[James L Miller]

First, I'd like to know who at IHRA will approve fiberglass replacements for aluminum body panels? I e-mailed IHRA about five years ago and was told it was NOT legal. I wish it was legal, fiberglass nose is what $2k? Aluminum nose, $20k? I'd be happy with just a glass hood and scoop and run steel fenders. They could make the fiberglass need to weigh as much as the aluminum to make things fair.

The steel and aluminum front end rules have changed back and forth over the last several years. For a while, the only legal 1964 Belvedere HT Hemi car was with aluminum (Steel was legal, but had to run at the aluminum weight). Then they added the single 4bbl (Circle Track) combo that had the aluminum front end (steel was legal and had to run at the aluminum weight). Somewhere along here they changed the 250 maximum added weight, so it allowed the crossram Race Hemi to run in something other than SS/B(A). Then NHRA came up the stupid idea that all Race Hemi cars had to have the aluminum to be LEGAL. Steel front end parts were ILLEGAL. Fortunately someone at Chrysler worked with NHRA to allow steel to be LEGAL again.

The current Classification Guide lists the following notes for MW and Hemi cars in 1964-5:

426 Race Hemi cars with 2 carbs were available from factory with either steel or aluminum components (fenders, hood & scoop) depending on plant supply at the time motor installed in car.

426 Race Hemi cars with 1 carb were available from factory with steel components (fenders & hood) with the addition of steel or aluminum hood scoop..

426 Wedge Al component car required to have aluminum hood with hood scoop, & both aluminum front fenders to be classified as aluminum component car

I doubt that Chrysler originally built the cars with all thread and wing nuts to hold the hoods on, but I've seen the photos of cars with them from "back-in-the-day".