Slide-Ways!

BREATHE THE LEAST BIT ON THE THROTTLE OF THIS BLOWN HEMI-POWERED DART AND IT’S SIDEWAYS—AND THAT’S OK WITH BOB WELLING.

- Geoff Stunkard

You have to give the young guys of Bob Welling’s generation a lot of credit. While Detroit unleashed muscle on America, he was among the tens of thousands of guys in Vietnam as a U.S Marine. The honor they deserved took decades to become evident thanks in part to those who wouldn’t serve back then, but today real Americans honor that great sacrifice. Before he headed over for his service, a trip to the newly opened Palm Beach International Raceway in southern Florida had sealed his love for power.

“The track had opened in 1965 and we went,” he recalls now. “Right away, I was awestruck at how dominant the Hemi engine was. Now I was still a Chevy guy at heart, so as soon as I got back from Vietnam, I bought a ’66 SS396 Chevelle, but within six months I had traded that in on a ’69 383ci Road Runner. I was actually looking to replace the Chevelle from those days when the Dart came up in 2014.”

As many know, the Dodge Dart’s most vicious legacy came in 1968, when Tom Hoover and his crew at Chrysler Engineering launched their own all-out land invasion. The largest street engine available at the 1968 introduction came in the GTS, a 383 model. Later that same model year, Norm Krause had a short batch built with 440 power, but the Hemi-powered examples would be the trendsetters.