By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--July 28, 2024
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There is a context memory that makes this song very special to me. Both my grandfathers retired from the Chrysler machining and forging plant in New Castle, Indiana in the 1960s. So while I was growing up we had a parade of Plymouths, Dodges, and Chryslers in our driveway. The tradition had begun with my grandfather’s ’28 Chrysler 70 to the ’37 Chrysler Royal, a Plymouth truck, the other grandfather’s ’34 Plymouth, and a succession of Mopars after the war through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
There were no legendary cars, and unfortunately no 426 Hemis or Challengers or ‘Cudas, but it’s probably how we survived those years. Riding and driving big cars with Chrysler 383s under their hoods was good enough, even for me.
Naturally, when my brothers began to reach the age where they could afford their own cars, Dodges and Plymouths became an option. In the middle 1960s Chrysler Corporation had become serious about making muscle cars, and already had a reputation for powerful engines. The engines with hemispherical heads above the pistons were the Hemis. We were used to car jingles and even songs featuring our favorites. Shutdown, by the Beach Boys, featured a ’62 Dodge Dart with the famous 413cid engine versus a ’63 Corvette with the 327cid engine. The song doesn’t actually report which car won, but we Mopar fans noticed that it didn’t say the Corvette won. Then there was ‘The Little Old Lady From Pasadena’. Her bright red super stock Dodge was a ’64, and we all assumed it had come with the 426 Max Wedge hemi. Even in the song Jan and Dean confirmed there was nobody meaner. The Little Old Lady would give ‘em a length, then shut them down. My middle brother tended to lean toward the Chevys, but you heard recently about the Plymouth Sport Fury, so he qualifies. My older brother looked around for a new ride in 1966 and ended up buying a ’65 Dodge 880 Custom convertible. It turned out to be a rare bird with few convertibles built that year as 880s.
Having grown up riding in cars like this one sixty-odd years ago, it’s hard for me to imagine that everyone can’t remember what it was like. They were long, large, heavy cars. The ’65 Dodge 880 weighed just a little over 4100 pounds. Two tons! It was 17 ½ feet long and only four inches short of seven feet wide. The wheelbase was an inch over ten feet! It had a long........