The Mopar® Nation

The Mopar® Nation; what is it? Academics say a nation is made up of people who have a common affiliation or bond, a shared heritage, and who speak the same language. That definition certainly applies to Mopar. The Mopar Nation is made up of people who love Chrysler products because of their engineering excellence and unmatched performance. The true Mopar enthusiast appreciates Chrysler’s rich racing heritage, lives the Mopar lifestyle and speaks the language. Can you say “HEMI®?” How about “Max Wedge,” “Six Pak” or “Magnum?”

What does it mean to be a member of the Mopar Nation? It means different things to different people, but the love for Chrysler products extends to all the brands, not just Chrysler, Jeep® and Dodge, but also Plymouth and DeSoto — and don’t forget HEMI, which to Mopar enthusiasts represents the ultimate power. HEMI represents high performance, and that’s what Mopar means, too, in all its flavors: muscle, speed, street and trail. Everything flows from that source: Mopar clubs and shows; garages, cruising and motorsports; the highway and the street. Places to see and be seen.

Mopar enthusiasm really took off back in 1962, 47 years ago, with the introduction of the 413-cubic-inch Max Wedge engine in Dodge and Plymouth factory-built drag racing “package cars.” The 413 had been around for a while, but only available in larger Chrysler Corporation models, most notably the 1959 Chrysler 300E as a replacement for the classic 392-cubic-inch Chrysler FirePower HEMI. The 413 was a development of the big-block “B” engine that Chrysler introduced in 1958. In 1960 the wild cross-ram manifold appeared on the Chrysler 300, the induction system with the really long runners that placed each of two 4-barrel carburetors way out over the valve covers. This was the precursor of the high-performance wedge engine. The 1962 413 Max Wedge engines had a version of this long ram manifold.

The 413 drag cars from Dodge and Plymouth hit the scene and created a whole new car culture, not only on the street and strip, but also in popular music. This was the 413 of the Beach Boys’ 1963 hit record Shut Down about a drag race between a Super Stock Dodge and a Corvette. This was the same Super Stock Dodge of Jan and Dean’s 1964 song The Little Old Lady from Pasadena.

The 413 was the beginning of it all, the cars that soon were called “Mopars” in the lexicon of car crazy youth of the era. Mopars were now the names of Chrysler performance cars and their owners were citizens of the Mopar Nation. The name is now the badge of honor for all Chrysler products, not just parts from Mopar.

Chrysler’s successes in drag racing and on the high banks of Daytona, Darlington and Charlotte bred the muscle cars that were meant for the street—limited production vehicles that had their heyday from the mid sixties to the early seventies. These same cars—now called “Mopars”—form the basis for Mopar Mania among collectors who restore or preserve them and who show them at events such as the Mopar Nationals in Columbus Ohio, the largest gathering of a single marque in the nation; Mopars at the Strip in Las Vegas, and the All-Chrysler Nationals in Carlisle, Pa.

Car auction pioneer Dean Kruse says, “Mopars have a definite following, while others don’t have as much. Mopar is helping the market by making parts available and helping people find out more about their cars. I wish the other companies, Ford and GM would do the same. This really helps the customers and helps the collector market,” he adds.

Vintage Dodge and Plymouth drag cars of the ‘60s and the early ‘70s are a distinct and high-end category of Mopar collecting. Todd Werner has a large collection in Florida. His associate, Mike Flynn says, “We can talk about the muscle cars, but the stories run out after we give the year, make and model. We can talk about the drag cars all day, because they have the history.”

One small but significant niche is vintage road racing. Here’s where you will find the Challenger and Barracuda TransAm cars blasting around the track. Collectors have preserved at least one example of Dan Gurney’s AAR ‘Cuda team cars. At least two of the Autodynamics Challenger T/A cars are restored and raced. Sports and Indy Car driver Sam Posey campaigned them in 1970. Every time a fan sees one of these cars, or the drag racing versions, Chrysler’s heritage is enhanced. “And promoting the heritage helps sell new cars, too,” said Dean Kruse.

Car events are now catering to the new breed of Chrysler muscle. The Spring Festival of LXs includes the Chrysler 300C, Dodge Charger, Dodge Magnum and now the Dodge Challenger. This event is hosted by the Southern California Chapter of LX Forums, a national organization for LX enthusiasts. Six-hundred LX owners from 18 states and several Canadian provinces attended the fourth annual event, held at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, in Irvine, California. This group of enthusiasts is a big part of the future of the Mopar Nation, renewing the passion for Chrysler products.

There are literally hundreds of smaller Mopar meets and shows around the U.S. each year, many put on by local Mopar clubs. All of these events feed a multi-million dollar industry that supplies the needed restoration parts, not to mention all the accompanying gear and memorabilia that badges Mopar enthusiasts.

