In early 1964 Dodge went public with the Charger name for its Dream Show concept car. It quickly turned into a complete series of vehicles. Dodge had hit a home run when it presented the Charger to its first enthusiastic audiences.
The Dodge Boys had seen the popularity that the General Motors Pontiac GTOs were having and had the same plan to produce affordable, completely packaged, high-performance cars. Dodge saw this as a clear message that just having the fastest cars on the road was no guarantee of sales results. Dodge product planners knew that if they couldn’t be first in sales they had to be best quality. So began the program of a new breed of muscle car for the U.S. and import youth market. This ‘64 Charger was the first of a long line of famous ‘60s,‘70s and today’s version of a muscle car for Chrysler. But first they would need to improve their image. They had all the right hardware, the 727 Automatic Transmission were known as bulletproof. The quickest way for Dodge to start winning in the muscle car war would be the ‘64 Charger, one of the most aggressive and muscular looking of show cars. You’d almost expect sweat to ooze from its sheet metal, and saliva to drip from its extra wide mouth. Its hand operated open headers… trumpeting like a Hemi elephant. It definitely had a grab-you-by-the-throat persona. All this to show race fans that the Dodge Boys were planning on taking over.
According to the original press release, the Charger was “inspired by the outstanding competition records set by Dodge production cars in recent years”. The Charger started out as a 119-inch wheelbase B-body ‘64 Polara. This was no fantasy car, instead it had a real connection to the cars in the dealership showrooms. This would show the commitment to serious muscle car competition, in the tradition of Dodge’s proud successes on all types of race circuits.
The first Charger had several design features that were very original for the time, all aimed at attracting the baby boom generation. Both the front and rear bumpers were replaced not by the available aluminum race parts from Chrysler, but by smooth metal and small vertical bump strips. Two of the four headlights normally on a factory-issue Polara were also eliminated. The extra wide hood scoop had the extra cool “426” badge on the front edge to suggest what might be underneath that hood. The actual engines under the hoods were the respectable 305 bhp, 383-cid engine from its Polara sister ship. So the hood of the car remained closed for the show circuit and it didn’t effect the great interest of the show goers. The ’64 never failed to attract large crowds and impress performance enthusiasts. Forty years later the mighty ’64 Race Hemi engine would finally be installed in the last known surviving ’64 Charger. Mr. Joeseph Bortz, the new owner, wanted a Hemispherical engine in the renovation project Charger, but he didn’t want just any Hemi. He could have had a brand new crate motor from Mopar Performance installed, instead he wanted one of just 15 original Race Hemis made under the hood. Just as the excutive brass at Chrsyler Corp. had origanally planned on.
In 1964 other changes made to the first Charger were done in a number of ways; the seating was unlike any production Dodge, using a special bucket design that was both luxurious and sporty. Custom “superfoam padding” was covered by pleated charcoal grey leather. Black carpeting covered the floorboards . The advertised engine was the very rare and imposing 426 cid Hemispherical. This was a completely different design from the corporation’s 1950s vintage Hemi-head racers, and it continued on in its winning tradition. But there were some early problems with the new cylinder walls being too thin. This delayed their delivery to the race Nascar teams, when they did start arriving; they were in very great demand. Overall Chrysler Corps latest developments in the high-performance engine designs helped them dominate in the horsepower race of the big three U.S. auto makers
Dodge top management had planned from the beginning to put a 426 Hemi in the ‘64 Charger concept show car, but the availability was becoming a major problem. Back at Chrysler headquarters, as far as the race hemi was concerned, job one for the engineers was equipping the drivers for its debut at the Daytona 500 stock car race in February ’64. As it turned out every time one of these hand-built engines were set to be installed in the ’64 Charger it ended up being shipped to the corporate sponsored race teams in need of an engine for that weeks competition. The 1964 concept show car circuit was starting soon so the use of the mighty Hemi would have to be skipped… for the time being. Eventually one of these super rare cars was identified, pursued, purchased and restored to original specifications in this the new millennium.
After the show tour season was over, one of the eight experimentals was sold to a prominent and influential Chrysler dealer from Hershey Pennsylvania. For some strange legal liability reason, it was normal procedure for Chrysler to crush experimental and one-off machines like this. But luckily this dealer interceded and rescued this historic car and mostly forgotten origin of modern Dodge Chargers. This car was eventually inherited the dealers son . He was the first to perform a series of bad alterations to this experimental car that was by that time mostly forgotten by automotive world.
In 1999 a Chicago restauranteur and collector of prototype dream cars Joe Bortz bought the long lost ’64 Dodge Charger after 12 years of trying to negotiate a deal with its owner. Luckily this grandfather of all the Chargers was stored indoors and did not have many rust issues, but it would need a major overhaul and restoration. It had been repainted a long faded white with Ram Charger red stripes. The great looking charcoal grey leather was replaced with white squares and red piping. In place of the black carpeting was a 1970’s bright red shag rug. If that wasn’t tasteless enough, there was even red carpeting around the gauges on the instrument panel. A restoration expert began the project in Chicago. He was able to replicate interior and exterior pieces that were researched using original photographs from the brochure, and built with much custom machine work. The Chargers new for 64 headlights and wide mouth grill had been tampered with, and rectangular headlights had been jammed in. The reproduction of parts was the most difficult part of this restoration. The finishes to the chrome and Alcoa Aluminum were brought back to their original finishes. The interior received new leather including the unique combination roll bar/headrest pads. Many of the rare parts needed were located through a great list of automotive contacts. There would not be enough ’64 426-cu-in. parts in existence to rebuild this kind of engine again. So now, at long last, the original plan for the Hemi elephant race engine being in the ’64 Charger was completed with its connection to the bullet proof 727 Torqueflite automatic with the center console shifter, not the cool push button shifter in its final year in Chrysler cars. The correct paint color also needed a bit of detective work. Samples from an area where the original paint was still visible, a color spectrometer was able to digitally reproduce the deep-burgundy red hue. A set of new original stock Halibrand magnesium wheels was an amazing lucky find. They were mounted with the Goodyear Wingfoot bias-ply whitewall tire of the time.
Some day this forgotten and last ’64 Dodge Charger might make a run or two down the drag strip again to see the 11-second elapsed time. The big concern with a rarity like this is that racing stress could possibility hurt the engine or even twist the body enough to crack the paint. Maybe after a few more years of temptation it will race at an automotive event near you, before the grand dad of the General Lee and todays awesome Chargers takes a trip for at tune up in the mechanics shop!
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Images of the 1964 Dodge Charger
Published and Copyrighted 1964 by the Dodge Division of the Chrysler Motors Corporation
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