To John Lang--66 Hemi 1 of 11 explaination

[696pack]

John had posted this question in another thread. Rather than continuing to run that thread off subject I thought it best to open a new one to answer his question. I am sure there are others here that sometimes wonder how
"one of" numbers are arrived at. Sometimes people take some pretty big assumptions with their numbers, but that is not the case here.

To 696pack, How do you come up with this number on the 66 HEMI car as 1 of 11 built, are you baseing this on a color, or special option? In 1964 thru 1968 I sold Dodge and Plymouth cars, mostly high perf, specificaly HEMI cars, and 440's, the Hot Rod type stuff, which really pissed off the owner of the dealership, until he noticed the numbers being sold and the profit!!!!!!!! He also started to stock HEMI cars and the HOT stuff. Enough Babble , Later, ,,,,,,John Lang

According to Galen Govier's White Books. They built 34 1966 Hemi BASE
(WE21 first 4 digits of the V.I.N.) 2 door sedans. Of those 34, 23 were auto trans and 11 were 4 speeds. it has nothing to do with colors or any other option combinations, just the particular model made with the 4 speed. In fact, there ARE NO figures for how many are painted a particular color or how many are equipped with particular options.

Additionally, since I have owned this car I have been trying to find other
WE21 cars with a factory equipped 4 speed. To date I have only found one which has changed hands 3 times since I first knew of it. It is dark Blue with a Blue interior. I have been told that there is a Red one back east somewhere but have never been able to confirm it. if anyone knows of another one of these cars I would like to hear about it.


BTW John, what dealership and where did you work back in the day?

 

[John Lang]

66 Hemi Cars

I sold for two dealerships in Milwaukee in 1964-1967. They Dodge City, which was on the corner of 35 th and Wi Ave., and North Ave Chrysler Ply, at 29th and North Ave. Dodge City is long gone, North Ave Chrysler Ply is now known as Emil Ewald Chrysler Ply. Some years ago i tried to see if they had any records of prior year sales as in HEMI car, and was told all gone decades ago! And with loads of foresight all of my sales records which i kept,for each and every car i sold i had given them to a friend of mine in the business when i quit selling! Later i found out he had passed away and the stuff was all trashed! As in Aw ****! I can tell you that we sold every Dodge & Pymouth screw up car that they produced. Cars that were orderd wHEMI's, and deliverd w/383, and visa/versa. As in HEMI 4 Doors both Dodge & Plymouth B bodies, including a Belvedere 1 Wagon which Galen says never happened. But thats what he gets paid for! We sold lots of 2Dr post cars in 66 of both Dodge and Ply.When i said all cars produced i meant delivered to the Milw. zone!! So any way have a Very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year John Lang,,,,,,,,,,,,, Also known as HEMIHEAD:santa::HappyNewYear:

 

[696pack]

Yes, I believe there were certainly cars produced that GG is not aware of. His production figures come from Chrysler Corp records. I doubt that cars that were "mistakes" on the production line were recorded as built but rather as they were "supposed" to be built.

Are you saying that the dealership you worked for sold some Hemi 4 doors? According to GG there were only 4 produced and they were all 1966 models. As I understand it 2 of them were sold out of Kansas. Any further details on the Hemi station wagon?

As I said, the production figures on my car come from GGs books and it is always possible that they are wrong and more of my model may have been produced, but I don't know how anyone would be able to prove it. I don't believe there is a list of cars produced that cross references to the V.I.N. so there is no way to isolate the production #s other than one at a time for 1967 back cars through Chrysler Historical for copies of the IBM cards. You have to pay them and provide your V.I.N. in order to get the IBM card on an individual basis.

 

[ACME A12]

Yes, I believe there were certainly cars produced that GG is not aware of. His production figures come from Chrysler Corp records. I doubt that cars that were "mistakes" on the production line were recorded as built but rather as they were "supposed" to be built.

Are you saying that the dealership you worked for sold some Hemi 4 doors? According to GG there were only 4 produced and they were all 1966 models. As I understand it 2 of them were sold out of Kansas. Any further details on the Hemi station wagon?

As I said, the production figures on my car come from GGs books and it is always possible that they are wrong and more of my model may have been produced, but I don't know how anyone would be able to prove it. I don't believe there is a list of cars produced that cross references to the V.I.N. so there is no way to isolate the production #s other than one at a time for 1967 back cars through Chrysler Historical for copies of the IBM cards. You have to pay them and provide your V.I.N. in order to get the IBM card on an individual basis.

Darryl:

I have one of those "mistake" cars - one of my '70 340 Dusters was built in Windsor, which wasn't supposed to happen. GG had documented about 10 or 12 (as I recall) of them a back few years ago when he was writing his monthly column. Certainly not a hemi wagon - just an exception to the production protocol.

Shame that the production info isn't available on the post-1967 cars; but that is just beating a dead horse isn't it?

