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'66 hood Q

patrick66

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I've owned my '66 Coronet 500 for 42 years now, and am the second owner. It is a 9/01/65 Lynch Road build. Notice the hood letters. My car is one of two hoods I've seen with the letters close together. Most have wider spacing. Anyone seen other '66 Coronets or Chargers with close-spaced letters like mine?

IMG_20220123_144938156.jpg IMG_20220428_110402241.jpg IMG_20220428_110418706.jpg
 
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Look inside of hood for repair. Hood may have come off a model with out Dodge on hood like a 4 door. They spaced letters wrong.
 
I have noticed the 2 different spacings and wondered the same thing myself. Of all the 66's I've owned over the years they all had the wider spacing.
 
Is the Coronet 500 spaced different than the Coronet 440? Found this on the 'net.

il_794xN.2327605417_o5va.jpg
 
Oooooh.

Let's learn something.

I've seen that ad hundreds of times and never noticed the spacing was different.
 
The body on my car is 100% original, and the holes behind the letters that hold the fasteners are all original and not re-drilled or relocated. I've wondered about the letter spacing in the past, but this is the first I've actually asked.

I have a few factory ads, such as the examples above, and all show the close spacing. As I mentioned, mine was a very early-build car, and was used as a factory show car. It was on a turntable at the old Stapleton International Airport in Denver; along with a new Polara, Monaco, Dart, and a D100 pickup. The Charger had not been released yet, so there was not one on display. I'm curious as to whether early cars had the close spacing, and later cars had the wider spacing. If so, when was the crossover, and what/who decided it to be so?

I do not recall seeing any '66 Chargers with the close spacing, nor any '67 Coronets or Chargers.

Does anyone have a '66 Coronet with a SPD of say, October 1965 or earlier, with a known original hood to the car, that can show us what they might have? I'm beginning to think that perhaps a change in vendor for the hood might be a possibility for the difference. An interesting conundrum we have here, IMO.

The advertising cars were all pre-production pilot cars, generally the first 25 or so built, for testing of various systems, along with show, ad, and duties that included press testing. That is where I'm leaning towards early cars getting the close spacing.
 
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I have a hood with the close spaced letters on my Coronet, it came from an early build '66 4 door coronet 440. The date on the certicard was 11/15/65 and the car was incorrectly registered as a '65 it's whole life.
 
I have a hood with the close spaced letters on my Coronet, it came from an early build '66 4 door coronet 440. The date on the certicard was 11/15/65 and the car was incorrectly registered as a '65 it's whole life.

From back in the day when some states titled a vehicle (new) in the year it first sold from a new car dealer, versus the model year. That pretty much stopped for the 1968MY, as Federal Vehicle Safety Standards kicked in force.
 
I'm leaning on the early-build theory, and the wide-spacing appeared at roughly the same time as the introduction as the Charger (January 1966). Body style apparently is irrelevant, as I figured. So, until I see a '66 CHARGER with the narrow spacing, I'll stick to my current theory.
 
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