slantsixdan
=..=
(TL;DR: The factory let Car & Driver have a car with a 273 Commando/4-speed, 13" wheels, and 9" drum brakes. Was that typical equipment?)
In the October 1964 Car & Driver, there's a road test of a '65 Barracuda with 273 Commando engine and 4-speed transmission. Obviously with a magazine of that date, the testing would've been done a month or two or three earlier, and beyond that there are pretty clear clues this was a pre-release car they tested: they talk about how the car "will be" called the Formula S, and their test car had 13" wheels and 9" drum brakes.
They spent a lot of words bitching about the 3.09 first gear and wishing for something closer to 2.50.
H'mmm. The 6-cylinder 4-speed cars got the 3.09 first gear, but didn't the V8 4-speed cars get exactly the close-ratio box they wanted, with a 2.66 first gear? A trawl through the factory parts cattledogs and service manuals muddies the waters further, because we run into a fairly common kind of ambiguity: the FPCs show one and the same A833 4-speed used in 6- and 8-cylinder A-body cars in ’64 and ’65, and not until 1966 does the 2.66 first gear appear for V8 A-bodies.
However, the ’65 service manual shows the 2.66 first gear available for the C-body with 361, 383, or 426 engine. So those parts were in the house, and further digging in the exploded views and parts lists suggests there would’ve been nothing stopping their use behind a 273 in an A-body in ’65 (common trans housing, common other parts in the transmission, etc).
The trouble is that Chrysler often didn’t do a very good cataloguing job where there were permutations of equipment, specification, and vehicle line. If there was only one variable for a part (say, whether the car had a 6- or 8-cylinder engine, or an automatic or manual transmission, or was an A- or B- or C-body) things were fine, but throw in another variable or two or three (which 8-cylinder engine, which rear axle ratio, which wheelbase, which production plant, before/after production dates…) and the charts get sloppy. Even in the final-revision catalogue for a given model year, you often have to look, for example, in the Belvedere-Coronet or Plymouth-Dodge column to find the right part for a V8 Valiant-Dart, because the part listed in the Valiant-Dart column is only applicable for 6-cylinder cars—and otherwise like that.
14″ wheels became available for the A-body in the US in ’65, though I don’t know exactly when in ’65. The final-edition ’65 FPC shows the expected three wheels: 13 × 4½”, 14 × 4½”, and 14 × 5½”, the latter noted as “Barracuda”, and the latter two noted as part numbers changed or added since the previous edition of the cattledog. The ’64 FPC lists only the 13 × 4½” wheel for A-bodies.
Brakewise: only 9″ drums listed in ’64, but 10″ drums appear in the ’65 book—and so do the discs (I had thought the 10" drums became available when the 273 did, in the middle of 1964 production. Maybe they did; their absence from the '64 parts cattledog doesn't necessarily mean they didn't exist; that's another way Chrysler was sloppy with their documentation).
So the factory let Car & Driver have a car with a 273 Commando and the skinny 13" wheels and teacup 9" drum brakes designed to be adequate in a 1960 Valiant with a 170 engine. What did the '65 Barracudas people actually bought come with for wheels, brakes, and 4-speed first gear ratio? Anyone know, or at least got data points?
In the October 1964 Car & Driver, there's a road test of a '65 Barracuda with 273 Commando engine and 4-speed transmission. Obviously with a magazine of that date, the testing would've been done a month or two or three earlier, and beyond that there are pretty clear clues this was a pre-release car they tested: they talk about how the car "will be" called the Formula S, and their test car had 13" wheels and 9" drum brakes.
They spent a lot of words bitching about the 3.09 first gear and wishing for something closer to 2.50.
H'mmm. The 6-cylinder 4-speed cars got the 3.09 first gear, but didn't the V8 4-speed cars get exactly the close-ratio box they wanted, with a 2.66 first gear? A trawl through the factory parts cattledogs and service manuals muddies the waters further, because we run into a fairly common kind of ambiguity: the FPCs show one and the same A833 4-speed used in 6- and 8-cylinder A-body cars in ’64 and ’65, and not until 1966 does the 2.66 first gear appear for V8 A-bodies.
However, the ’65 service manual shows the 2.66 first gear available for the C-body with 361, 383, or 426 engine. So those parts were in the house, and further digging in the exploded views and parts lists suggests there would’ve been nothing stopping their use behind a 273 in an A-body in ’65 (common trans housing, common other parts in the transmission, etc).
The trouble is that Chrysler often didn’t do a very good cataloguing job where there were permutations of equipment, specification, and vehicle line. If there was only one variable for a part (say, whether the car had a 6- or 8-cylinder engine, or an automatic or manual transmission, or was an A- or B- or C-body) things were fine, but throw in another variable or two or three (which 8-cylinder engine, which rear axle ratio, which wheelbase, which production plant, before/after production dates…) and the charts get sloppy. Even in the final-revision catalogue for a given model year, you often have to look, for example, in the Belvedere-Coronet or Plymouth-Dodge column to find the right part for a V8 Valiant-Dart, because the part listed in the Valiant-Dart column is only applicable for 6-cylinder cars—and otherwise like that.
14″ wheels became available for the A-body in the US in ’65, though I don’t know exactly when in ’65. The final-edition ’65 FPC shows the expected three wheels: 13 × 4½”, 14 × 4½”, and 14 × 5½”, the latter noted as “Barracuda”, and the latter two noted as part numbers changed or added since the previous edition of the cattledog. The ’64 FPC lists only the 13 × 4½” wheel for A-bodies.
Brakewise: only 9″ drums listed in ’64, but 10″ drums appear in the ’65 book—and so do the discs (I had thought the 10" drums became available when the 273 did, in the middle of 1964 production. Maybe they did; their absence from the '64 parts cattledog doesn't necessarily mean they didn't exist; that's another way Chrysler was sloppy with their documentation).
So the factory let Car & Driver have a car with a 273 Commando and the skinny 13" wheels and teacup 9" drum brakes designed to be adequate in a 1960 Valiant with a 170 engine. What did the '65 Barracudas people actually bought come with for wheels, brakes, and 4-speed first gear ratio? Anyone know, or at least got data points?
