A Good Kind Of Wedge-y: 1965 Plymouth Sport Fury
Being the top trim level of the 1965 Plymouth Fury, this 1965 Sport Fury is a rare powerful car sporting a Max Wedge 426 V8. Found in a barn in upstate New York, this Fury is in need of some attention. Offered at a mere $4,995 we think this one is worth investigating further. Find it here on ebay out of Durhamville, New York.
The mighty Max Wedge 426 cubic inch V8 and automatic transmission are present, although sadly the engine is seized needing further attention to be an operational machine once again. Perhaps some marvel mystery oil, or some kerosene would free up the big lump? The engine itself is evenly covered with a light amount of surface rust, and the air cleaner, and distributer appear to be the only items missing. The seller has the original carburetor, and some other spares that are included with this car. The engine bay still wears most of its original paint, although having some minor surface rust on the firewall.
Within this Sport fury is an original but crispy interior. The seat are dry and brittle, and again we have another Mopar with missing carpet. The floors are evenly covered with surface rust, but it appears to be superficial versus anything serious. The steering wheel and dash have made out nicely, appearing to be in nice condition.
From 20 feet away this Fury looks to have little in the way of body issues, but there are a few items that need to be brought to light. Part of the roof is damaged from a shed falling in on this Fury. It mildly damaged the roof, and cracked the windshield. Also the quarters are fairly rough as well, but the rockers have held out rather well having only a couple of bubbling spots. The seller is including quarters with the car to sort out the quarter issue. The paint has a shine to it in the photos, but this car is wet, and we can see that the paint is actually dry but it is there. The chrome isn’t too shabby, but there are some areas where the chrome it starting to roll off the bumpers. By no means perfect, but a rare and interesting specimen for someone to restore. Would you save this 1965 Sport Fury?
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Comments
Personally, with this engine option, I’d like to see it go to a good home and saved. I picture a stock restoration, myself.
IMHO, this car is worth saving all day long (all favoritism aside since I am a Mopar guy). It is pretty rare. In looking at a blog, there were only 495 automatics & 502 4-Speeds produced in the 2-Door Hardtops. It did not specify the models. I personally have not seen a Fury with the Commando 426. I understand the “street 426” is easier to tune than the Hemi. Here is a couple links with some good info:
http://bringatrailer.com/2014/03/23/4-speed-426-1965-plymouth-sport-fury/
http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/threads/1965-plymouth-sport-fury-the-forgotten-beast.291752/
The 426wedge motor is a large bore version of the 413 (4.25″). It is not the same as the 426 hemi. The hemi was never fully civilized but the 426 wedge was.
Not a Max Wedge! (Not with a single carb) A real Max Wedge had special heads that would only accept the cross-ram, dual carb intake ( which of course fits no other engine). A Wedge, yes, but not a MAX wedge which had a zillion more HP and Tq than this engine.
Chuck –
I think you are correct. There are other discrepancies too. The exhaust manifolds on the 426 come up much higher next to the valve covers. The max wedge upper radiator hose connection is just slightly off center, not all the way over to one side like the 383 & 413 radiators [as this car has]. Plus the front fender V8 emblems are not for the max Wedge, they are for the 383/413 versions. And the car has a blank plate where the tach would have been in the console. See the pic of an original 426 wedge engine in a 65 Fury. The differences are easy to see.
I’m partial to 65 Furies. This one needs restoration. The big max wedge is a big plus and not to many sold this way
My mother had a new 65 Fury wagon, but I’m hardly a Mopar expert. I’m a little concerned about the seller’s claim that the car has a 426 in it though. The 4bbl and chrome valve covers are features of the 426, but the V8 fender emblem is typical of those found on 65 318’s.
The 383 and 426 were marketed as Commando V8’s. When equipped with one of those engines, a “Commando V8” emblem was attached to the front fender, not the plain “V8” emblem, that’s on the fenders of this Sport Fury.
If it’s a real 65 426 Sport Fury, it might be a worthwhile car to restore. I don’t have any idea how you authenticate an original Plymouth V8. But based on that V8 emblem, I’d sure want to see some documentation, or authentication from someone familiar with mid 60’s Plymouth’s, before I invested a lot of money to restore that Fury.
Hi gb, I agree. I saw the “V-8” script, and not the “Commando V8” on the fender. Also, and I can’t make it out, on the hood ornament, it had 383 or 426 on it. A guy across the alley from my folks bought a 65 Plymouth Fury, 4 door ex-state patrol car, 383, 4 bbl. It was the 1st car I went 120 mph in. That may have had the Commando V8 script too, not sure.
http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/g/XNkAAOSwQaJXQ37d/s-l225.jpg
That’s a 440, and there’s a rag stuffed in the whole for the distributor.
