1965 Plymouth Belvedere Coupe

This car, Lot F249, sold for $66,000, including buyer’s premium, at Mecum’s Indy sale at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis on May 15–20, 2018.

Raise your hand if you have ever had this problem: You’re driving your slab-sided mid-’60s mid-size, and when you stomp on the pedal, you get nothing but smoke and noise. You realize that all the money that you invested in the engine is only half of the equation — none of the power actually makes it to the ground. You need your smoke machine to hook up.

So you sit there in your overpowered muscle car, daydreaming of the days when drag racers were so bold as to move their wheelbases around in search of the best launch. You’re lost in the days of altered-wheelbase drag racing, at least until the minivan behind you honks when the light turns green.

Built to win

In 1964, the gloves were off for domination of the crowd-pleasing, A/Factory Experimental (A/FX) class. Chrysler decided to continue drag-racing dominance, with Ford directly in the crosshairs.

Ford was going to stuff a 427 SOHC motor in the Mustang and Comet for the ’65 season and had their own AWB cars in the works, so Chrysler decided to take the otherwise government-issue-styled Belvedere out behind the barn and start cutting.

By the time they were done, they had moved the rear axle ahead 15 inches and the front axle ahead 10 inches in order to change weight distribution for the better. They achieved a 56% rear bias, which gave every advantage to the primitive rear tires. In total, six Belvederes and six Coronets were built with the altered wheelbase. These cars were handed to the factory race teams by top brass, and orders were given: Beat Ford.

These AWB cars were serious contenders. Runs in the mid-10-second range were not uncommon. The 426 Hemi wearing aluminum heads and Hilborn injection was the technological force, but diet was still needed. Trimming down to the minimum weight was done through old-fashioned parts tossing. Heater, radio, glass, door innards and seats were all jettisoned. The factory even resorted to acid-dipping the cars to remove body seam caulk, adhesives, and more importantly, to reduce the thickness of the factory body panels.

After years of hard launches and wheel stands, you can imagine what became of these tin cans. This led to the scrapping of some of these cars after a couple years. There are rumored to be about five AWB cars left.

Parts steal

Oftentimes, the sum of the receipts does not equal the price tag of a car at auction, and that is nowhere better illustrated than here.

Tributes and reproductions often don’t pay their builders back. But that doesn’t stop their construction: These cars are usually built by enthusiasts who just can’t live without them. These builders either don’t have the money for the real deal, or they just want to beat up on something that isn’t authentic so as to not feel responsible for preserving history.

Our subject car looks to be a nice representation of a factory AWB with a few liberties taken. Electronic Hilborn fuel injection is the most notable and will ensure quick cold starts, good drivability and easy tunability. That wasn’t something the factory (or Hilborn) could replicate back in the day, and today a Hemi unit will set you back about $8,000.

Complete door mechanicals and a pair of seats suggest that having a dead-accurate copy of an AWB car as-raced was not part of the builder’s motivation. Rather, it looks like the builder wanted an A990 with a short wheelbase, which is the best of both worlds in terms of usability.

What’s it worth?

A quick scan of the balance sheet shows a nice Belvedere 2-door post that likely started life with a 6 under the hood. A respectable donor car can be had for $10k to $15k. A Hemi — even if it’s not period-correct — poked out to 528-ci will cost $20k minimum. If you want period-correct, then the price tag is multiples of that. Add in the Hilborn injection and you’re up to $45k or so before labor for the bodywork, roll cage, electrical and red window tint.

Current activity in the market includes the factory Lee Smith “Haulin’ Hemi” AWB car, which has great history and is clearly the real deal. It failed to sell at $410,000 at Mecum Kissimmee 2017, and then at $450,000 at this same event in Indy. Obviously, we have a disagreement between the market and the owner of that car, but it is said to be one of the finest of the remaining AWB cars.

Compare that to this car, which sold for $66,000. Regardless of any level of authenticity — and there is none — I would still call this a good deal if it’s what you are into.

American muscle will always bring out the childhood daydreamer in all of us, and as long as the rarest of unicorn cars stoke that fantasy, cars like this will be built by people who either love the journey of construction or have too much time on their hands. At some point, these cars will be put up for sale.

The smart money is buying a car like this already done. That way, you get immediate satisfaction and you don’t have to pay the total cost to build one. But buy it because you love it, not because it’s an investment — even if someone else took the brunt of construction costs.

This is a great-looking car and most likely a ton of fun to drive, as long as the wheelbase alterations were done right, and by all indications they were. Appreciation will only be through a rising tide of Belvedere or drag-race nostalgia, which isn’t a given. But hey, instead of belching tire smoke, throttling this through a stoplight will put your nose in the sky, which just might be a daydream come to life. Well bought for the cost to build versus the price paid.

A

(Introductory description courtesy of Mecum Auctions.)