that accept been made available) on the every bit-born status of the car. For now, bank check out the pictures from Wayne Johnson that were taken between 1979 and the mid 1980s.

Dorsum in the day, future Project Hacksaw is wearing blackness sport stripes, and they appear to be the original, optioned ones. I am hoping that the car was originally optioned with that crawly signature await for the 1967 GTX.

Wayne Johnson occasionally drag raced his 1967 GTX in the early on 1980s at Prescott Raceway in Prescott, Arkansas. The car even so has the front bumper, sport stripes, and Mopar Rally wheels. The rear wheelwell lips have already been cut.

The GTX racing again at Prescott Raceway, former around 1980. Cut the quarters for radiused wheelwell lips was common practice on drag cars. Vintage decals in the quarter-windows were mandatory for a tough race car image. The door-edge guards suggest that the car is wearing original paint.

This photo would seem to indicate the car was resprayed. The emblems and door-edge guards are gone. Well-nigh notably, the front end bumper has been removed and the front end leading edges of the fenders take been cutting. Weight reduction and tall front tire clearance might have been the incentives.

At some betoken the car received this wild paint job from one of Wayne'due south friends. The snorkel scoop was homemade and big. The blueprint was later patented by McDonald'due south and installed on all exterior drive-through trash receptacles.

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Source: https://www.motortrend.com/features/wild-day-two-streetstrip-1967-plymouth-gtx-will-live-project-hacksaw/

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