That means that his tow vehicle, the blue '67 Belvedere II that has been to so many Oakland tailgate parties, is now back on the Alameda street… and thus it qualifies for Down On The Street! This car has a healthy 360 crate motor and serves as Adrian's daily driver (when he's not out in the Belvedere wagon, the Sawzall Convertible Belvedere, or the big-block Belvedere convertible).

Adrian picked up the homemade '58 Dodge pickup bed-based trailer for 75 bucks, after spotting it on a some guy's lawn in lovely planet-buster-nuke-designin' Livermore. I'm sure his new neighbors (in one of Alameda's more upscale tree-lined neighborhoods) love it as much as I do!

Yesterday proved a bit of a challenge, but, in fine Bond fashion, the '88 Lotus Esprit ended up easily escaping Crackpipedom at the last minute, and managed to seduce several of you into its bed, er garage. And now for something completely different.

Nothing says performance like Belvedere. What? When you think Belvedere you picture Bob Uecker? Well, that's probably why Plymouth, back in the day, minimized the Belvedere name, emphasizing the GTX on their upscale muscle car.

Sitting atop the Road Runner in the Belvedere model lineup, the GTX rocked the massive 440 as standard, or, optionally, the staggering 426 hemi, distancing it from its coyote-vexed brother which was graced by the Super Commando 383 as standard fitment. The GTX was also offered in both a pillar-less coupe, and as a convertible version for 1968, while Road Runners had to keep their tops on.

That 2G 426 Hemi is topped by a pair of Carter AFB 4 bbls and that was good for a factory claimed 425 bhp, which will move this 3,470 lb car with alacrity - contemporary tests pegged the 0 to 60 time at around 6.2 seconds, and quarters in the low 14s. Part of the reason for that is the factory 4-speed backing up that elephant.

Now, the 426 in this GTX is not the one it had when it left home. And despite the apparently impeccable restoration and presentation, this bright blue GTX - which is being offered for the not insubstantial sum of $119,900 - is not a numbers-matching car. Not only that, but the seller claims that the car could only muster 2nd in class at the Mopar Nationals. Hopefully they have been in contact with the judges of that event, and have taken to rectifying the egregious issues which denied it the first-place crown.

Other than those issues, this is a very nicely done, and sufficiently out of the mainstream (but not too far out so as to be weird) muscle car, which have been seeing both stratospheric highs on the action block, as well as investment-crushing disinterest of late.

So what do you think, you Mopar-maniacs? Is $119,900 a NIce Price for a muscle car from a broken home? Or, is that six-figure price so Crack Pipe, you'd leave this one at the Orphanage?

You decide!

eBay, or go here if the ad disappears.

Help me out with NPOCP. Click here to send a me a tip.

We haven't seen many Belvederes down on the Alameda street so far. In fact, this '68 wagon has been the sum total, prior to today. Given that Belvedere Adrian is an Alameda native, that just seems wrong.

I found this car parked in the same spot in which I photographed the 1975 Toyota Celica last summer. I hadn't seen the Belvedere around town before, so I thought that it might be just a one-time visitor. Since I took these photos, however, I've seen this car several times; not only is it a very straight and original V8 Belvedere, it seems to be doing daily-driver duty.

Jack Astro, creator of the Project Car Hell Song, was behind the wheel heading into Turn 1, everything looking fine... right up until the moment when a correct-overcorrect-oh shit sequence took place and the car flipped over. It ended up on its wheels and nobody was hurt, so we say that's a happy ending.

Not so happy for Mr. Astro, however, who now proclaims that my off-the-edge-of-the-map excursion was nothing: "Your shame is weak!" But hey, the Belvedere is running fine and will be driving the 120 miles back to the Bay Area tonight (sadly, the "Why Am I On My Roof" LeMons rule means no more racing for the Chickens this weekend), at which point it will resume being the daily driver for one of the team members. Now that's a race car!

In other news, our favorite Chevy Cavalier race car also flipped over (wheel bearing failure, followed by wheel leaving car, followed by upside-down adventures). Again, we're pleased to report that nobody was hurt.

