Pettys Mirada The last Dodge

C Body Bob

Old Man with a Hat
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In 1981 at Daytona Richard attempetd to run a Dodge again. The team put a Mirada body on his existing PE/GM chassis & used his GM engine. Just wanted to see where the car was aero wise. In those days they did a plug check. They would get the car up to speed & haul mail down the back stretch. Push in the clutch & switch off the engine going into turn 3. Coast to a waiting crew member(s) on pit road. Pull the plugs & tune accordingly. Well Richard said the Dodge body was so bad that he had to refire the car to make it to the waiting crew so the decision was made to stay with GM. I have alwasy had my doubts about that. It came down to money. Dodge was not offering any. Maybe a little under the table to woo him back. GM already had their big funded teams & Ford was weak at the time & had two well funded teams. Really think it was more fishing for funds. Push Dodge to get back in or scare GM to ante up. Pontiac soon came calling & likely brought the funds Richard was looking for. Anyway I remember when this happened & was so disapointed. Also Junior Johnsons team did the same thing. Put a Dodge Mirada body on one of their chassis. Tested & as I remember Junior telling the story. They didn't see enough to encourage them to switch. So something was going on I think for all of that to happen. Anyway it would be all the way to 2001 before Dodge returned with strong factory support. They helped Buddy Arrington a little in 83/84 you can see the Direct Connection (Mopar Performance for you youngins) on the Imperial

81PETTYMIRADA-1.jpg


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Over the years there were always rumors of teams putting a different manufactures body on their equipment, and every time someone would put their innocent face on and swear they would never do anything like that. Back when Penske was getting ready to leave Pontiac rumor was they ran ford motors in the grand prix.
 
There is no way that body is not as slippery as a 81 Pontiac which was before the aero montes that where required to keep up with the Fords.
 
Over the years there were always rumors of teams putting a different manufactures body on their equipment, and every time someone would put their innocent face on and swear they would never do anything like that. Back when Penske was getting ready to leave Pontiac rumor was they ran ford motors in the grand prix.

Yep heard the same rumors
 
There is no way that body is not as slippery as a 81 Pontiac which was before the aero montes that where required to keep up with the Fords.

I totally agree. I truely in my heart think it was all about money. If only Dodge had put up the $$$ things would have been so much better & perhaps the Mirada would have stuck around longer
 
Not to mention that a Dodge based small block is a dominant force in sprint cars and god knows does not have the support Chevy does.
 
Not to mention that a Dodge based small block is a dominant force in sprint cars and god knows does not have the support Chevy does.

Are they still running those P7's Dodge engines in WOO. I knew Kasey Khane's team ran them, but figured he had switched over to GM now that he drives for Hendrick
 
Bill France effectively put an end to Chrysler in NA$CAR. And Chrysler figured, "screw you, NA$CAR, see ya!"...and did not look back. Until 2000, anyway.
 
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