Good post & interesting read.

Ray

 

[John Lang]

696Pack! I regard to your question about four door HEMI cars i can remember 2 Dodges we had , one being a 440 Coronet 4 dr Auto, Powder Blue color, The other a red stripo 4 dr Red Auto. I Drove the 440 as a Demo for about 3 weeks and sold it. You know this takeing it's toll of my memory as i'm into the geezer age (70), and my race car runs 9.30's @ 142.00mph. Hell of a ride! These Dodges, and the Plymouths were 66's. Plymouth's there were 3 or 4. Give me time, more stuff will come out of the grey matter! See all of the cars Chrysler (Screwups) produced didn't get listed real accurately. Later John Lang

 

[696pack]

The mistake cars that we got at the dealership I worked for were generally simple things like cars that came with vinyl tops that were not ordered with them (and not charged for them.) I was told that this was quite common as often the cars did not meet cosmetic quality control inspection for the body work on the "C" pillar and it was cheaper to add the vinyl top at no cost then to run them back trough body and paint work.

We also had several come through with Dart emblems on one side of the car and Scamp emblems on the other of the same car.

I have spoken to several people over the years that have seem cars that had completely different engines than the V.I.N. indicates, Dana rear ends when the car should have had an 8 3/4" and vise-versa.

These kinds of car are always a problem for owners that have a hipo engine car that is coded as a lesser engine as no one wants to beleive it happened to THAT car. Nobody cares about a 383 2 BBL coded car that came from the factory as a 318 instead.

I am sure there were many more "mistake" cars built that we will never know about because they are of no interest to the hobby that concentrates on the hipo cars, and lesser cars that were never of interest to save and have been crushed.

 

[69 Runner]

The 67 Satellite vert I had was like that. I bought it from the original owner who was NOT a car person. It was a 383 2V car, but it had a correct numbered and date coded 4V carb, and also had the factory chrome valve covers which were supposedly only seen on the GTX and Coronet R/T. She told me the car was like she bought it new. It also was a single exhaust car, just like a 2V car would have been.

 

[696pack]

Yeah, there are far more out there if people would just look a little harder. The hobby is primarily dedicated to 2 door cars and hipo models. If people were scrutinizing 4 doors harder you would certainly find more.

Mopar guys like to say "never say never with Mopar" but it was like this with other makers as well. Back in those days that were not totally ruled by bean counters, and a highly mechanized manufacturing process, they would build you nearly anything if you were willing to pay and wait for it just to sell another car.

There is a currently active thread on Moparts where a 1970 Charger R/T with 440 six pack and A/C is mentioned and it had special A/C compressor brackets so the air cleaner would not hit the air cleaner. My bet would be that it was a factory exec. car built for some V.I.P. that simply said "that is what I want, build it."

 

[EWJ]

On the topic of 4 door Hemi cars: my father ordered one new, 4 speed no less. Rather than muck up this thread, in the link below is allot of info regarding these cars:

http://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5735927&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1

Thanks for the info on the Dodges as well!

 

[Meep-Meep]

Not completely relevant to this thread, but reading it made me dig out my letter from Chrysler replying to my inquiry about production numbers of my cars. Back in 88 I wrote a letter to Chrysler asking how many 68 383 Road Runners came with disc brakes and GTX convertible production numbers. And I got an answer from D. J. Crawford, owner relations Coordinator -

319 68 RR's came with disc brakes and the 68 GTX breakdown I have is as follows: 917 convertibles. Of the 917 built 881 had the 440, 693 had power steering and 170 had power disc brakes. Funny that trans type wasn't mentioned. My GTX was a triple black 440 4 spd. drum brake manual steering car, with the original running gear missing. Take the PS and PDB numbers out of the picture and that leaves mine to be one of 18 built. Factoring in the 4 spd and that number may be even smaller - or not. Too bad I sold it back in the 80's for $4K :Groaner:

A little more math suggests that 36 were not 440 cars and as far as I know that could only mean HEMI. Break it down to some number with PS and PDB and I could easily see very small production numbers here as well.

 

[detmatt1]

Not completely relevant to this thread, but reading it made me dig out my letter from Chrysler replying to my inquiry about production numbers of my cars. Back in 88 I wrote a letter to Chrysler asking how many 68 383 Road Runners came with disc brakes and GTX convertible production numbers. And I got an answer from D. J. Crawford, owner relations Coordinator -
I'm suprised that you got that kind of info out of them in `88. Makes me wonder if that info is still avaliable. Do you know what location he /she worked out of?. I would love to know how many `68 Road Runner coupes were made with a 4spd and A.C..

