Hexagonal Daytona grilles - original?

[nascarxx29]

    Its been documented that there was small square pattern and hexagon material pattern material on daytonas

[DAY CLONA]

    Its been documented that there was small square pattern and hexagon material pattern material on daytonas

The Hexagon material for Tona's appears to have been a dealer/repair replacement I've yet to see any Daytona wearing it as "original" from Creative Ind....although a FEW original Superbirds have been seen wearing the Daytona screen material, the bird screen is approx 8X24 and the Tona 6X24

[hemigeno]

I didn't want this portion of the discussion to be relegated to the Parts For Sale section.

Carry on...

[Moparpoolman]

Nascarxx29, I tried to send you a PM but your mailbox is full. could you PM me an email address so I can contact you, Thanks

[daytonalo]

I just purchased an NOS Daytona grill and fender screens that was part of Grand spauldings inventory ( AKA MR NORM ) . 025 and rectangle like every other grille I have seen on a Daytona

[maxwellwedge]

Who had that? I cleaned out what was left at the dealership about 15 years ago

[daytonalo]

I purchased it from the estate of someone who used to work there

[daytonalo]

Its the real deal , 025 maybe David Spade will buy it for a backup . Anyone have his number ?

[nascarxx29]

I don't think its isolated incident.But I did work on 1 owner original Daytona that had the hex. Maybe small batchs of car got them maybe to vendor change or substitute on the line .As its been known to happen on the assembly line with steering wheels and 340 dusters reportly getting T/A motors. JoAd supplied the fender scoops but there is known 2 types of superbird scoops.

Another thing I want to check on is in the superbird fleet manual and see if theres reference to same as Daytona or part #s in screen description 

[nascarxx29]

Chrysler did sub contract stuff out you have probably just heard of and familiar with creative industries
Ever hear of another vendor like Hackett brass and the part they played with the daytona wing development   
http://www.wwnboa.org/motw.htm  . So who else may have stamped out the screens for chrysler

[daytonalo]

Dave , very nice job !!

Last fall, New Jersey member Dave Benasutti contacted me to say that he'd been surfing the Internet and found a web site that belonged to a company by the name of Hackett Brass in Detroit, MI. Dave gave me the URL and I looked it up. On that web site is a brief history of the company, a foundry which was established in 1917. In that history is the following paragraph: Hackett cast the spoiler stanchions for the first Daytona Charger. These were the tall stanchions that held the spoiler well above the roofline for stock car racing. Later we produced a shorter version for the street Charger".

I was intrigued and sent a letter to Hackett Brass asking if someone was still with the company who could elaborate on this particular job. I really didn't hold out much hope, considering the stanchion job would have taken place in late 1968 or early 1969, 30 some odd years ago. What are the chances the same employee, foreman or even manager that worked on this project may still be with the company now?

Much to my surprise, several weeks later I received a letter from Mr. Charles E. Fine, retired Vice President of Hackett Brass! Here is what Mr. Fine shared with me:

"I enjoyed your letter and have looked at many of the pictures on your web site. I'm afraid I can't provide any documentation detail about the Daytona Charger tail stanchions, but I do have a few memories of the project.

Hackett Brass is a small, family owned jobbing foundry that specializes in tooling castings, primarily copper for body line spot welding guns. In the '50s and '60s we were associated with Centr-O-Cast, a permanent mold foundry that produced much of the Chrysler trim before die casting took over, as well as trans-mission bell housings and transmission extensions for light truck and marine applications.

In '68 or '69 Centr-O-Cast approached us with a problem. Chrysler needed experimental spoiler stanchions for the Daytona Charger and, if successful, a production run to qualify the car for stock [car] racing. Permanent mold tools couldn't be built fast enough for their needs; could we build sand tooling and produce 50 pair in time for the upcoming stock car racing season. Fifty units was the minimum production for a stock car.

We managed to produce a few pair, which apparently were satisfactory, as we were given a rush order to qualify the car for that year's Daytona 500. Once we had finished, Centr-O-Cast built dies and went into production for the 'real' stock version-about 2,500 sets. My memory is that our sand cast stanchion placed the spoiler well above the roof line while the permanent mold version placed the spoiler only slightly above. I believe the difference was about 6 inches. I don't know if any of the original track version were sold to the public.

There is some difference of memory in the shop. My partner believes we made 500 pair. His job was to deliver castings to the polisher and then to Creative Industries for painting and installation. He made so many trips he knows there were more than 50 pair.

Our manufacture of the production run was amusing to watch. We usually did not produce quantities of any large castings, and we did not have much room in our 8,500 square foot building for anything more than rough trim. However our customer wanted finished parts, polished and ready for paint. So we set up repair welding and repair workstations on the sidewalk beside the foundry. As long as it didn't rain our crews were outside with long extension cords and air lines to power the hand tools used to produce our finished parts while the neighbors stood around to watch the excitement.

Since we were not responsible for the engineering, we do not have drawings of any of these parts, and the tooling disappeared long ago."

[odcics2]

notice the list of errors in the above recollection??