Super Stock began to gain momentum at the beginning of the 1960s, and by the end of the decade it had expanded into a dozen different classes based on power-to-weight ratios. It became one of the premiere spots in motorsport to see cars that still largely resembled their showroom counterparts do battle at the drag strip and post some serious numbers.
In the video above we see the “Son of Kong” Super Stock Dodge Challenger in full race livery, replete with Hoosier slicks, wheelie bars and a cackling idle.
And then we have the Hemi Dart – a particularly special car. Very few Hemi Darts were built, and they differed substantially from standards in ways that went far beyond a simple engine swap. In order to put the model together, bare Dart bodies were shipped to the Hurst Performance facility in Madison Heights, Michigan, to undergo the transformation.
To get as much weight out of the car as possible, Hurst swapped out the metal fenders and hood for fiberglass pieces, acid-dipped the doors, installed thinner front and rear bumpers, and swapped out the glass windows for polymer-based ones that were secured by seat belt straps rather than the heavier traditional window cranks.
The standard Dart seats were replaced by the no-frills buckets out of the Dodge A-100 van, yielding an interior aesthetic that was decidedly all business. All put together, the Hemi Dart weighed in at a fairly scant 3000 pounds while boasting Mopar’s absolutely brutal and notoriously underrated 426ci Hemi.