And... the People's Curse just happened. The victim: The Blues Brothers Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, which aroused much skepticism about its budgetary honesty (the manual transmission sure didn't make the right impression, and the fact that it was waaaaaay faster than the other Crown Vics on the track contributed). There was some talk in the pits about aggressive driving on their part, but Chief Perp Lamm disagreed and told the executioner to take it easy on the Crown Vic... which is now back in driving condition after having the doors, trunk, and hood torn off. I'll get a People's Curse gallery up as soon as possible, but for now I need to get back to spotting for teammate WhatWouldJesseDo, who's out there in the V8olvo.

Since there's a trophy for Most Dangerous Banned F1 Technology, the Chickens decided they'd take a shot at it. While their first choice was a Chapparal-style Sucker Fan, budgetary constraints nixed that option pretty fast. Instead, they opted for the Hillbilly Wing, an ironing board that flips up to provide crucial downforce under acceleration, deceleration, turns, bumps, or steep grades. The video above tells the whole story.



They've also added some nice audio features. Yes, that's the Super Chicken "Charge" call!

Just to make things more interesting, the folks at Foster Farms Chicken got wind of the Faster Farms crew and contacted them. Rather than get all corporate and crush them for copyright infringement, etc., Foster Farms took the high road and issued an official press release:

CALLING ALL RACE FANS: ‘FASTER IMPOSTERS’ TO RACE AT THUNDERHILL IN WILLOWS IN 24 HOURS OF LeMONS
WILLOWS, Calif. –
The “Faster Imposters” – a take off on Foster Farms’ popular advertising characters – are gearing up for the race of their lives midnight to midnight December 27 - 28 at the Thunderhill Raceway Park, in Willows, Calif. It’s 24 Hours of LeMons, an all night race of 100 broken down, beat up cars just trying to cross the finish line.
Faster Imposter Race Captain Adrian Smith and his teammate are such fans of Foster Farms’ Foster Imposter television commercials that they’ve put together nearly an exact replica of the 1960s Plymouth Belvedere featured in the ads and plan to race dressed in Imposter knockoff chicken costumes. Of course, they’ll bring the stuffed Foster Imposters along for moral support. The Foster Imposters are the junk food eating chickens that can never quite make the grade to be fresh, natural Foster Farms chickens. The Faster Imposters are also trying make the grade.
“It's very important that the car lasts long enough for all of us to have a chance to drive some of the roughly 15 hours,” said Smith. “Getting this wonderful beat-up old Belvedere up to snuff has been a challenge. Just finishing would be honorable in an old 60's Plymouth,” comments Smith, who has a soft spot for the old Belvedere cars and has collected and rebuilt several.
Given that, their race strategy is:

- Save the car, don't drive it beyond its means
- Pit safely and effectively
- Have as much fun as humanly possible!

Be sure to check in this weekend for 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse Freeze-A-Palooza coverage; I'll be pretty busy with judging and racing, but I'm sure I'll manage to sneak in some live updates here and there. I got to lovely Willows last night and found Belvedere Adrian at his teammate Al's shop (that's Al as in Al's Rapid Transit, a name that should be familiar to West Coast Mopar guys), conveniently located just a couple miles from the track. He was busy gluing stale pizza and donuts to the race car's dashboard, in order to replicate the Foster Imposters' ride as accurately as possible:

That's right, the Foster Farms Chickens, aka The Foster Imposters! A pair of Arkansas factory-farmed chickens flee their trailer park and head to California, so that they might be killed, eviscerated, and served up as meals by Foster Farms. Their vehicle? A beater '67 Belvedere! Thus was the idea for Team Faster Farms Chickens born.


Since Adrian had a free '66 Belvedere already, all that was needed to convert it to an Impostersmobile was the application of '67 headlight bezels and trashed grille...



…and some light blue house paint. The Imposters' Belvedere has one yellow door, so the race car's original color was retained there. Now let's watch another ad!




These chickens are serious about winning! You might recognize this bird as Jack Astro, creator of the Project Car Hell Song. Be sure to check out the Team Faster Farms Chickens' website when you're done here!


With 318 screamin' cubic inches under the hood and a car that's already survived a 60 MPH wreck into a row of parked cars, the Chickens fear nothing!


