In 1965, Chrysler set the drag racing world on its ear with a handful of radically modified, hemi-powered hardtops. One remaining example, Dick Landy’s ’65 Coronet, is headed to the Mecum auction block in January. 

Nailing down the precise point in drag racing history where the funny car was invented is a futile exercise, rather like peeling the proverbial onion. But we can say for sure that Chrysler’s 1965 factory drag cars, with their strange looks and wild on-track antics, helped to popularize the term. One rare surviving example, the ’65 Dodge Coronet campaigned by California racer “Dandy” Dick Landy,” will go under the hammer at the annual Mecum Auctions Kissimmee sale on January 5-14, providing us with a perfect opportunity for a closer look.

This profile view of Landy’s Dodge, above, nicely illustrates what the Mopar altered-wheelbase racers were all about. The company’s race engineering team, led by Tom Hoover, had often tinkered with moving the axles in relation to the body and chassis to improve weight distribution and traction. For 1965, the crew took the technique to its logical extreme, moving the front wheels forward by 10 inches and the rear wheels ahead  another 15 inches. First, this shortened the wheelbase from 115 to 110 inches, and next, it shifted a significant portion of the car’s weight to the rear, greatly improving traction. Weight distribution was further improved through the use of lightweight front fenders, bumper, and doors.

Of course, NHRA, drag racing’s chief sanctioning body, took one look at the setup and banned it for competition in its A/Factory Experimental category. In NHRA’s view, Chrysler had lost the plot in its approach to “factory stock” racing. NHRA’s rival group at the time, AHRA, found a home for the Mopars in the Ultra Stock class, but where the altered-wheelbase Mopars really made an impact was in unsanctioned match racing, where the rules were few and the competition was fierce. It’s said that over the 1965 season, Landy compiled a record of 39 wins and just one loss in run-what-you-brung match-ups.

Chrysler had the first 11 cars, six Dodge Coronet hardtops and five Plymouth Satellites, modified by Amblewagon, a Detroit-area ambulance fitter, and several more were created in-house by the automaker’s factory race teams. Landy’s is one of the original 11. Naturally, the success of these cars generated the countless duplicates built by enterprising racers in local shops across the country, helping to spark the funny car movement. When the ’65 season began, performance was in the 10-second range but by mid-year, Landy and the other top dogs were dipping deep into the nine-second zone at over 150 mph.

The factory altered-wheelbase cars used the same lightweight interior (above) as the company’s A-990 Super Stock cars, essentially, with bare door panels, brown carpeting, and a single bucket seat borrowed from a Dodge A100 van. Just to the left of the primitive (by modern standards, anyway) roll cage, we can see the dash-mounted push-button shifter used by Landy to manage the race-modified Torqueflite automatic transmission.

Naturally, the Dodge’s engine compartment, below, is dominated by a Chrysler Race Hemi, sporting 426 cubic inches and capable of 600 horsepower and more in the hands of talented tuners including Landy. As the ’65 match-racing season escalated, racers soon began experimenting with methanol and nitromethane fuels, and Chrysler offered the Hilborn fuel-injection system as shown here, complete with Mopar part numbers. Mecum has not provided a pre-auction estimate for the Dodge racer, but as one of the most original factory altered-wheelbase Mopars in existence, the car is sure to bring a price well into the six-digit range.

Photos courtesy of Mecum Auctions.