Sleek and stylish might not be the words you would come up with when someone says ’55 Plymouth, but in the case of Rick Talbot’s Belvedere, it would be more than appropriate. In 1955, Plymouth unveiled their “Forward Look” concept, which included a panoramic windshield and frenched headlights (rather than the standard headlight ring that had previously been used for decades). But Rick’s vision of the car saw well beyond what Plymouth’s designers were able to come up with more than 60 years ago, and what he created is the epitome of what a hot rod could and should be.
Clean and unusual—two words...
Clean and unusual—two words that accurately describe the engine compartment of Rick’s ’55 Belvedere. The engine starts with a race-only R5 block that was machined by Danny Glad of Glad Precision and assembled by him and Rick Talbot Jr. Nearly 600 hp is created with the 750 Demon carb and the P7 heads, and the engine uses a owner designed/built dry sump oil system. The engine is backed to a Tremec TKO600 transmission.
Most folks find a car they’d like to build and then find a motor to stuff into it, but Rick worked the other way around with this one, and he has his son, Rick Jr., to blame for it. Rick Jr. was working for Chrysler in the NASCAR Engine Group as the resident engineer at Arrington Engines in Martinsville, Virginia. There are a lot of strange and wonderful things that are developed at facilities like these, most of which never get into the hands of private citizens. At the time, more than six years ago, parts for an R5-P7 engine (an R5 block with P7 heads) began to be accumulated and Rick Jr. and his dad started talking about using one of the rare, race-only motors for a street car (you can find videos of these engines pulling 700-plus horsepower at 9,000 rpm on YouTube).
Once they were able to secure the engine, the hunt was on for a suitable vehicle to build around it. Rick was able to track down a ’55 Belvedere in Pennsylvania that had, at one point in its life, been built out in California. Rick sold a nice big-block ’56 Chevy he owned to finance the build, and picked up the red ’n’ black ’55 that still had an original-style interior.
As for a place to work on the car, Rick didn’t have any problems there. His 2,200 square foot garage in Ridgeway, Virginia, is equipped with all the things rodders dream about, including two Bridgeports (one manual and the other CNC), a 15-inch lathe, bead and slip rollers, an industrial sewing machine, plus a lift as well as a crossflow paint booth. With the exception of the machining of the engine and its assembly, the rest of the work done on the car, including paint and upholstery, was done by Rick in his garage.
Among the awesome collection...
Among the awesome collection of tools in Rick Talbot’s 2,200 square foot home garage is an industrial sewing machine, which he used to stitch the interior (the first time he’s tried that feat). He built the rear seat but used a pair of SCAT Procar Rally seats up front, and covered everything in red leather. Red Flame GM carpet was used, and all of the interior surfaces were painted with PPG Soft Touch clear. A Racepak UDX Extreme gauge keeps Rick informed, and a console-mounted control handles the Sony head unit and 10-disc CD changer mounted in the trunk.
Rick started work on the car from the ground up by creating his own chassis using 2x4-inch-perimeter tubing coupled to a 2x3-inch centersection dialed in with a wheelbase of 115-1/2 inches. In building his own chassis, he incorporated pass-through holes for the 3-inch stainless steel exhaust tubing as well as a billet aluminum crossmember for the transmission mount. A 9-inch rear (4.30:1) made up of a nodular NASCAR housing, a Yukon posi clutch, and Strange Engineering 31-spline axles uses a triangulated four-bar made from Art Morrison parts, Aldan coilovers (250 pound), and an antisway bar. Ford Explorer brakes, with its DIH system (a drum-in-hat design where the drum brakes are inside the disc brake rotors), were used and 3/16 stainless steel line with 3AN fittings supply the fluid to the brakes.
Up front ’04 Pontiac Bonneville STS discs were adapted to ’84 Corvette uprights and the C4 suspension was attached without the factory cradle, and an Art Morrison antisway bar was also used. Billet Specialties Legacy wheels (16x7 and 17x8.5) are wrapped in BFGoodrich 225/55R and 255/50R KDW rubber, and other items (an owner-fabbed 22-gallon aluminum gas tank, an ’84 Corvette rack-and-pinion) completed the rolling chassis.
