Tom Hoover – Ramcharger & Father of the Hemi – Part 2

At the very beginning the Ramchargers worked on their own personal cars, (if you would like more information on this, see my post from 2014/10/27 “The Story Of The Ramchargers”) they then moved on to project cars, the first being “High and Mighty” a 1949 Plymouth Business Coupe, that can be seen in my photographs at the Columbus Ohio, Mopar Nationals. To quote Tom Hoover: “The first engine for the car was put together by myself and Danny Mancini. It was 354 Dodge truck engine, which had dropped (broke) an exhaust valve, a sodium-cooled exhaust valve. The only money we spent on it, aside from gas and so forth, which we could liberate from Chrysler, was a set of eight pistons, and we had a camshaft custom made for it.”

In 1960, these Dodge Boys had a record holding season with Tom himself behind the wheel of a custom Dodge Polara. After seeing the results of this great season, the executives over at Chrysler headquarters decided it was time to fully commit to racing support in 1961. And so began the great racing performance years for Chrysler and their Ramchargers, those years that gave the public so many Detroit Super Stock collectable cars that would continue on from ’61 to the early ’70s. Then, due to many reasons, including raised insurance rates, and the Mid East Oil Crisis began what many others and I call “the Detroit Dark Ages”.

But way back at the starting line, Detroit’s Race credo was “Race on Sunday and Sell on Monday”. Their goal was to create a much more appealing line of cars for the fast growing younger market. This was a subject that was brought to the attention of newly appointed Chrysler president Mr. Lynn Townsend by his two teenage sons. I’d like to send out a great big thank you to those three, because this led directly to the Corporate supply of performance parts, including those big block engines from Chrysler that were bolted into the Dodge Polara. That car made it all the way to the 1961 US Nationals semi-finals, and then almost blowing it, when a synchronizer in the three-speed manual transmission broke. But being Ramchargers, they were able to fix the problem and won 1st Place on that Race on Monday and then Sold on Tuesday!

Soon after… Tom Hoover was appointed Chrysler Race Program Coordinator for the Engineering division. The Ramchargers first set out to build a drag racing performance package starting with the Max Wedge engine in October ’61. Hoover’s responsibility as Master Engineer was to test different options on the Dynometer for the big block “B engines”. They decided to put four-barrel carburetors, bigger valves, and a Ram intake manifold on their Race Machine. This new set-up was called the Cross-Ram Manifold Wedge, with those extra long runners (pipes). To gain length, a carburetor on the other side of the engine, fed each cylinder bank with the intakes crossing in the middle, to create a strong “Ram Air” or Supercharging effect. Naturally, it was called the famous “Cross Ram Manifold”. The mid-size model cars sold in the spring of ’62 were an immediate success, and a popular favorite.

The Wedge engines were successful but… the competition from Ford and GM was coming again, so Tom Hoover and Dan Moore decided in 1963 to build a better “mouse trap”. So they started with a bigger engine block and bolted on hemispherical heads, similar to those used on Chrysler’s first V-8’s. This was when Tom Hoover’s name as the “The Father of the Hemi” really began with the awesome 426 Hemi monster engine. The “Race Hemi” engine version won the first NASCAR race of the season in the very dramatic 1964 Daytona 500. The driver of that Plymouth was none other than “The King” Richard Petty at the wheel of that #43 Petty Blue racecar. And these new 426 Hemis dominated the National Hot Rod Association and the American Hot Rod Association race circuits as well. Tom Hoover: “When we got the green light to go ahead and adapt the Hemi heads to the “big block B engine”, we realize that one day it would be something revered, that it would be something everyone would look back on as something very special indeed…”

Wiser words were never spoken.

There’s more to come.  Like what you see and want more? Click here for my post Tom Hoover – Ramcharger & Father of the Hemi — Part 1. Enjoy!

– HKK Productions

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More of My Images of the Ramchargers to come, check back soon!

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Images of The Dodge Polara 500
Article entitled “Dodge Polara 500” A large dose of quality, performance makes this car hard to beat – Motor Trend Road Test
Copyrighted 1964 by Motor Trend Magazine, Published by Petersen Publishing Company, Los Angeles, California, February, 1964.

Images of The Ramchargers
Copyrighted 2015 by HKK Productions Inc

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