1965 Plymouth Belvedere Hemi AF/X

SOLD!

Hardcore Mopar & Vintage Race Car fanatics, here is something that you don’t see everyday !!

Red Hills Rods & Classics is thrilled to bring you this absolutely amazing 1965 Plymouth Belvedere AF/X Altered Wheel Base two-door sedan, built by Greg Fernald @ SS & AFX out of New River, Arizona.

This spectacular Plymouth Hemi AF/X has been featured in numerous national Mopar magazines, and has won countless awards @ car events nationwide. Greg’s idea was to build a radical Altered Fabricated Experimental (AFX) Funny Car that is very much ‘Streetable’, and can be driven anywhere at anytime! Basically, he wanted to build a full-blown race car that you can drive to the Drag Strip, run 10-second quarter mile times, and then turn around and drive home, with ice cold Air Conditioning too boot! Well let me say that he succeeded on all levels! He is very well known for the work he does on these Super Stock & Altered Wheelbase cars, and charges a $135,000 base price to build one of these AF/X cars to your specifications. This particular Electronic Hillborn Injected Hemi AF/X Belvedere is an absolutely spectacular car in every way! I will try and give you a detailed account of the car, but first let’s discuss a little bit about the history of cars such as this.

In 1964, Chrysler re-introduced the Hemi V8 to compete in Super Stock & Nascar Racing programs. The S/S classes were intensely competitive, w/ all three major auto manufacturers heavily involved. Due to the 7” rear tire width limit, the Dodge & Plymouth cars were unable to take advantage of the Hemi’s full potential without incinerating the rear tires. As a result, (4) ‘2-Percent’ cars were built w/ a 3” forward relocation of the front & rear axles. This provided more favorable weight transfer, & now the Mopar cars were winning! In 1965, a much more radical approach was taken, and (12) cars were prepared w/ a 10” front axle & 15” rear axle relocation, which created a 40/60 static weight & spawned rather interesting launch characteristics. These cars were an instant hit w/ the spectators, who quickly labeled them ‘Funny Cars’. Within weeks, Ford & Chevy started creating their own versions, & by then the ‘Match Race Madness’ had begun! By mid-1965, these door slammers were the most popular class in drag racing! The AF/X class quickly evolved to injection fuel, superchargers & tube chassis w/ one-piece bodies. By late 1966, the class designation was changed to F/C (Funny Cars), & the AF/X class was history. For myself as well as thousands of other drag racing fans, this will always be known as the most exciting era of the sport, and it will never be duplicated.

Greg Fernald is obviously a huge fan of these cars, and again he is known for building some of the finest Super Stock Hemi cars in the country. This gorgeous 1965 Plymouth Belvedere Hemi AF/X is certainly no exception! She started life as a plain vanilla 1965 Plymouth Belvedere, a Southern California car in good condition, and Greg had to talk the owner into selling his car, especially when the seller found out what Greg had in store for her. Once he secured the car, countless hours were then spent researching the Factory Altered Wheelbase AF/Xers, & the men who built them. The final result is nothing short of spectacular! The dazzling period-correct paint scheme consists of a Deep Plum Metallic upper body, w/ an Orange into Yellow into White fade, accented w/ Lime Green stripes. The scheme is very similar to an Arizona sunset, which contributed to its nickname ‘Arizona Acid’. You can walk around this 1965 Plymouth Belvedere AF/X and never find a bad angle! She is absolutely gorgeous and really takes you back in time! Open the driver’s door and you will find the perfect Street/Strip interior with mostly all-original qualities. The black vinyl seats are early Dodge van units, very much akin to what one found in the original AF/Xers & A990 cars, and a B&M shifter resides between the seats to control shifting chores. A mild steel cage was installed & wrapped to prevent bruises, and the dashboard itself appears very much factory stock in appearance, which I really like. A set of Auto Meter gauges (Tachometer & Oil Pressure) were mounted on the dash, w/ a Sunpro Water Temperature gauge on the far left under the dash, and of course the side-windows are made of period-correct Lexan. The interior is indeed very comfortable & spacious, and of course you have ice-cold Vintage Air Conditioning on those warm days!

When it came to creating the right powerplant for the AF/X, Greg decided to make the Hemi as radical as possible while retaining amazing dependability & street capability. At the base is a Mopar Performance Hemi Mega Block, which was heated, stress relieved, line honed and bored. Features include: custom Ross pistons, Eagle rods, .620 lift 284 duration solid cam, pair of original aluminum Pro Stocker water heads (circa 1973), chrome valve covers, and a fuel injected Hillborn set-up. A custom-made fuel injection system that can be controlled via laptop computer inside the car make the tall Hillborn stacks extremely dependable & much more civil. This makes precise control of the injectors an exact science. The big 555ci Hemi cranks over immediately, idles remarkably smooth, and the throttle response is instantaneous! It is also visually stunning, and probably one of the finest looking power plants that I have ever laid eyes on! The Hemi is linked to a custom built 727 Torqueflite automatic transmission, which feeds power to a slightly narrowed Dana 60 w/ Track Lock posi & 4.10 gears. What gets the most attention however, is the Vintage Air Conditioning compressor mounted on the Hemi’s left front, which works incredible and blows ice cold! Yes, you heard me correctly, a ‘Fuel Injected Hemi’ w/ Air Conditioning! Wow! Keeping the engine bay nostalgic in appearance was a priority, so the big Griffin aluminum radiator was painted black to draw less attention, a correct style alternator w/ the big 3 ¾” pulley hangs out front & a stock master cylinder does a decent job of pushing the stop juice to the brakes. Again, it is one of the finest looking power engine bays that I have ever laid eyes on, period! This AF/X also has the perfect stance, just the like the old Funny Cars of 1965-1966. She sits on American Racing's Torq Thrust wheels w/ BF Goodrich Comp TA P315/60R15 Drag Radials on the rear, & 28x7-15LT Mickey Thompson Sportsman Radials up front.

This amazing Hemi AF/X was completed in the summer of 2002, at which time Greg hit the road! He initially logged a little over 900 miles, & reported back that the AF/X was extremely dependable & reliable enough to drive on a daily basis if you choice to do so. He made a couple of trips to the strip during that first year, and ran a 10.50 @ 129 mph. In order to finance more projects, Greg sold the AF/X in January of 2005 to Sherwin Keisshauer of Ft Lauderdale, FL. Since then, it has never seen a drag strip & has only been used as a show car, albeit a show car that can be driven to the event & driven home in comfort! Mr. Keisshauer drove the AF/X sparingly over the next 10 years, and w/ only 2120 miles on the clock since the summer of 2002, it is safe to say that she has barely been used for anything more than winning trophies. The car has been featured in ‘Mopar Action’ magazine, as well as ‘Mopar Collectors Guide’ magazine, and has been an absolute hit w/ Mopar fanatics nationwide! There is obviously far too much detailed information to list, as I barely scratched the surface! She does comes complete w/ ALL of the original receipts, build information, spec sheets, etc., as well as the original Mopar magazines that she was featured in. This amazing 1965 Plymouth Belvedere Hemi AF/X can be enjoyed in so many different ways, which truly makes it unique.

Whether you are looking for a radical street machine w/ comfort, a drag racer that runs 10-second quarter miles, or simply a beautiful nostalgic show car that will take home a First Place trophy every single time, then this is certainly the car! If anyone tells you that it’s impossible to go back in time, well here’s the proof that you most certainly can!

Enclosed shipping is available anywhere in the world at the buyer’s expense.