1965 Plymouth Satellite

January 2014 Mopar of the Month

Charlie writes: Restoring my 1965 Plymouth Satellite is finally “finished” after seventeen years. The restoration has truly been a labor of love over this very long time for me, despite health issues and having thirty-four surgeries during that time period.

In fact, I started calling my Plymouth “Widow Maker” because I was not sure that I would ever get the restoration finished before I went belly up for good. However, my oldest daughter married about the best paint and body guy you could ever find and together we finally got around to finishing this Mopar at his personal shop at their house.

I restored this Plymouth as a tribute to a good friend who drag raced it for about 15 years in the B Factory Experimental class before I purchased the Mopar from him. Sadly, he passed away from stomach cancer two months before the Plymouth was completed and he never got to see the finished product of all our hard work. He would have been especially tickled when he looked at the rear side windows where I had the original drag strip decals they used to give out reproduced for the six tracks that he used to run on, along with the official NHRA Decal. The glass also has the white Drag Race Class and Time Decals for the best time this car ever turned at a track. However that was with a whole lot stouter big block than I have in the car and that version also had an automatic race-built transmission at that time with a Trans Brake and 4.56 rear gears and slicks.

I guess the Plymouth would be classified now as a “day two restoration,” something like was done all of the time back in the day to personalize your car to your own tastes right after bringing it home from the dealership. The Plymouth now has a 500 plus horsepower 426 wedge engine with dual 625 CFM Carter four barrels, a full max wedge factory header exhaust with side dumps, a 4-speed transmission and a 3.91 SureGrip rear end. The carburetors are topped off with the old football-shaped Mopar dual quad air cleaners that have been chromed and the hood sports the HEMI hood scoop added to accommodate the air cleaners.

The Mopar has an original AM-FM radio with the rear seat speaker.

The Satellite features new traction bars, adjustable pinion snubber, frame connectors, original style reproduction battery, hidden electronic ignition, new old Stewart Warner gauges and console tachometer. The entire drive train has been rebuilt as well.

The Plymouth has BF Goodrich tires front and back, 235x60R15 fronts and 275x60R15 rears, mounted on original Keystone Classic’s —  7 inch fronts and 8 inch rears.

There are enough NOS parts on this Plymouth now to break Fort Knox, but I also have an original 1965 dated 426 Street Wedge engine, original hood, original glove box door, original shifter knob, original 14 inch wheels with 8.25x75D14 inch whitewall bias ply tires, original dual exhaust and the original spinner wheel covers to put this thing back to completely original condition if someone wants to do that in the future.

I sincerely hope you enjoy looking at these pictures. After all of these years of waiting to finally get it finished, I know that I never will. HA! HA! HA!

Contact Charlie:

Thanks Charlie!

You said it well: “a labor of love” restoration and a beautiful result! Of course, as you note, restorations really are never really “finished”, are they?

Gary H.