Isn’t that a 440?
This i belive is a std 426. Max wedge is the High Performance version of the 426, sporting 2×4 barrels+special swept exhaust manifolds etc.. Ugly bulky speedometer otherwise a nice styling.
.
Could be an interesting find, if it’s what the seller claims.
This old Mopar definatly needs someone to restore her .Needs alot of work though.But the end result would be worth it.I also thought the Max wedge had two four barrel carbs with that funky cross ram intake. A friend of mine has an intake like that on a 413 in his car ,and I thought he said it came off of a Max wedge .Was it an option?
I bought a 65 Fury for the nice little price of $500.00 from a Gentlemen in Festus, Mo one day, pulled it out of the shed in his back yard, it had sit in there from the late 70’s when he thought he had locked up the motor coming home from St Louis one day, he had it towed there and was going to get around to replacing the engine, but alas he never did it. The body was in pretty good shape for a car that had set through 20 some odd Missouri winters in a shed with a gravel floor. It had a nice looking seized up Max Wedge 426 with a 4 speed on it. Well it sat for about a year in my work shop off in a corner until I got the time to tear into it, I slowly took it apart and as time prevailed I started working on it. After I took the time to replace the trunk and floor pans, and got it repainted to a nice blue that it was, I was originally going to drop in a 318 that I had, but with the 426 and it’s original 4 speed tranny sitting in the floor on a pallet, I decided to take it apart to see what the damage was. I had it up of a engine bench I have and was removing the tranny, as I got the 2 apart I went to sit the tranny on the floor when all of a sudden a small spring went rolling around the floor out of the bell housing, I got to looking as I removed the clutch plate and could see a small round rust mark the same size as the spring on the flywheel, so I looked under the flywheel and there was a couple more of the springs jammed in there. I removed the fly wheel and got them all cleared out of the way and mounted it on my engine stand, pulled the heads and put a impacter on the crack and rolled it over, it was free as could be.
The only thing we could determine was that the pressure plate had come apart and the springs became jammed in between the flywheel and the engine block and locked it up big time, why the old boy did not look into it further, was his loss and my gain. I restored the car back to as original as I could and drove it for a few years before selling it to a buddy in the cruiser group I belong to. Sadly the car was destroyed when he had a fire in his shop some years later, but the memories of that find has always stuck with me.
Great story……
NO 426 max wedges in 65. Seller makes no claim that it’s one, so not sure where the editor/writer got that from.
Dirty I don’t know where you got your information, but according to Chrysler not to be confused with the 426 Hemi, the 426 cu in (7.0 L) RB was a wedge-head RB block with a 4.25 in (108 mm) bore. The 426 Wedge served as Chrysler’s main performance engine until the introduction of the 426 Hemi. It was initially offered as the “non-catalogued” option S42 in Chryslers (the number of such produced is uncertain), offered with 373 or 385 bhp (278 or 287 kW) via a single 4-barrel carburetor (11.0 or 12.0:1 compression ratio, respectively), or 413 or 421 bhp (308 or 314 kW) via ram-inducted dual 4-barrel carburetors (with the same compression ratios).[6] For 1963, horsepower ratings would slightly increase (see below), and it became optional in B-bodied Dodges and Plymouths. After 1963, it would be used only in Dodges and Plymouths.[7]
The Max Wedge was a race-only version of the 426 Wedge engine offered from the factory. Known as the Super Stock Plymouth and Ramcharger Dodge, the Max Wedge featured high-flow cylinder heads developed through state-of-the-art (at the time) airflow testing.[5] They had 1⅞-inch exhaust valves, which required the cylinder bores to be notched for clearance. The blocks were a special severe-duty casting with larger oil-feed passages than other RB engines, and the blocks were stress-relieved by the factory. Induction came by means of a cross-ram intake manifold tuned for peak power above 4000 rpm and two Carter AFB-3447SA 4-barrel carburetors. The Max Wedge also included high-flow cast-iron exhaust manifolds that, on the later versions, resembled steel tube headers. The Max Wedge was factory rated at 415 or 425 bhp (309 or 317 kW) (depending on compression), and 480 lb·ft (650 N·m) at 4400 rpm.
Before the end of the 1963 model year, Chrysler introduced the Stage II Max Wedge with improved combustion chamber design and an improved camshaft. The last performance year for the Max Wedge came in 1964 with the Stage III. The factory-advertised power rating never changed despite the Stage II and III improvements.
