{"id":3075,"date":"2014-01-30T17:26:43","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T01:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=3075"},"modified":"2015-11-11T10:13:49","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T18:13:49","slug":"plymouth-under-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/plymouth-under-glass\/","title":{"rendered":"Plymouth Under Glass"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Factory-built<\/a>
Factory-built Super Stockers had torsion bars, but Dave Glass, the owner of this \u201965 Plymouth Belvedere coupe, prefers a straight axle front suspension. The car is mostly restored, but the roof paint is from its original racing career.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s a famous Plymouth Barracuda wheelstander car known as the \u201cHemi Under Glass,\u201d but the car featured here is a \u201965 Belvedere altered wheelbase gasser that was restored under the direction of Dave Glass. He\u2019s the owner of D & M Corvette Specialties in Downers Grove, Ill. but as his Plymouth racer shows. Dave has interests other than his specialty in the Corvette niche.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I could say that the Belvedere is a famous racing car because that would make it more valuable,\u201d said Glass. \u201cBut I have to be honest and admit that I just don\u2019t know.\u201d The Plymouth \u201cpost coupe\u201d was built as a \u201cMatch Race Stocker.\u201d It looks a lot like the factory-backed, altered-wheelbase Plymouths that drivers such as Lee Smith used to drag race back in the \u201860s.<\/p>\n

Glass is an avid car enthusiast who fixes and sells all types of muscle cars and hot rods. Along the road to his success fixing and selling Corvettes, he has also become a specialist in the recreation of \u201cstraight-axle\u201d racing machines. (Cars with I-beam front axles.) Glass has a wild-looking Corvette that is built up this way, as well as a Chevy-powered Willys coupe.<\/p>\n

Dave\u2019s red, white and blue \u201965 Belvedere could probably pass for a high-dollar, factory-backed Super Stocker if it had the original type torsion-bar front suspension, but this car did not always look as nice as it does today. \u201cThe Plymouth was drop dead ugly when I first bought it,\u201d Dave explained. \u201cThe crew in the D & M restoration shop redid just about everything \u2014 except the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n

The car\u2019s roof is painted a medium blue color with multiple white stripes running front to rear. \u201cBelieve it or not, the paint on that roof is completely original,\u201d Glass pointed out. \u201cWhile we don\u2019t know if the car was famous, we do know for sure that this Belvedere was an old racing car. We purchased it from a man in Indiana, but all the evidence suggests that it was drag raced in Kentucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

The car had no motor when Dave got it, but the four-speed gearbox was in it and looked to be 100 percent factory installed. \u201cThe car was not converted to a four-speed,\u201d Dave feels. \u201cIt had been tubbed and it carried a 6-point racing cage. The guys at my store really got involved with it. Sometimes they think I\u2019m just plain nuts, to take on projects like this, but they know that I really enjoy the cars.<\/p>\n

Plymouth Division was forced\u00a0 go racing in the \u201860s to keep up with Chevy, Ford, Pontiac and Mercury. Dave\u2019s research shows that Plymouth built 11 acid-dipped Satellite coupes with 426 Hemis and four-speed gearboxes to race in the 1965-1966 season. \u201cI grew up in that era and watched drivers like \u2018Dandy\u2019 Dick Landy and Sox & Martin run cars like my Plymouth,\u201d Glass explained. \u201cThat\u2019s when I first raced my Willys, but it was also the onset of the \u2018funny car\u2019 era. So I decided to build a car like the ones I saw racing back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the mechanical restoration and bodywork was done right at D & M Corvette. Dave\u2019s complex in Downer\u2019s Grove includes a fully-equipped restoration shop, as well as a body shop and a service building. Randy Ball was the only outside contractor on the Belvedere. He stitched up the red, bucket seat interior. Fiberglass front fenders are fitted and sit high off the ground.<\/p>\n

The engine under the hood today is a 472 Hemi. The car goes to cruise nights in Downers Grove, but is not actually raced. \u201cI got that out of my system years ago,\u201d says Glass. \u201cBut when I ran into a rep from Comp Cams at a car show, I asked him to get me a snarly cam that made the same noises as a race car and he delivered in spades.\u201d The engine drives to a sturdy Dana rear axle.<\/p>\n

Dave says he loves the way the Belvedere came out. \u201cIt\u2019s a racing car so it\u2019s cold-blooded until it gets up to 150 degrees, then it drives and runs good,\u201d he says. \u201cThe only thing that could make life better is if we found out more about its racing history. We keep hoping someone will recognize the paint scheme on the roof and step up with documentation of a drag racing career.\u201d Anyone who knows anything about the car can reach Dave at (630) 968-0031 or (630) 968-0410.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A fleet of \u201965 Plymouths dominated NHRA Top Stock Eliminator competition in 1965 and memories of those days inspired Dave Glass to build his red, white and blue bombshell.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dave Glass ’65 Plymouth was directly inspired by the NHRA vehicles of that dominated Top Stock Eliminator competition during the 1960s.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3447,3465,17],"tags":[687,2,477],"class_list":["post-3075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-classic","category-drag-racing","category-guest-column","tag-classic-cars","tag-drag-racing","tag-plymouth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/RJ25-Glass-PlymouthFeature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-NB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3075"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20861,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions\/20861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}