1966 Plymouth Belvedere II 426 Hemi Convertible

Only ten 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II convertibles left the factory with a 426 Hemi, six of those with automatics, and just one in the color code 661 Metallic Mauve — the car in this episode, restored with its original numbers-matching driveline intact. Commenters can’t agree if the color is mauve or purple, but they agree on one thing: this Hemi was built to be feared, not casually enjoyed. What actually makes a car the rarest piece in a collection already built around rare Mopars?

Ten. That’s how many 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II convertibles Chrysler built with the 426 Hemi under the hood — six of them automatics, and exactly one finished in a color code so specific it has its own pronunciation debate in the comments. This is that one. Restored down to keeping its original numbers-matching driveline intact, it’s described by the channel as the rarest Mopar in an entire private collection built around rare Mopars, which is a genuinely high bar to clear. One commenter can’t decide if the color reads as mauve or purple. Another calls the Hemi itself something to be feared rather than simply enjoyed. So what does it take to be the single rarest car in a collection built specifically to house rare ones?

One of Ten, One of Six, One of One: Breaking Down the Actual Rarity

The rarity claim behind this particular 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II convertible is layered enough to be worth unpacking piece by piece. Plymouth built exactly ten Belvedere II convertibles that year with the 426 Hemi under the hood, a genuinely tiny number to begin with. Of those ten, only six were built with automatic transmissions rather than a manual gearbox, narrowing the field further. And of those six automatics, only one — this specific car — left the factory finished in the color code the video identifies as 661 Metallic Mauve. That’s not a car that’s merely rare within its model line; it’s a car that’s rare within a rare subset of an already rare subset, which is exactly why the video describes it as the rarest Mopar within The Brothers Collection, a private collection built specifically around scarce and significant Mopar muscle cars. Reaching that title inside a collection already curated for rarity says a great deal about how genuinely singular this particular Belvedere actually is.

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Metallic Mauve, Color Code 661 — and How to Actually Pronounce It

Getting the color right matters enough to this car’s identity that commenters spend real time on it. The official designation is color code 661, Metallic Mauve, though not everyone watching agrees on what that actually looks like on screen — one viewer says ‘looks purple to me,’ while another insists ‘that is a beauty, the color is pronounced mow-v,’ offering an informal pronunciation guide for a shade that clearly reads differently depending on lighting, screen calibration, and personal color perception. Mauve as a factory color choice was itself a fairly bold statement for a mid-1960s muscle car, especially paired with a Hemi built for straight-line dominance rather than boulevard cruising — a combination that reads almost intentionally contradictory, pairing the most aggressive engine Chrysler offered with one of the softer, more unusual colors in the period palette. That contrast is likely part of why this specific car stands out even among the other nine Hemi Belvedere II convertibles built the same year.

A Numbers-Matching Driveline Behind a Full Restoration

What separates this restoration from a simple cosmetic refresh is what’s sitting under the hood: the video is explicit that this Belvedere retains its original driveline, meaning the 426 Hemi currently installed is the same engine, numbers-matching, that left the factory in this specific car rather than a correct-but-swapped replacement. Restored by V8 Speed & Resto Shop and returned to its factory Metallic Mauve finish, the car represents the harder, more expensive version of a restoration — one built around preserving and rebuilding original components rather than sourcing period-correct replacements, which is a meaningfully different, and pricier, undertaking. One commenter’s reaction gets at just how thorough that mechanical restoration must have been: ‘I’ve never seen rust smoke out the exhaust before… cleaned the rust right out of it,’ a colorful way of describing an engine finally being fired up and cleared out after what was likely a long period of dormancy before the restoration began.

Feared, Not Just Enjoyed: How Commenters Talk About the Hemi Differently

Several commenters draw a specific distinction between how they talk about Hemi-powered cars versus other classic muscle, and it’s worth sitting with. ‘Chevy and Ford were to be enjoyed, the Hemi was to be feared,’ one viewer writes, capturing a reputation the 426 Hemi built over decades among period drivers and later collectors alike — an engine associated less with casual weekend cruising and more with genuine, borderline unpredictable performance in the hands of an inexperienced driver. That reputation shows up again in a separate comment from someone who actually owned a Hemi-adjacent Belvedere: after upgrading their own ’66 Belvedere from a smaller engine to a 383 Magnum paired with a 727 Torqueflite, they admit the car genuinely scared them. Between the two comments, a consistent picture emerges of the Hemi’s actual reputation among people who drove Mopar big blocks in period — respect bordering on outright caution, not casual enjoyment.

The Belvederes Regular People Actually Drove, Hemi or Not

Not every Belvedere from this era carried anything close to Hemi power, and the comments include a useful reminder of what a far more typical example actually looked like. One commenter recalls owning a 1966 Belvedere starting in 1970, originally equipped with a 273 cubic inch small block paired with a three-on-the-tree manual transmission — about as far from this episode’s Hemi convertible as the model line got — before eventually swapping in a 383 Magnum and a 727 Torqueflite automatic. Another commenter separately mentions a first car that was a ’65 Belvedere, describing it as having a ‘big block 318,’ though the 318 was actually part of Chrysler’s small block family rather than a big block, a small mix-up that happens easily given how many engine families Mopar ran simultaneously through the ’60s. Between these accounts, it’s clear the vast majority of period Belvederes were considerably more modest machines than the Hemi convertible this video is actually about.

Tom Hoover’s Fingerprints, Decades Later

One commenter drops in a name that deserves more attention than a single line usually gets: ‘A Tom Hoover special,’ crediting the Chrysler engineer widely regarded as the driving force behind the 426 Hemi’s development. Hoover led the engineering effort that turned the Hemi from a NASCAR-focused racing engine into the street-legal powerplant that ended up under the hood of cars exactly like this Belvedere II convertible, work that reshaped Chrysler’s entire performance reputation through the second half of the 1960s. Attaching his name to this specific car, buried in a comment thread rather than the official description, is the kind of detail that separates viewers who know the broader engineering history of the Hemi from those who just appreciate the finished product. It’s a small nod, but a meaningful one — this Belvedere’s entire reason for being exceptional traces directly back to decisions Hoover and his team made years before this specific car ever rolled off the line.

The Little Old Lady From Pasadena, Revisited

One commenter reaches for an unexpected reference point entirely: ‘The little old lady from Pasadena actually had a metallic mauve Belvedere ragtop,’ a nod to the classic Jan and Dean song about a grandmother secretly racing a hot rod around town. It’s a playful, slightly tongue-in-cheek callback, but it fits this particular car better than most — a Hemi-powered convertible finished in a soft, unassuming mauve rather than an aggressive muscle car color is exactly the kind of car that could plausibly hide serious performance behind an understated exterior, the same joke at the heart of the original song. Whether or not anyone actually drove a real mauve Belvedere the way the lyrics describe, the comment captures something true about this car’s whole identity: a genuinely fearsome engine wrapped in a color and body style nobody would guess hides a 426 Hemi at first glance.

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