Some may quibble with the title, but with the exception of a Corvette with the right engine and gears, the 1966 Plymouth Satellite and Dodge Coronet with the new 426 street hemi were the first legitimate 13 second street machines. Not that every magazine was able to break that then-mythical 1/4 mile barrier, but some did, including Car and Driver, which not uncommonly wrung out the the fastest times. No, we’re not talking about blatant ringers like the ’64 GTO that magically did the 1/4 mile in 13.1 sec. @115 mph, thanks to a hopped up SD421. There’s no reason to believe that this hemi Satellite was anything other than genuinely stock, and its 13.8 sec. @104 mph 1/4 mile time and speed were equaled by some other street hemi tests during their brief time on earth.
It was simply the most powerful production engine built at the time thanks to the giant valves and big ports afforded by the hemispherical combustion chambers. Yet it was utterly civilized and could chug off from a start in third gear. But once all eight venturis were open…
The irony was that the hemi came in such a plain brown wrapper. C/D called the Satellite coupe “drab”, both inside and out. Well, compared the curvaceous competition, like the 1966 GM A Bodies, best exemplified by the Pontiac GTO, and also the new Fairlane and Comet, “drab” is hardly unfair. Chrysler’s formal slab-sided rectilinear styling worked well on the big 1965 C-Body cars, but it was a dubious choice to apply that to the restyled ’66 B-Bodies. It’s almost Studebakeresque in its retro-boxiness.
Adding insult to injury, the Satellite had numerous quality flaws: the passenger door never closed properly, the console glove box popped open and had to be taped down, the windows didn’t close properly creating loud whistles at speed, and more disconcertingly, the steering box was not bolted down properly, which had a very negative effect on the steering until remedied. So much for it being a ringer.
But all is forgiven when the hemi is asked to do its thing. “It offers the best combination of brute performance and tractable street manners we’ve ever driven”. Its immediate throttle response and willingness to rev reminded C/D of their all-time favorite engine, the Chevrolet 327. Except in this case it’s substantially larger and of course more powerful. “It just doesn’t feel like a seven-liter engine—except for the fact that you’re suddenly doing 120 and you don’t know how you got there.”
The hemi’s flexibility and power made shifting in normal driving almost superfluous. Around town, C/D never used all four gears; either first and third, or second and fourth. The four gears were just superfluous in normal driving, and C/D recommended the Torque-Flite automatic, even for the drag strip. It was hard to beat a TF hemi on the strip; only the pros who speed-shifted could eek out a slight margin, but for Average Joe, the TF was the way to go.
It took C/D a while to work out the best technique at the strip, but they were quite happy with the results once they did. The firm suspension package that came with the hemi also helped out, especially Chryslers method of mounting the rear axle way forward on the rear leaf springs. It almost worked like a traction bar, but the downside was bad manners from the rear axle under heavy braking. Speaking of, front discs were optional, but the tester had the optional “metallic lined drums” (should that be metallic brake linings?) worked quite well, once warmed up.
The suspension included some of the best factory shocks C/D had yet encountered, and made for both good handling (although C/D said almost nothing about that subject) and kept the car from bottoming on big dips even when fully loaded.
The interior was “right out of any Plymouth taxi” and the tach, on the front end of the console “which is about as useful as wearing your wristwatch on your ankle”. And it only read to 6000 rpm and there was no redline.
Another reason to pick the TF: the clutch was exceptionally heavy. But all in all, C/D was unequivocal in calling the hemi Satellite “the best machine of the entire family of hot intermediate-sized American cars. Mechanically, it was superb. But if it was to really compete against the hot selling GTO, the Satellite was going to need a major bit of sprucing up, inside and out.
Related CC reading:
Vintage Car & Driver Review: 1964 Pontiac GTO – The Ultimate Ringer
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1964 Pontiac GTO – “Honest In Performance”?
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1962 Dodge Dart 413 – The Max Wedge Legend Started Here
A really nice clean and crisp design, the absolute opposite of the Bentley Tatra has posted on the site.
The modern equivalent of the 7.75×14 tires on the test car would be 205/75R14 (or thereabouts). By comparison, that’s approximately the same tire size you get on a 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage with 85HP. Wow.
I remember at the time about the shoddy assembly of Mopar products. One such was a door handle coming off when pulling a door to open.
Regarding styling….I remember thinking at the time they were behind on styling, but now it seems timeless in its solid, clean design.
It benefits from the mist of history and the good works of King Richard of the Borough of Randleman. But it’s even boring by comparison to the Coronet. Chrysler didn’t repeat that mistake in the 1968 refresh.
