Enshrined Forever

Words: Roger Meiners

Frank Spittle’s dream came true this year at the NHRA Winternationals. He brought his 1964 Dodge Charger out to Pomona, Calif., from his home in North Carolina for display during the race weekend. The car was then enshrined in the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum from February through June, “I was extremely lucky to get there, thanks to Steve Gibbs and Tony Thacker [of the Museum],” said Spittle. “I worked for five years to get the car out here.” Spittle wanted to have a reunion in California with people who were involved with the car in 1964.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “A 1964 Dodge Charger? The Charger didn’t come out until a couple of years later.” Sure, the production car was a 1966 model, but Dodge built three very special Chargers in 1964. They were designed to make a huge impression on the drag strip, and they did.

The cars were assembled at the Dragmaster Co. shop in Carlsbad, Calif. by 1962 Winternationals champion Jim Nelson and his teammate Dode Martin. Nelson and Martin were the logical choices to build the cars. The reason was Dodge wanted an engine like the one that powered their Winternationals-winning Dragmasters Dart dragster. It was a supercharged 430-cubic-inch Dodge wedge engine running on gasoline (this was during the NHRA’s ban on “fuel”—specifically nitromethane and methanol).

The Dragmasters followed Dodge’s instructions—to a point, but then they added a few cubes to the blocks and created three monster supercharged 480-cubic-inch wedge engines. They dropped them into three Dodge 330 sedans with factory lightweight front ends from the ’64 Max Wedge Super Stock Dodges. The cars had pushbutton automatic transmissions and full interiors. The only chassis modification was the addition of traction bars to the rear suspension. Oh, and there were slicks and drag parachutes on each car.

The cars looked completely stock—and they were—except for the Hilborn injection jutting through the aluminum super stock hood scoop and the exhaust headers poking out of the wheel wells. The ear-splitting sound of 800-plus horsepower mixed with the whine of the GMC 6-71 supercharger blew away spectators all over America.

Two drivers were hired to take the show on the road. The late Jimmie Nix, then a famous dragster pilot, and Super Stock Racer Jim Johnson handled two of the cars during the tour. The third car was a backup.

Out on the exhibition circuit, Nix and Johnson played to capacity crowds—turning 10-second elapsed times with speeds in the 130s. The cars spent time at sponsoring Dodge dealerships when they weren’t on the strip. During the year (1964), one car was lost to a crash, and, when the show circuit was finished, the cars were used by others for a while, then forgotten. Spittle’s car was discovered in Wisconsin in 1989 and passed through two owners. The second of the two, C.K. Spurlock spent several years doing a cost-no-object restoration—watched carefully by Spittle, who kept up a decade-long conversation, constantly reminding Spurlock that he wanted the car if it were sold.

Spittle followed the Charger exhibition cars almost from the time they were first shown in 1964 at a drag strip in Fremont, Calif. His limitless love for the car led to 
an unending quest to own the only remaining example of what could be termed 
the first Funny Cars, even though that name was first applied to the famous 1965 altered-wheelbase HEMI® Mopars that appeared at Bee Line Dragway for the AHRA Winternationals. The Chargers were actually more like the Funny Cars that soon followed, because the later cars had superchargers and stock-appearing bodies.

In 1996 Spittle finally prevailed and took over the restoration from Spurlock. The car sat from then until 2003, while he gathered the funds to complete the restoration. He showed the newly-restored car six months later, in 2004, at the Charlotte AutoFair, astounding many who did not even know it existed. The 2010 Winternationals was the scene of only its third showing. Spittle’s joy is boundless and so is ours. We thank him for reviving a long-forgotten chapter in Dodge drag racing history.