what made chrysler 300 so hot??

George, thanks a TOn for that input! So, we need to widen our search for Hemis, as late as '60-model trucks. Man, that is awesoe stuff. Everybody think the whale stopped somewhere in '58. Hell, great to know!!!!

 

Awesome stuff, just makes me want to challenge the TECH HAMBers to post some test records, particularly on 1956 and 1957. NOT that I contest OUT THERE, buds, Just that I'm crazy to know what guys (or gals) can dig up out of their Hotrods, Rod&Customs, etc. !!!

 

Just out of cusiosity: My '55 Fireflite with Carter 4 supposedly ran 112 in the flying mile. What did the Chrysler and Dodge run with only a four-barrel?

('course the whole ball game changed for '56 !!!)

 

By the way, does anybody remember that Tim Flock aggitated with Kekhaefer and France in mid-season '55 until France FINALLY acquiesced and said, YES, a FEW Chryslers that year really WERE ordered with three-speed standards???

So, Flock and the other 300 boys got to use standard trannys about the second half of the season. I saw Tim Flock SAY it on a video I have in my collection.

As a matter of fact, a standard WAS still an option on Chry & DeS in '56 (as well, of course, on Dodge). I never saw ONE standard in the junkyards for Chry or DeS, by one account i saw fairly recently indicated that standards were order of fewer than five (count 'em) percent of DeSotos, probably fewer than that of Chryslers. I can only back this up in that someone here in Columbus, Ohio, had a stripped-down (but pristine) Firedome (you know what tha means) for sale for soemthing over $10-Gs.

I'd have taken a Torqueflie any day over the Powerflite, though I found ways to impress people by manually shiftinh the Powerflite.

 

Sorry, guys, didn't mean to hijack the thread. Guess I got juice up ,cause I just visited the annual Mopars on Brice in Columbus/Reynoldsburg, Oh, last night. GREAT event, despite fewer cars this years due to the recession. Anybody wanna talk Hemis, I'm still game. If not, gotta get back to moving my '38 from one farm down to my own land. See y'all soon. -- Jimi'sHemi291 (Newbie, whatever the heck that is! lol)

 

The '55 300 as originally introduced only had the 2 speed Powerflite automatic available and you are correct that Flock badgered Kiekhaefer for a 3 speed manual until Carl pulled strings at the factory and got one built officially. Then a few more got converted unofficially in '55. Then for '56 31 300Bs were built with manual trans and a very few of those were optional 355HP. In '57 the stick number dwindled to 18, all 390HP cars. Remember in '57 there was the manufacturer's ban on factory participation in racing. In '58 there was one 300D with manual trans and that car was found just two years ago! There were no performance package '59 300Es and then in '60 they came out with the awesome short-long ram 400HP 300F Special Gran Turismo with the Pont-a-Mousson full synchro 4spd mentioned earlier in this thread. One test mule hardtop was built, then six hardtop cars that qualified for Daytona and all six were the fastest cars EVER on Daytona sand. Post Daytona another hardtop was built (this one with AC - I own it) and one white 400HP 4spd convertible. The next 4speed cars were in '64 when Chrysler got their own 4speed.

Attaching pic of Andy Granatelli alongside my 300F Spl GT. He owned one of these in '61-62. What a great guy he is.

 

OutThere, you're a life-saver. I could kick my own butt for forgetting about the self-imposed factory racing ban starting in '57. I was wondering aloud earlier in the thread why the mighty 392 was nearly absent from NASCAR in '57 and '58, especially after the '55/'56 accomplishments of Flock, Baker and others with the 331 and 354 300s. THANKS for reminding everybody about the ban. But after the figures posted by Chryslers in '55 and '56, it surely is tantalyzing to imagine what a full factory-sponsored team or two could have done with the 392, eh? We'll never know, but it surely would have been awesome.