Danny Glad of Glad Precision machined the engine before he and Rick Jr. assembled the 348 using a Bryant NASCAR 3.250 crank, Carrillo rods, forged JE pistons, and a roller camshaft ground to Rick Jr. specs by COMP Cams all went into the short-block.
Among the awesome collection...
Among the awesome collection of tools in Rick Talbot’s 2,200 square foot home garage is an industrial sewing machine, which he used to stitch the interior (the first time he’s tried that feat). He built the rear seat but used a pair of SCAT Procar Rally seats up front, and covered everything in red leather. Red Flame GM carpet was used, and all of the interior surfaces were painted with PPG Soft Touch clear. A Racepak UDX Extreme gauge keeps Rick informed, and a console-mounted control handles the Sony head unit and 10-disc CD changer mounted in the trunk.
Up front a Dodge R5 water pump was used (along with a six-blade mechanical fan) and, since the R5 block has no provisions for an internal oil pump, Rick designed a dry sump system to be used with an external pump. The pump itself is a Daily Engineering five-stage unit while the scavenger filter is located behind the left fenderwell and the pressure side filter is behind the right fenderwell. The system incorporates a cooler, mounted in front of the radiator, and a Moroso 3-quart oil accumulator is activated by solenoid with the car’s ignition system to pre-charge the oil system before the engine is started.
Up top, Dodge NASCAR P7 heads are fed by a 750-cfm Demon annular-discharge carb bolted to a Dodge R5 manifold. Rick utilized an MSD distributor with a Crane NASCAR ignition system, and he used Elston stainless steel Craftsman Truck Tri-Y stepped headers with a satin coating from Calico Coatings. The motor mates to a Tremec TKO600 transmission from Keisler Engineering (equipped with a Zoom dual-disc setup) that connects to a Denny’s Driveshafts “Nitrous Ready” 1350 series driveshaft. Original dyno testing showed this motor put out 628 hp and 550 ft-lb of torque, but the cam they used was too aggressive for the street, so a milder profile was called for, which Rick Jr. estimates shaved 30 hp off the peak dyno numbers.
For the car’s exterior, Rick simplified and customized certain sections of the car, but left the overall look intact. The vent windows and most of the car’s “bumps” (door and trunk handles, gas filler, emblems, etc.) were shaved and the front splash apron was lowered a little over an inch. The rear splash apron was eliminated and the bumper was shortened and moved closer to the body. The grille was also fabricated from two stock grilles to lengthen the vertical portion where it meets the lower apron. Once the car was driveable, Rick drove it around for about a year in metal and aluminum before completing the required body and paintwork. Once satisfied with how everything worked, Rick then prepped and painted the car at home with a PPG base and clear Mercedes-Benz Brilliant Silver with Chrysler Cool Vanilla panels.
Just another example of the...
Just another example of the detail on this car: Rick machined the Plymouth name into the brake calipers.
The car’s interior showcases Rick’s first attempt at sewing and doing an entire upholstery job, from adding the red leather to the SCAT Procar Rally seats (he made his own rear seat) to laying out the Flame Red GM Daytona square-weave carpet. RAAMmat sound deadening material was used throughout and Rick handled his own wiring, too. The dash now houses a Racepak UDX Extreme digital gauge and a Sony Xplod head unit and a 10-disc CD changer (mounted in the trunk) is controlled by a marine-type remote control in the hand-fabbed aluminum center console. The console also locates the handmade shifter and the controls for the A/C system Rick designed and fabricated (including the homemade brackets and pulleys).
The bumpers have been narrowed...
The bumpers have been narrowed and pulled closer to the body before being color-coded to that section of the car. Rick did the body and paintwork on his car in his crossflow paint booth at home. Billet Specialties 16- and 17-inch wheels are wrapped in BFGoodrich rubber.
Some of the factory design elements stayed on the car, such as the rearview mirror, while some were removed (such as the dash-mounted shift lever) and others created (the milled sill plates with the Plymouth logo).
By one account, Plymouth produced more than 700,000 vehicles in 1955, but it would be safe to say there isn’t another one around today quite like Rick Talbot’s. A perfect mix of race car ingenuity and home-grown talent, Rick’s Belvedere shows how someone can take a car that most folks wouldn’t think twice about, hop up the drivetrain and suspension, street rod the interior and exterior, with the end result being a car unlike any other that you’d find at the local rod run—a shining example of what a hot rod could be if you put your mind to it.