They found a B&M floor shifter on a junked Ranger at Pick Your Part, and the glass doorknob adds a touch of class.


The chicken suits weren't quite up to Foster Imposters specs, so Adrian had to make a few adjustments. First, a little feather trimming.


Then a coat of Farm Equipment yellow paint on the legs.


It's a gas saver!

The old wiring really is scary- the kind of thing you often find in a 42-year-old Detroit beater you got for free. How about heavy-gauge wire splices made from ring terminals held together with a screw and "insulated" with crumbling electrical tape? The horror!


But new wiring stuff costs money, and these poor bastards have the misfortune of frequent garage visits by a LeMons judge, who is sure to jack up his bribe requirements to stratospheric heights if he catches them blowing past the 500-buck spending limit. Mr. Astro is an electrician, however, specializing in wiring up office buildings, shopping malls, etc, so he has the solution…


DIN Rail and terminal blocks! He's working on wiring a hospital now, and some new equipment came with DIN rail terminal blocks in European-spec colors (you can't use the wrong colors- somebody might get zapped) so into the trash bin they went. Hooray for scavenging your race car parts from a dumpster!


This stuff is great- you can just keep stacking blocks on the rail, with as many inputs as you like and there's no problem adding new stuff- attaching wires is just a matter of poking a screwdriver into a slot and inserting the wire in the correct hole. The green blocks are grounded to the rail, which is screwed to the car's body. Want to add a police siren and an ooogah horn? Easy!


First, the guys who like to think things out before they start cutting holes in the car- that seems kinda weird, but whatever- make a wiring plan.


A couple of rails mounted behind the glovebox door will provide power to instrument panel items. Note the street-sign mounting plate.


The Black Metal V8olvo team donated our car's unneeded fusebox to the Belvederians (one of our team members works for a transit bus manufacturer, so we have a nice free bus-grade circuit-breaker box in our car), and the Volvo 240 unit turns out to be an excellent universal fusebox (as long as you don't mind those funky European ceramic fuses). Here it is mounted on the dash; the wiring will go through that split-loom-edged defroster vent.

Under the hood, blocks on either side of the engine compartment. That blue conduit stuff is Blue ENT, commonly known as "Smurf Tube" for obvious reasons. It's tough and easy to work with, and plenty of short pieces get tossed in the dumpster- aka Race Car Parts Bin- at job sites. They're replacing the old electrical system bit by bit, so you can see some of the scary old stuff side-by-side with the safe new stuff in this shot.


For brake lights, fuel gauge sender, and weird trunk-mounted secret weapons, there's another wiring outpost mounted in the rear of the car. Note the handy wiring diagram drawn in Sharpie on the sheet metal.

Davis, who retired as senior vice president for parts and service at DaimlerChrysler in 2001, passed his driving test in his parent’s ’54 Belvedere and hasn’t looked back, becoming the world’s foremost collector of those models somewhere along the way. In additions to his Belvederes and assorted other cars, Davis owns the very last Plymouth to roll off the production line, a silver Neon, displayed with care alongside a replica of his father’s 1950s Esso filling station. [via NYTimes.com]
Photography credit: Gary Bogdon for The New York Times

These cars had water-cooled, side-valve, inline-four engines displacing a mighty 569 cubic centimeters. Of course, it was mounted in the front of the car, driving the rear wheels, like a proper car, which left the rear open for Fiat to make a wagon version like this, for hauling whatever you could manage to squeeze in the back. It's somewhat hard to really comprehend just how small the car is from these photos, as the Fiat has all the proportions of a much larger vehicle, but it's safe to say that its dimensions are about half that of a modern mid-size SUV. It makes you wonder how well a car like this might sell if it were on the market today.

Some of you may have recognized Black Metal V8olvo pit crew hero and Audi Fox wagon owner Shawn in the video above; he ended up getting shanghaied by the Thunderhill-bound Burning Brain Belvedere team, for whom he plans to show the Size Matters Fury guys a thing or two about which Plymouth rules the racetrack.