 

Quickee for your consideration: to really be competitive in '57-58 NASCAR with the new torsion bar suspension cars they needed three things. 1. Had to build the hardtop bodies on the stiffer (much heavier) convertible frames. Kiekhaefer addressed this when he ordered that black car and mine which are so built. 2. They needed extra extra HD torsion bars and rear leaf springs beyond the HD parts already in the Letter Cars and HD anti-sway bars for the front AND the rear (none from factory) and 3. the torsion bars interfered with getting a decent exhaust header in place where Kiek. had used truck headers previously. Factory did get a high performance header cast up mid year but it was too little and too late. They look like the attachment to clear the steering box and the right upper control arm of the new chassis. I sell repops of these headers.

 

Now those are some interesting, revelatory facts on the undercarriage !!! If I am interpreting this right, it sounds as though marketing concerns were the prevalent factor in design of the '57 body/frame/chassis -- while racing took a definite backseat. Seems sensible BUT pretty ironic, in that the engine and tranny were superior to those of '56.

Here's another hypothetical question, OutThere, and admittedly it will be a matter of sheer speculation based on informed opinion. Since we know that Chrysler brass had envisioned the finned beauties to debut for 1960, THEN rushed up production for 1957 instead, DO YOU SUPPOSE that the undercarriage flaws you mention might have been as a direct result of the accelerated effort to bring the new Chry/DeS/Dodge/Ply cars to market three years ahead of schedule? We know that lots of the hardtops leaked like a seive, whistled in the wind, burned their rear bumpers and rusted out their fenders prematurely, ALL because of the aforementioned rush to get the cars produced. So, poorly planned/executed suspension, too? Well, maybe not poor, just not what they could or should have been.

 

The chassis changes are all to be considered advancement and refinement and put Chrysler way ahead of the US industry in ride, handling and comfort. The only other US manufacturer with torsion bars was Packard front and rear for '55-56 but the '57 Pack. was a Studebaker rebadged as they were dying. Chrysler Corp. was building cars to sell to the masses, not to win NASCAR races!

I'm only suggesting that to go racing for '57 and 8 they needed more hipo parts in the parts bins, not that the new chassis had engineering shortcomings by any stretch.

The '57 cars were only rushed by ONE year. They would have been out in '58. The "Suddenly its 1960" ad promo line was just a marketing thing. By a couple months into production they had sorted out those very early body problems you mention, but at startup they were extremely serious and they did themselves irreperable harm that people remembered for decades. Show me a 1957 American car that did not have major rust issues!!! The chassis and suspension was NOT any problem - you have misread me on that - they just needed a race-dedicated suspension package on top of the Letter Car parts to go with the new torsion bar frame.

 

StillOutThere,

Any information on MoPar stockers from the 49-52 seasons? I'm particularly interested in the Plymouths of Hubert Westmoreland (Driven by Johnny Mantz, Leon Sales, and Bill Holland) and Lee Petty.

I have been unable to find any data on what modifications were legal to these cars, except the removal of the muffler and reinforcement of the front right wheel.

Any info would be appreciated!

Gary W.

 

Correct me if I am wrong here, guys. I think Johnny Mantz won the Southern 500 in '51 at a steady speed of less than 80-mph driving a Plymouth Cranbrook flat six. And, besides the muffler, I think I remember Tim Flock saying that Bill France let teams run truck tires back then. Otherwise, I seem to remmber that people couldn't believe that Mantz won with such a low-power car. He and his buddies actually drove the car into twon from the motel every night to get beer.

 

Mantz won the inaugural event in 1950 driving a used '50 Plymouth P19 fastback purchased in Winston-Salem a few days prior to the race (the car was still registered & street legal through the 1950 season). Average speed of the six and a half hour race was a little over 75 mph. This pace was on-par with the 1951 and 1952 runnings of the Southern 500 won by the mighty Hudson Hornet (51) and Olds 88 (52).