Mopar enthusiasts gather in these local clubs to share the passion. We covered this subject in the May/June 2007 issue of Mopar Magazine. Clubs can be found by searching the Web—you’ll find hundreds of sites, but first check Mopar Muscle magazine’s list at moparmusclemagazine.com. There are clubs for just about any type or age Chrysler car. The WPC Club, named for Chrysler founder Walter P. Chrysler, is the world’s largest Chrysler products club, according to its Web site www.chryslerclub.org. The organization is open to all brands ever made by Chrysler, including Chalmers and Maxwell, the cars that preceded the formation of Chrysler. Clubs have their own rules, but most are family-oriented organizations that accept practically any Chrysler product. Some are selective, such as the Shelby Dodge Automobile Club (SDAC) which is dedicated to the front-drive built in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The Viper Club of America (VCA) is another marque-limited organization.

The one common denominator, though, is people. We quoted SDAC president Barry Goodall in our 2007 story on Mopar clubs: “It’s the cars that bring us together, but the club is about the people,” he said.

Citizens of the Mopar Nation can read all about their passion in magazines and on the Web. Chrysler publishes Mopar Magazine—in print (you are reading it now!) and on the Internet at moparmagazine.com. The other official Mopar sites are; moparspeed.com, mo-pod.com and mopar.com. They have a wealth of information and history on important Mopar subjects.

And then there are the independent Mopar-focused magazines: Mopar Muscle, Mopar Action and Mopar Collectors Guide—and a new mag titled Mopar Enthusiast. These publications cover every aspect of the hobby—how-to stories, event coverage, stories about cars for the street and strip, and how to find and authenticate rare and not-so-rare Mopars. All have Web sites with plenty of Mopar information along with opportunities to interact with other enthusiasts. One such site is Mopar Muscle’s forum at forums.moparmusclemagazine.com.

The Web is filled to overflowing with other sites that cover every imaginable subject and every tight niche in the Mopar Nation. One of the more popular Web sites is allpar.com. The name means “All Mopar.” It is certainly all of that. Start here and if you can’t find it, follow a link to other Web resources. Another huge site is LX Forums (lxforums.com) where owners of modern Mopars congregate.

There are Web sites for just about everything Mopar; even those dedicated to just one year model, such as the 1970 E-body Trans Am cars (aarcuda.com and challengertaregistry.com). There’s a site for owners of the same-model 1958 Plymouth Fury that appeared in the famous horror movie “Christine” (see: internationalchristineclub.com and also plymouthcentral.com/Christine1.html).

So here we have it: Muscle, Street, Speed and Trail. Mopar Performance Parts’ terminology for an interrelated set of uses for Mopar cars and parts. The muscle cars of the ‘60s and ‘70s are now joined with latter-day examples that include LX cars and their SRT® versions, as well as other Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge cars in shows, drag races, cruises and any other pastimes that make up the world of Mopar. The photos here and on the following pages reflect the Mopar Nation—populated with the most involved car enthusiasts in the world. How do you fit in?

There are many areas of enthusiasm in the Mopar Nation: clubs, shows, meetings, races, tours, Web sites, magazines, museums, auctions and collections to name many. These areas can be large or small, public or private, narrowly or broadly defined. We listed a few here, as a sampler to give a flavor of the wide spectrum of opportunity, but we don’t have anywhere near the room for all of them, so we will refer you to the Web, that’s where everything is these days. We have a not-so-hidden agenda here: We want you to check out www.moparmagazine.com, our new Web site. There are some lists there. If we missed something, tell us about it.

EVENTS

Check out this year’s Mopar events at www.moparmagazine.com/events.

CLUBS

There are too many to list here. Check out Mopar Muscle Magazine’s list at: www.moparmusclemagazine.com/mopar_club_directory/index.htmlAlso: See the list on the 1962 to 1965 Mopar Web Site: www.1962to1965mopar.ornocar.com/moparclubs.html

MAGAZINES

Mopar Muscle Magazine
www.moparmusclemagazine.com

Mopar Action
www.moparaction.com

Mopar Collector’s Guide
www.moparcollectorsguide.com

Mopar Enthusiast
www.moparenthusiast.com

Mopar Max (online only)
www.moparmax.com

WEB SITES

Official Mopar and Chrysler LLC Web sites:
(Refer to page 3 in this issue of Mopar Magazine)

OTHER WEB SITES

Again, there are too many to list. Here are a few to get you started.

• www.chryslerclub.org
  The Walter P. Chrysler Club – named after the founder of Chrysler, the most general of Mopar clubs, covering all cars ever made by Chrysler, including Fargo, Maxwell and Chalmers, to name a few
• www.allpar.com
  A massively complete and detailed Mopar Web site, has a quarter-million visits each month
• www.moparts.com
  A bulletin board about parts and where to find them
• www.thehemi.com
  All about Chrysler HEMI engines
• www.stockmopar.com
  Information on what makes a Mopar car correctly original
• www.mymopar.com
  Many useful lists; the top 500 Mopar Web sites, a Mopar part number lookup, photos, tools, books and movies
• www.moparforums.com
  A place to go and discuss all your thoughts, comments and questions about Mopar