"This would be the equivalent of a Hellcat today — a big comfortable car that goes when you put your foot in it... There's just so much torque, it pulls so hard!" Jay Leno considers his 1964 Dodge Polara to be "quite the performance car from the dawn of the muscle car age," and we certainly agree. These days, it may not be as well-known as the Charger, Challenger, and other muscle cars of the late '60s, but the 426ci Wedge powered Polara was one of the cars that started it all. In a video on Jay Leno's Garage, he walks us through what made this car truly special.
About the Polara Street Wedge
Built on Dodge's midsize B-Body platform, the Polara was a practical family car offered with engines including the 225ci slant-six, 318ci V8, and 383ci V8. However, Dodge knew that there was a growing desire for bigger engines and more performance. Hardcore drag racers opted for the 426ci Hemi, but at the time, that engine wasn't really suitable (or recommended) for street use. If you wanted to be the king of the streets with your daily driver, you chose the 426ci Wedge big block.
The 426 "Street Wedge" was a slightly detuned variant of the race-ready 420-horsepower Max Wedge. The Max Wedge had performance heads with oversized intake and exhaust ports, a high compression ratio, and a more aggressive camshaft, but that's not to say the Street Wedge was any slouch. With a high-flow 4-barrel carb and 10.3:1 compression ratio, it produced 365 horsepower and a whopping 470 lb-ft of torque.
Jay Leno's '64 Polara is in pristine condition, with original paint everywhere except the roof. He also upgraded it with a new set of Wilwood disc brakes, a new stainless steel fuel tank, and a custom stainless exhaust with electronic cutouts to let the V8 roar. It rides on blackwall tires and black steel wheels with dog dish hubcaps.
The interior has also been fully restored to factory specs, aside from the Hurst shifter for the 4-speed manual transmission. Leno notes with a laugh that the placement for the tachometer was rather impractical on these cars, since it required the driver to turn his head away from the road:
As he drives the car, Leno remarks, "I still think it's pretty cool. It just looks mean — blackwall tires, dog dish hubcaps. I love these big American pieces of iron!" Check out the full video from the Jay Leno's Garage YouTube channel below:
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