 

[696pack]

Not completely relevant to this thread, but reading it made me dig out my letter from Chrysler replying to my inquiry about production numbers of my cars. Back in 88 I wrote a letter to Chrysler asking how many 68 383 Road Runners came with disc brakes and GTX convertible production numbers. And I got an answer from D. J. Crawford, owner relations Coordinator -

319 68 RR's came with disc brakes and the 68 GTX breakdown I have is as follows: 917 convertibles. Of the 917 built 881 had the 440, 693 had power steering and 170 had power disc brakes. Funny that trans type wasn't mentioned. My GTX was a triple black 440 4 spd. drum brake manual steering car, with the original running gear missing. Take the PS and PDB numbers out of the picture and that leaves mine to be one of 18 built. Factoring in the 4 spd and that number may be even smaller - or not. Too bad I sold it back in the 80's for $4K :Groaner:

A little more math suggests that 36 were not 440 cars and as far as I know that could only mean HEMI. Break it down to some number with PS and PDB and I could easily see very small production numbers here as well.

Your figures are basically the same a the Govier white book I have. Although this book does not have any indication of how many 68 RRs had disc brakes the GTX production figures are SIMILAR.

Here are his figures:
1026 Total
917 Shipped to USA

36 Shipped to USA 426-8
12 4 speeds
24 Auto

4 Shipped to Canada 426-8

881 Shipped to USA assumed 440-4
375 4 speed assumed 440-4
506 Auto

Now, if you add the 881 and the 4 Canadian Hemis and the 36 USA Hemis it totals 921. If you subtract this 921 from the 1026 total you get 105 which I assume would be the Canadaian 440-4s that he does not show.

 

[Meep-Meep]

Not completely relevant to this thread, but reading it made me dig out my letter from Chrysler replying to my inquiry about production numbers of my cars. Back in 88 I wrote a letter to Chrysler asking how many 68 383 Road Runners came with disc brakes and GTX convertible production numbers. And I got an answer from D. J. Crawford, owner relations Coordinator -
I'm suprised that you got that kind of info out of them in `88. Makes me wonder if that info is still avaliable. Do you know what location he /she worked out of?. I would love to know how many `68 Road Runner coupes were made with a 4spd and A.C..

I seriously doubt it since 20+ yrs have gone by and Chrysler changed hands a couple of times since then, but who knows.

The letterhead says: Chrysler Motors Corporation Service and Parts Operations. The address at the bottom of the letter is: 26311 Lawrence Ave. Center Line MI 48288-1718. I googled it and it shows up as a good address http://maps.google.com/maps?q=26311...ent=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

I have to wonder if Galen purged this building of all pertinent info then came out with the white books :edgy:

I've been eyeballing MoPars for a long time and I have never seen a combination like yours.

 

[detmatt1]

I seriously doubt it since 20+ yrs have gone by and Chrysler changed hands a couple of times since then, but who knows.

The letterhead says: Chrysler Motors Corporation Service and Parts Operations. The address at the bottom of the letter is: 26311 Lawrence Ave. Center Line MI 48288-1718. I googled it and it shows up as a good address http://maps.google.com/maps?q=26311...ent=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

I have to wonder if Galen purged this building of all pertinent info then came out with the white books :edgy:

I've been eyeballing MoPars for a long time and I have never seen a combination like yours.

Thanks Meep Meep, you realize that I live about 20 minutes from that address!. I figured it would be local. I'll check it out.:grin:

 

[Meep-Meep]

Cool! Say hi to D. J. Crawford for me!

I hope something comes out of this.

 

[detmatt1]

Cool! Say hi to D. J. Crawford for me!

I hope something comes out of this.

Me too, I'll let you know what I find out, may take a couple of days before I can get to it.

 

[UrbanXX]

There were many "Mistake Cars" that Chrysler made like the early 77 Chrysler 300 with a glass sun-roof the K-Cars 4 dr sedan and wagons with a glass sun roof and so on. We used to go to the Chrysler Corp. Fleet Sales in Boaz Al. and try to buy all the odd ball stuff that Chrysler Corp. tued loose of. Even ended up with on that had an expermintal carb. on it. They tracked it down pretty quick and got it back. Never will forget the 82 Dodge 1/2 ton stepside pick-up 400 4BL 4 speed granny-gear pick I ordered. They sent it althought they supposely didn't make it.
Many of the Hemi RO cars are not accounted for both in numbers and body styles because they were just a part number.
I have one picture of an RO 2009 Challanger including the RO body number. Of course this is one not listed in production figures. But, never the less it is in existance and it was odered, sold and delivered without motor, transmission and glass otherwise a complete car including interior.
I have also seen a factory dark blue 65 Fury II 4 speed station wagon this was back in the 70's. Another odd one I sat down in was a 66 Fury VIP 4dr Hard Top factory 4 speed with a 383 4 bbl.

 

[gearheadbill]

1 of 11

Was at Don Garlits in Ocala Florida-IN HIS COLLECTION-,he has a white 66 4 door Hemi,I believe it was a Dodge,they said 1 of 9 I THINK????