Meet the Fleet – Muscle Cars: ’64 Dodge Polara Hemi

• BODY: Auto World
• WHEELS & TIRES: Road Race Replicas

In the annals of muscle car-dom, the Chrysler 426 Hemi will always be king. Its not unbeatable, but it is nearly unbreakable, and by reputation it almost defines what a muscle car is. 1964 was the debut year for this famous power plant in the “B-Body” platform, where-under the Dodge brand-it was offered alongside the Ramcharger 426 Wedge; “officially” rated at 425 horsepower, the engine actually produced more like 550 horsepower. With both the Ramcharger Wedge and the Hemi available this year, factory-backed Dodges dominated tracks across the country, and included the Ramcharger Team, Roger Lindamood’s “Color Me Gone” and “Dandy Dick” Landy’s team on the strip. It was up to privateers to make them work on the less often seen road courses, where enough tweaking and modification could be done to the suspensions to make these big cars turn and-kinda, sorta-brake as well. For proof, look no further than this “Anniversary Gold” Polara 2 door sedan, which has been the terror of the muscle car road course at Drag City since the days of the Mk II track.

There can’t be many people who were spectators at the track in the heyday of the 1980’s who don’t remember the (in)famous rock ballad “The Final Countdown” by Swedish hair-metal band Europe; it was featured in a particularly funny Geico commercial about 8 years ago, but back when it first hit the airwaves it provided a fitting name for David “Wild Thing” Wahlberg’s elephant-motored track warrior. This example still wears it’s original paint with a beige and black interior dominated by bucket seats and a big 4-speed lever in the console between. Amazingly, Wahlberg’s car started life as a 426 Max Wedge-equipped drag car, and was converted to a Hemi in 1965 after the original owner blew up the original mill spectacularly on the track. Shortly after replacing the engine, said original owner moved on to other projects, leaving Wahlberg’s father Herschel to acquire the newly hemi-powered car for a low price in 1966 with the intention of passing it onto his son David when he was old enough to drive! How’d you have liked to have that as a “Sweet 16” birthday present? Even more amazingly, the younger Wahlberg did not immediately wreck the car, but rather set about improving its performance significantly until it was ready for more than just drag duty.

“Wild Thing” Wahlberg has taken several tournament trophies and innumerable race wins with this car, driving it so hard that at times even the wheels have flown off of it, but with typical Mopar durability it keeps getting patched up and coming back for more! “The Final Countdown” is a titan of its class at the track, but with battle scars aplenty she’s showing her age, and Wahlberg has plenty of young guns gunning for him, so a battle royale is in store to see if he can hold off the other big block powered monsters crowding his review mirror!