It was clear that Belvedere Adrian's '66 Plymouth Belvedere would need to have the front brakes upgraded from drums to discs if the team wanted to race at the 24 Hours of LeMons race in December. So, courtesy of a '73-76 Mopar A-body donor car, the team had the parts needed to do the swap. On Sunday night, after completion of the brake job (and some more straightening of bent suspension components) the ritual Burning Gasoline-Soaked Cardboard Helmet Of LeMons was placed on the youngest team member's head and ignited. Next step: swapping 318s between the race car and the Sawzall Convertible Belvedere.

Team Belvedere has tons of heart but ounces of cash, you see (look, they found a new fender!), so here's your chance to help them out! For $6 (the Mopar-themed price of $4.40 plus $1.60 shipping) he'll send you one, and for $10 you get a pair. These are 11" x 3" stickers, suitable for placement on any bumper already sporting a Disc Brakes Are For Cowards sticker and a Driveshaft Through The Skull Warning Label. To order, send an email to BentBelvedere@gmail.com.

Prior to coming into Adrian's possession, this car had had an unfortunate incident involving high speed, drum brakes, and a row of parked cars. The engine mounts were torn out and the right fender was crushed all the way back to the firewall (note the headlight trim located about an inch from the door). Here's a couple of members of Team Belvedere (including Jack Astro of Project Car Hell Song fame) taking a break from their labors.


That Poly 318 engine is quite wide, but it's a bulletproof powerplant, ideally suited to the rigors of a punishing race such as 24 Hours of LeMons.


Naturally, I had to break out the Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt stencils to help decorate the car.


This car gets the official Murilee Martin Seal of Approval™! Of course, that doesn't mean the mighty Team Jalopnik car won't leave it far, far behind when the race begins... after we utterly humiliate Team Autoblog's '87 Hyundai Excel, that is. You listening, Autoblog? You think that Excel (or is it a Daewoo Lanos?) can take our Cordoba... I mean, Achieva... I mean, whatever we end up building?


Finding a fender that will fit is no big deal- after all, the fender off any similarly-sized car will do fine. However, in order to get the Belvedere in true racing trim, it's going to need some brake and suspension upgrades. As we saw a while back, 1973-76 Valiant or Dart disc brakes bolt onto a Belvedere... but Adrian's having a helluva time finding a donor car in the junkyard. Any readers out there with a line on such brake parts (or fat swaybars) at a reasonable price, please contact me (murilee at jalopnik dot com) and I'll relay your contact info to Adrian.
And now let's hear what a 318 with Cherry Bombs sounds like as it cruises Alameda!

The Belvedere nameplate entered the 60s affixed to full-sized Plymouths, but by '68 it was used on the midsized B-body line. Naturally, this means you can build a Road Runner station wagon without too much trouble.


Even though Chrysler offered bigger wagons, this one clearly has plenty of room for a whole bunch of un-safety-belted kids in the back.


The interior is a bit worn, but it looks nicely original. It wouldn't take much to get it back to showroom condition, if that's how you swing.


Now that's a good-looking grille design! If Plymouth hadn't been 86'd by those mean old German bean counters, we might have seen a retro-ized version of this grille by now. Well, probably not.


For some reason, dogdish hubcaps look best on old Mopars. Why is that?

Don't forget to vote in the AMC-versus-Chrysler wagon poll after the gallery!

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

So all is not lost with the rust-plagued Tulsa Time Capsule Belvedere! Turns out the gasoline samples in the trunk (stored there in case gasoline couldn't be found in 2007) are of great interest to modern-day petroleum geochemists, who are always on the lookout for "age-related" samples for testing. – Murilee Martin

Gas Buried With Plymouth to Be Tested [Forbes]

Related:
Tulsa Belvedere Winner Died In 1979; Relatives To Get Car; Winner of Buried Tulsa Belvedere Announced!; The Tulsa, Oklahoma Plymouth? Not OK; Oklahoma Plymouth, OK?; Damn! Buried Tulsa Belvedere's Tomb Full Of Water! [internal]

Miss Belvedere, you have a winner: But Raymond Humbertson died in 1979 [Tulsa World]

Related:
Winner of Buried Tulsa Belvedere Announced!; The Tulsa, Oklahoma Plymouth? Not OK; Oklahoma Plymouth, OK?; Damn! Buried Tulsa Belvedere's Tomb Full Of Water! [internal]