A 426 Street Wedge block was also available in 1964 and 1965. It bears little relation to the Max Wedge except for basic architecture and dimensions. The Street Wedge was available only in B-body cars (Plymouth and Dodge) and light-duty Dodge D Series trucks. It was an increased-bore version of the standard New Yorker 413 single 4-barrel engine.
Just so you know!!
I’m quite aware of the Max wedge history. If you would note in my comment, I stated no MAX wedge in 65. I became aware of the 426 street wedge in the late 60’s as my uncle, upon his return from Vietnam, bought a very similar Sport Fury to this one. He became well known around town for the prolific burnouts the car would deliver.
A 365 HP 426 was available in C bodies in 1965. It is listed as an option in the 1965 Fury & Monaco brochure, and was an uncommon option for both. A Dodge dealer unfortunately failed to sell my dad his personal 426 powered ’65 Monaco in the spring of ’66. Without seeing the engine in this Sport Fury up close you can’t tell which B/RB motor is in it, but as noted by gbvette62, this thing should have a “Commando V8” badge on it if it came with a 383 or 426. Bet the fender tag shows a 318.
I think every car guy knows the RULE ! Sell it in the rain, don’t buy it in the rain.
Egads! There is a guy in our neighborhood that has a Belvedere II with a 318 for $9500 asking. Painted lumpy bumpers. Non original color etc. I would rather have this one than that one even with the locked motor. I’m betting this is more like what his looked like to start with. The whole package of the belvedere just doesn’t seem like it would be a good deal. too many things changed.
I could tell you of another issue that might have this motor locked up. I had a 400 in a 1972 Roadrunner, I was driving it home from a Rt. 66 Car Show in Cuba, Mo and she stopped dead in its tracks. Me and some of the guys in my Car Club did everything we could think of but no go. After I had it towed to the nearest town, I hitched a ride to my home loaded up the trailer and went and got my car.
I worked on it for several days before deciding to pull the engine, as we were breaking it down, and I removed the timing chain cover I discovered that the timing chain had broken into and wrapped it self around the crank, which would explain why she would not roll over. Of course if it had it would never had started, well new crank and timing gears and chain and I still drive the RR.
I’ll start by saying I have never dealt with trying to free off a seized engine, so my comments are coming from total ignorance. With that out of the way, it seems to me that for a desirable and valuable engine like this, in a worst-case scenario sacrificing the pistons to be able to disassemble the rest of the engine would be a worthwhile tradeoff. Some combination of drills/chisels/curses/explosives should enable the pistons to be removed in pieces, leaving the rest of the engine intact and rebuildable. You’d probably end up needing new pistons anyway, so it’s no great loss. Am I way off base here?
If the engine is frozen by something like rust in a cylinder it is normally only one piston in any event.
A siezed engine is still probably better than an atomic wedgie. The kind of wedgie where the waistband of your underwear is up around your shoulder blades!
No way that is a max wedge.
The 1965 Sport Fury 426 Wedge was a stage II that was rated at 365 HP. It came with chrome valve covers, chrome air cleaner and chrome cover on the coil. It also had dual points that required you to pull the distributor and use a Sun machine to set them. Another way to tell if its legit is to count the rear leaf springs. The 426 Sport Fury has 6. The very first thing I did with mine was to throw away the rear fender skirts. Sold it to buy a practical commuter car when I was getting married 46 years ago. Still have the wife but have always regretted selling the car.
No “CommandoV/8 on fenders….does it have the 426 on that hood emblem ? Not sure about this claim…..should be showing the engine pad fer sure….
1965 Sport Fury was on of my first restoration projects. I purchased it in the early 80’s for something like $75, It was only a 383ci but was a well optioned car. It had the bucket seats, console, and factory tach, it was even air conditioned. I don’t think I had $4000 in it when it was finished. Wish I had kept it, but I was always looking for the next project, so when I found another car needing some love it had to go to fund the next one. I gotta say though for $75 it was in much better shape than this one.
For everyone that is questioning the authenticity of this car, I will try to answer the questions:
Yes hood ornament has 426 on it
Pad on block also has 426 on it
Fender tag shows 80 in the code which represents the 426 Street Wedge not a Max Wedge.
Again this is a Street Wedge car, not a Max Wedge.
I hope this helps.
didn’t the 426 MAX wedge have aluminum heads . these seem to be a little rusty. I have to agree that this is a plane 426 street version.