FAST-TWITCH MUSCLE

BIG ENGINE, SMALL CHASSIS — THE 1968 DODGE DART HEMI LO23 WAS THE FASTEST FACTORY-BUILT MUSCLE CAR OF ITS ERA

NHRA’s Super Stock competition of the 1960s facilitated the creation of some of America’s greatest factory-built cars. Rare, special, and blisteringly fast machines were created by Ford, Chrysler, and GM in order to vie for supremacy on the quarter-mile. Only one machine could take the top-dog spot of that era, though, and arguably that was the biggest and the baddest of them all: the 1968 Dodge Dart Hemi LO23.

After seeing Ford and Chevrolet’s recent success with their Shelby Mustangs and Yenko Corvettes winning on Sundays and selling on Mondays, by early 1968 Dodge wanted to up its game on the drag strip in the SS/B and SS/BA classes. The Chrysler Corporation had already been campaigning reasonably successfully throughout the decade but knew it was going to need something that was clearly far superior to both its own predecessors and its competitors if it ever wanted to put a dent in the pride of the Camaros and Mustangs — not to mention their market share.

The first step was to send out a memo to all Dodge dealerships countrywide in early January of 1968 clearly stating the company’s intention to build a competition-beating super stock weapon. The project’s fate hung on how dealers responded to this news and, thankfully, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

With the fourth-generation Dart’s small dimensions and low weight — relatively speaking — the choice of chassis was an obvious one.

The Dart used the A-body platform and was one year into its new generation — a clean, straightlaced, and somewhat no-nonsense design that would be right at home on the drag strip. In total, 80 donor Darts were pulled from the Dodge assembly line in Hamtramck, Michigan, for the project. Originally destined to be 383-powered GTS models, these cars were instead sent directly to the Hurst Performance Research Facility in Ferndale, Michigan. The Darts showed up in a completely bare state, as nearly everything would have been replaced or removed anyway, so why do double the work?

The first order of business was sourcing and fitting the ultimate engine of the era — the big boy 426ci Hemi race motor that had replaced the Max Wedge in 1965 and first debuted between the towers of the 330 A864 Hemi Super Stock. Nicknamed the ‘elephant motor’, the big 426 used an oversquare bore and stroke with a 10.25:1 compression ratio, and breathed in through a pair of 735cfm four-barrel Holleys sitting on an aluminium cross-ram intake manifold, and out through a set of Hooker headers. According to Chrysler, the motor — which supposedly required some serious sledgehammer-provided adjustments of the Dart’s engine bay in order to fit — made 425hp, but that was a bare-faced lie. The true number was somewhere closer to 540hp.

To aid in reliability in race conditions, Hurst fitted a bigger radiator and fan, a high-capacity oil pump, a Prestolite ignition system, and a roller timing chain. When it came to the rest of the driveline, buyers had two options: either an unsynchronised four-speed manual with a 4.88:1 Dana rear end, or a modified three-speed Torqueflite Auto with a 4.86:1 8.75-inch rear end — both with Hurst shifters, of course.

On the weight loss front, the car received some interesting bits and pieces. Externally, the front guards and bonnet were replaced with fibreglass items featuring the infamous ‘dustpan’

scoop, while all the side glass was swapped out for thinner Chemcor glass and sat in acid-etched doors.

Inside the Dart, those windows could only be raised and lowered by a strap, and the only two seats available were tiny buckets pulled from an A100 van and mounted to the car using aluminium brackets. Predictably, everything else was incredibly spartan — although carpet was still included, it was thin-pile in order to lose a few extra grams.

With the Darts running and ready to go, they could soon be ordered via Dodge dealerships using the LO23 product code. Interestingly, all 80 cars were delivered in primer grey with a black gel coat covering the fibreglass front end. This made it nice and easy for race teams across the country to throw some big rubber under the enlarged rear guards, lay down a coat of paint, get the signwriter over to work his magic with the brush, and head to the track.

As the ’68 season got under way, the LO23 Darts immediately dominated. With about 540hp in a 1350kg chassis, teams were soon dipping low into the 10s on the drag strip.

Over the next few seasons, very little was able to touch the Dart and it reigned so supreme that the NHRA eventually relegated it to a class of its own by moving the brackets downwards. That class, SS/AH, still exists.

It’s not known how many of the 80 or so LO23 Hemi Darts remain — thanks to the nature of the car, the vast majority that we know of have had a very hard life, with many being either crashed or modified many times over as regulations and classes changed over the years. A few unmolested survivors are still floating around, with the last example selling at auction for more than US$300,000.

It’s fair to say that the 1968 Dodge Dart Hemi LO23 isn’t exactly a pretty car, and nothing about it screams elegant or graceful — but that’s what makes it so appealing. This was a machine that was built to do nothing but go fast in a straight line, with no real allowances made for much else. It’s this no-nonsense, unapologetic, and single-minded ethos that made the Hemi Dart such a dominating force back in the late ’60s, just as much as it makes it so undeniably cool and desirable today.

NOTHING ABOUT IT SCREAMS ELEGANT OR GRACEFUL — BUT THAT’S WHAT MAKES IT SO APPEALING