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RAMCHARGERS
History Page 1 |
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In 1959 a group of engineers from Chrysler Corporation began to participate in the nation's new craze; "Drag racing". They started with a 1949 Plymouth business coupe, named "The High and Mighty". They had extensive experience with the "long-horn" intake manifold that powered the early Chrysler 300 series, and began to experiment with the technology in drag racing. The name soon evolved from long-horn to ram's -horn and eventually the public settled on the nickname Ram-Induction. By the 1960 race season this group created the team named, RAMCHARGERS. |
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In
1962 the team, with the assistance of a California group called the
Beach Boys, made famous the potential of Chrysler’s 413 motor,
when it was “powered with Ram-induction”. In 1963 the RAMCHARGERS
became nationally famous with two factory sponsored team
cars, each using an automatic transmission. The cars were nicknamed,
CANDYMATIC, and featured a white car with seven candy-apple red stripes
on the top and trunk deck, along with the name RAMCHARGERS,
leaning boldly toward the front of the car on each side. With these
cars, driven by Herman Moser and Jim Thornton, RAMCHARGERS
defeated all challengers, facing each other for the class
championship in Super-Stock Automatic (S/SA). Thornton won. The next
day, Moser turned the tables and eliminated Thornton in a semi-final
round and then defeated Al Ekstrand, in the LAWMAN, taking the title
of Top-Stock-Eliminator.
In 1964, RAMCHARGERS introduced the 426 Hemi,
and were runner-up at the Nationals to Roger Lindamood, driving Color
Me Gone in another Hemi-powered Dodge. |
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1965 all the factories had realized that the success of the RAMCHARGERS
could bring results in the showroom, and adopted the
“win on Sunday & sell on Monday”
philosophy. The fervor of competition began to evolve into ever more
exotic cars. Soon cars with altered wheelbases, and blown or fuel injected
motors began to appear. To the casual observer, these cars appeared
to be funny looking, and soon took on the name “Funny-Cars”.
During 1965 and 1966 these factory sponsored cars were featured in countless
match races across the country, and made names like RAMCHARGERS,
Grand Spaulding Dodge, Golden Commandoes, Butch Leal, Gas Rhonda, Dyno
Don Nicholson, Arnie Beswick, Dick Landy, Sox & Martin, Melrose
Missle and Chi-Town Hustler part of bench racing debates nationwide.
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| “Funny-Cars” |
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| Trademark
claim: The name RAMCHARGERS is protected by trademarks issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office under Registration Number: 0894934 and Registration Number: 1729752. This trademark is owned by the owner of this website and the names RAMCHARGERS, RAMCHARGER, Candymatic, Candystick and RAMCHARGERS.com, as well as the distinctive candy-apple red and white stripe pattern are considered to be part of the Trademark and Trade-dress owned and protected on a proprietary basis by these registrations. Any use of any of these names or trade dress without the express written consent of the holder of the Trademark is strictly prohibited. |
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