Chrysler's Motown Missile: Mopar's Secret Engineering Program at the Dawn of Pro Stock
in each class would then return to Indy to run for the class win and runner-up slots. Once Chrysler had determined who the fastest guys were fair and square (away from the oversight of NHRA officials), the three chosen duos in SS/B, SS/BA, and SS/CA (all Hemi cars exclusively) returned to Indianapolis and basically cruised downtrack on Saturday for the class battle and “new” records. The predetermined faster car from the so-called “Mini-Nationals” also deliberately ran slower to be the class runner-up, all of which kept the old indexes used before the Nationals completely intact. Meanwhile, the other guys fought each other hard, and most had killed or reset their indexes when clocking their best possible number round after round in taking class victories. For their part, Hoover, Maxwell, and factory race boss Bob Cahill wandered around the Indy pits on Friday morning, shrugging off questions about where all the absent racers had gone.
This was it, the starting line at Indianapolis Raceway Park, where victory and defeat were a literal split second away. It was this event that had the most attention from the racers, the press, and the factories. (Photo Courtesy Dick Landy Family)
The staging lanes at Indy in 1969 did not host a lot of Hemi SS entries after the runoffs were done at Tri-City Dragway in Hamilton, Ohio, early in the weekend. Ted Spehar still calls the so-called “Mopar Mini-Nationals” the greatest race in which he was ever involved, as there had never been a true no-holds-barred NHRA Super Stock runoff to the last man standing before that. (Photo Courtesy Dick Landy Family)
This photo in the Spehar family archive from November 1970 shows the Silver Bullet when it was first completed. This car would be as legendary on the street as the Motown Missile was on the track, which was something Mr. Hoover took pride in. (Photo Courtesy Spehar Family Archive)
When Monday’s big event arrived, the only thing the Mopar racers from those classes needed to do was make sure they did not redlight at the start. When the smoke cleared from five rounds, Ronnie Sox won, beating a 1964 Hemi Plymouth driven by Dave Wren to basically close out the professional Super Stock era. On that Tuesday morning, NHRA officials, the movers and shakers in Super Stock, and their factory bosses all got together and agreed to formulate new rules that would create a heads-up class for 1970, which they would call Pro Stock. Finalized after the NHRA World Finals in Dallas that October, this was a new challenge, one Mr. Hoover would relish even as factory street performance was increasingly choked by emissions, insurance costs, and other factors.
Imitating a popular sanctioning body design, this is a North Woodward Timing Association decal.
By 1969, Hoover’s terrible Coronet was now sitting at home more often than not, as Jimmy Addison and Ted Spehar kept the 1962 Dodge with its Max Wedge powerplant busy making money. They would soon begin converting a former factory-tested 1967 440-ci GTX into perhaps Woodward’s most notorious competitor, the Silver Bullet. That project would come together for the street as the Motown Missile would soon do for the dragstrip. “Crush them like ants,” Mr. Hoover said and smiled.
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Ted Spehar was quietly contemplating what would come next in his future as he looked over the empty 1,500-square-foot building on Fernlee Avenue near where it intersected West 14 Mile Road in Royal Oak. Perhaps it was a big jump to go into this business of special car fabrication and maintenance, but he had the confidence, the connections, and the work ethic to be successful. He needed room for cars such as The Iron Butterfly and the factory test cars, for this new Pro Stock thing for spare parts, a clean room for engine construction, space for machine tools, and whatever else the new contract from Chrysler required. Most important for everyone involved, it was a secure, quiet place almost invisible to the outside world. After all, ideas that matter could be kept quiet until they were needed, which they certainly were. The commercial space realtor talked softly with Jack Watson, better known as the “Hurst Shifty Doctor” and the person who had arranged the meeting. Giving Ted some personal space to figure it all out, the realtor was expectant, hoping this day spent with the unassuming gentleman who was supposed to be some kind of engine genius would indeed become a successful sale.
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Ted Spehar, who would play the most primary role as the Motown Missile’s builder and owner, traveled a special road to get to where he was that afternoon. From service station owner to engine builder, the past dozen years laid the groundwork for what would become Spehar’s most visible position in motorsports, though such efforts characterized his entire career. With Chrysler’s business getting more tied down with government and industry volatility, executive Cahill and Mr. Hoover had concluded that Ted was the right guy to help manage the firm’s drag race development work as an outside contractor. The unionized Woodward Garage would likely be shuttered regardless, so from here on out, the things Mr. Hoover wanted to change from dream to reality were done in a comprehensive manner under Spehar’s tutelage.
Ted Spehar stands next to a dragster he owned in the early 1960s, driven by racing buddy Deowen “De” Nichols. This was the third chassis ever built by the Logghe Brothers and used a flathead Ford for power. (Photo Courtesy Spehar Family Archive)
A snapshot from December 1963 shows the Texaco station where Ted did his early work. The dragster is parked outside on a cold but snowless Michigan day. (Photo Courtesy Spehar Family Archive)
Ted was a Detroit-area native (having grown up in Birmingham) and a hot rodder from the late 1950s, following in the footsteps of his older brother Peter. He and street racing partner Deowen “De” Nichols got serious and bought the third dragster chassis ever built by the legendary Logghe Brothers firm, but Ted’s true penchant was engine building. It was through his prowess in this arena that he made initial introductions to Chrysler’s corporate office and the Ramchargers team during the mid-1960s, which was thanks in part to a working relationship with Dick Branstner, who was a larger-than-life figure in Detroit’s car-building scene at the time. Ted’s wife, Tina, a young beautician, ironically did hair styling with some of the other wives of Detroit’s performance set, which is how the Branstners and Spehars met.
While Tom Hoover handled the Ramchargers racing engine builds personally, Ted was often given the recommendation when others came asking for services. His real interaction started in 1965, when he was still working out of the Texaco station located at 15 Mile Road and Adams Street that he purchased when he was 22 years old. He called the engine business Spehar’s Performance Automotive and began working almost exclusively on Chrysler products.
In 1967, he sold the Texaco franchise and bought a Gulf station located at 14 Mile Road (one block from Woodward) and continued to grow his corporate portfolio by working with Dale Reeker and Dick Maxwell from Chrysler’s Product Planning arm on media test car prep and building engines for specific Chrysler racers. The following year, Ted purchased the legendary Sunoco franchise right on 1775 Woodward that he subsequently turned over to his top mechanic, Jimmy Addison, for doing regular car work. Note that the sale of petroleum was not always a big money generator at these outlets because Ted was often so focused on whatever horsepower task was at hand that actual fuel customers would drive off in disgust, waiting for a pump jockey who never arrived. Ted noted wryly that this was a likely factor in the Gulf franchise eventually changing hands.
Meanwhile, that Gulf station served his more immediate purpose of being the place Product Planning sent new cars to be super tuned for the automotive media. Ted would blueprint the distributor and cam, dial in