On a side note, Tim Flock actually drove the Southern 500-winning Plymouth at Hillsborough's Orange speedway in October of 1950, posting a 4th place finish (Plymouths finished 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th in that race)

People have played up the whole 'it was crappy Plymouth' angle, but according to the July 1951 issue of Speed Age, Mantz calculated that, based off the performance of Lee Petty's '49 Business Coupe, that the lighter weight, good handling qualities, and dependability of the Plymouth would be just the ticket to win the 500 mile event.

He was right...and so were others who chose the little MoPars; the feisty little Plymouths did well against the bigger, tire-hungry likes of Olds, Lincoln, Buick, and Cadillac throughout the 1950 season, resulting in 4 wins, 28 top-5s and 49 top-10s in the 19 race season. Plymouth would end up finishing second in the manufacturer's title that year.

 

I believe that Plymouth only required one pit stop for the whole race. The big dogs were having to pit quite often due to tire wear and fuel.

 

Still trying to figure out the whole truck tire speculation...post-race photos of Mantz's car show bone-stock Plymouth/Dodge steel wheels complete with factory painted dual pinstripes. Personally, I speculate that Mantz's car was running '46-'47 vintage Ply/Dodge 16" wheels with 600 or 650/16 truck tires, as the dual stripe on the wheels is consistent with those produced for the P15-D24 models in '46 and early '47.

Apparently NASCAR had no rules on wheel diameter, only rules on rim width.

 

Don't know an awful lot about early NASCAR to be perfectly honest. To my knowledge though, all of the cars of the pre-'55 days were street driven cars that were driven to the tracks and the rule book was VERY loose.

My earlier comment about Lee Petty learning to interchange the much heavier duty Chrysler and Imperial components into his Plymouth and Dodge contenders is probably your key for any of the other Mopar owner drivers as well. It gave them the HD parts that gave them durability plus larger wheel and axle bearings. If they switched to Imperial hubs and drums it also gave them a 5 on 5.5" bolt pattern and bigger still bearings. More spread on that pattern made for less liklihood of cracking a wheel at the bolts.

NASCAR Hudsons employed a line of parts from the Hud catalogs called "Severe Usage" or SU which were designed they said for the export market but happened to be ideal for racing. They just happened to be near identical to what Chrysler had from their big cars. Isn't that interesting?

Keep in mind that Carl Kiekhaefer is credited with being "the father of modern NASCAR". WHY? Because it was he who first started hauling his race cars to the track in box trucks, who first started analyzing oil after races, who first developed with Purolator the paper air filters, who had dedicated clean rooms at his shops for engine building, who had professional team concept men hired for the season and many other things you can read about. Before 1955, NASCAR was a bunch of good ol' whiskey runners havin' one heckuva good ol' time on weekends. Kiekhaefer is in the Motorsport's Hall of Fame. http://www.mshf.com/hof/kiekhaefer_carl.htm

Attachment: Kiekhaefer's engine room at Plant 6

 

Those look like production car tires to me on the Plymouth in the picture, not any truck tread. There were no racing tires, only 6 ply car tires to be used for racing until the Goodyear Blue Streaks appeared. The B.S. Stock Car Special with its actual blue pin stripe sidewall was about the earliest racing tire in NASCAR and I'm trying to recall but thinking that was about 1958?

 

Guys, great input, and I don't question any of it. I do have to repeat that I saw a lengthy video with Tim Flock the year before he died, in which he referred to NASCAR "back then" allowing guys to run truck tires because, of course, they would blow as easily as car tires and gripped fine on the mainly dirt tracks in the '50s. Unfortunately, he didn't specify precisely what year or years he was talking about.

Good thread!

 

Speaking of Tim Flock and tires, an aside is that he once won a race (and, I think, a championship) with his Hudson sitting on its top, just across the finish line.

 

Yep, probably the most informative Mopar racing thread on the site. Great read! Thanks for sharing Wayne.

One other Mopar / Hemi / Tire fact - the modern racing slick was developed by Goodyear in response to the '69 Charger Daytona shredding the racing tires of the day.