A friend of mine has a very similar Satellite, though it’s ZZ1 Spice Gold Poly with a 727 Torqueflite. I would say that C&D road test evaluation is spot-on. It must have been a phenomenal car for 1966. Certainly not as fashy as a contemporary Pontiac for example, but I like the Elwood Engle look. The little Plymouth hood ornament says ‘426’ on the back, as if the driver needs to be reminded. Nice touch.
The hood ornament call-out was changed the next year from vertical to smaller, horizontal lettering at the base of the Plymouth ‘rocket’. It was just a tad more subtle.
I miss those late sixties’ low-profile ways of engine identication. Things changed radically by 1970 when the call-outs typically became enormous, screaming decals rather than the earlier, tasteful, small metal emblems.
As to the car, itself, I believe it was Motor Trend that took a similar 1967 GTX Hemi (although I think it had a TorqueFlite) on a cross-country tour. IIRC, they didn’t encounter any major problems, which must have been something of a surprise with such a race-oriented engine.
Finally, the quiet Hemi exhaust was accomplished by using the large mufflers from the Imperial, along with a crossover pipe. It was a great, free-flowing (but quiet) system and, again, quite different from the later change to loud, factory exhaust systems.
GM seemed to be the leader in such systems, with a rare, optional, chambered exhaust for early Z/28 Camaros which didn’t have mufflers, at all, or the short-lived Vacuum Operated Exhaust (VOE) on the 1970 GTO that had a switch on the dash to open flaps in the mufflers, essentially making them straight thru.
This is it in a nutshell,subtle call outs,quiet exhaust, no funky stickers. For me this is why early and mid sixties Mopar performance cars are so appealing. A 63 Savoy or 330 with a max wedge would,for me be the ultimate but as the article points out the street hemi is more friendly for day to day driving.
The Max Wedge was a little rough for the street, even moreso than the Hemi. It’s interesting how the Chrysler engineers could detune a race engine to run better on the street than modifying an existing production engine with some rather extreme mods (not the least of which would be some of those wild compression ratios).
The last CC link at the end of the article is for a repost test of a 1962 Dart with a 385hp 413. That one seems a lot closer to C&D’s ’66 Satellite Hemi than one of the Max Wedge cars.
Chrysler generally regretted making the Max Wedge an open option. The 1965 365hp 426 wedge was a much better choice for a Coronet or Belvedere. Before 1966, the Race Hemi wasn’t an open option.
Yeah, enthusiasts bemoan when manufacturers limited the number and availabiity of these technically street-legal, super-stock specials. But the fact is, those thing weren’t suited for anything other than quarter mile runs, let alone warranty issues (although most of them were sold explicitly stating that there was no warranty).
The Max Wedge cars definitely fell into that category.
I drove one! It was the Dodge Coronet with the same driveline. It belonged to a coworker. I remember being in second gear at 80 MPH! It was quite a powerhouse.
The 426 Hemi to engines what Mike Tyson was to boxers. Both brutally efficient.
For a moment, I thought you might have meant that Chrysler Chief Engineer Tom ‘Father of the Hemi’ Hoover went around biting the ears off of GM and Ford engineers.
If it really was stock that’s impressive. Very impressive. All the way from performance to driveability.
But.. and I subscribed to C&D for many years from the early 70s to this century, can you imagine buying a car they’ve used as a test car? Now they weren’t hiding anything, they were proud they always had quicker/faster times than R&T, but while I have been known to, lets say, exercise my cars, those guys admitted, almost bragged about doing starts by slipping their foot off the clutch, and no lift shifts. Again, while I might (ok, do work, at least occasionally) work them a bit, I don’t even think about doing that stuff to my cars.
I do have to give credit to Chrysler though, while a 3.54 diff wasn’t exactly long legs for a 426 engine, a theoretical top speed of 130 is well above most muscle cars from that era which are more like 110. It was built for the drag strip, not the autobahn.
Chrysler would get the message about the “drab” look of their performance models starting with the 1967 cars, with stripes, scoops, quick release fuel fillers, Magnum 500 wheels, GTX badges etc.
Though way behind GM and Fords styling, taken on its own merits, this is a handsome design that has aged well, the test car being “bright red” which I think is the best color for the 66/67 B body cars.
And of course, what a beast of a car.
I’m a Ford guy, but I’d still love a ride in one of these–even as a passenger—and a peek under the hood.
Here’s Chrysler’s writeup of specs for the 426’s many race versions—plus the street version (3 images):
Part two of three:
Part three of three:
The powertrain was doing the bulk of the work, but like the contemporary Alfa Giulia, Engel’s ’66-’67 Plymouth B-Bodies were surprisingly aerodynamic. Richard Petty cleaned up with them in NASCAR, but the swoopier ’68 was an aerodynamic disaster, so bad that Petty switched to Ford and its Torino Talledegas when Chrysler wouldn’t give him a Dodge Daytona in 1969.