 

If anybody out there has a NASCAR rule book from the early '50s please speak up! We all would particularly like to hear if it has anything to say about wheel diameters or widths.
I can tell you this: Kiekhaefer got 9.5" wheels into the AMA (American Manufacturer's Association) specs for the '56 Chryslers because he found he could STUFF that width into the wheel wells of the 300Bs by cutting out the sheet metal wheel housings and replacing them with Imperial limo sheet metal in the rear and that gave him a whole lotta tire under those '56 race cars and maybe a tiny bit of advantage. No mis-type: 9.5" wide wheels. Remember he was never found to have broken the rules!

Oh, since we mentioned Daytona Beach, I just gotta post this publicity photo of the beach from 1957. Enjoy!

 

Jeeze, guys, not to break in here. BUT, if you haven't seen "make a 3W coupe out of a PU cab," you won't be sorry for checking it out!!!!!!!!

Ray is a genius with metal!!!

 

Hey, OutThere. You are so right. I'd like to see the early rule book. AND the record shows that NASCAR rules were sure as hell much looser then (remember NASCAR was still competing with other stock-car organizations for primacy!), So seems obvious why Bill France took such a hasnds-on role in stuff.

Bill France would actually schedule extra races at this state fair grounds, or that one, to help some driver or team he favored. After Hudson started blowing away competition (seems to me), he had to take a slightly less dictatorial path (though Tim Flock actually slammed the door so hard in his offic in early or mid-'56, he broke the GC window out!).

 

Been unable to find in regards to the '56 Adventurer but I believe that Daytona Speed Weeks were always the first two full weeks of February. I do have a magazine that verifies that was true in 1960. Anyway, the 1956 Adventurer was released to the public February 18th, '56 so they must not have run any production '56 Adventurers at '56 Speed Weeks. In Don Butler's Crestline book on Plymouth and DeSoto it states that in a trial run on Daytona sand (may have been in Dec. or Jan.) a Adventurer prototype hit over 137 mph and back at the proving ground the same car later did 144 on the concrete oval. But I can tell you at the proving ground Vicki Woods, a Chrysler test driver was clocked at 149+ in a 300C so even though the 300Bs were quicker than the 300Cs, the '56 Adventurers with the same body as the 300B ran about 10 mph slower than the same year 300B. That is cubic inches for you at 341 in the '56 Adventurer, 354 in the 300B and 392 in the 300C. Dual quad Carter Hemis in all three.

 

Per Smokey Yunick;

I believe wheels didn't approach 9" until 1970 or so

 

With all respect, I would suggest that what happened is that after Kiekhaefer used his 9.5" wide wheels on the 1956 Chrysler 300Bs because there was no rule against them, NASCAR then came up with a rule for the 1957 season to limit wheel width. As so often is the case, the rules get written because someone has come up with an idea that wasn't covered by any previous rule and it created an unfair advantage, so the sanctioning body creates a new rule to cover it and that is how the rule book gets thicker and thicker! Then, over the years, as safety and tire availability and advancements progressed, by perhaps 1970 we got back to 9" wheel width.
Which begs the question what tire did Kiekhaefer put on those 9.5" wide rims? I'd suggest for your consideration that the 6 ply Imperial limousine 8.90 x 15 would probably inflate onto that wheel.

 

Thread over @ the Forwardlook has a pic of what's supposed to be K's 57 car, note the exhaust routing on it.

 

Here ya go

 

That is me, and I stole the picture from this thread.

 

You guys really have done your research, and what a trove of accesible info you've created for anybody who REALLY gives a rat's ass about these early cars (which, of course I f--king DO!!! LOL).

"OutThere," YOU are obviously dedicated to the 300, and I sure appreciate your COMPARATIVE data on the 300 VS. the Adventurer. IT IS HARD AS HELL TO FIND THIS KIND OF INFO NOWDAYS. WHY, because people just talk recollections or speculation VS facts. YOU, sir, have presented fatcs you went back and researched. Now, THAT's what I call dedication (not to mention settling BS arguments. LOL!!!)

THANKS