Fast Eddie Drives’68 Hurst HEMI Dart: The World’s Fastest Muscle Car?

Ed Wheeldon, known on the drag strip as Fast Eddie, once turned down a $250,000 offer for his 1968 Dodge Dart, a genuine factory Hemi Super Stock he still races at Eddyville Dragway for a $200 appearance fee. Mopar Max Magazine later put him on its cover after the car ran a best pass of 6.501 seconds. Few six-figure Hemi drag cars still see the strip today. Find out why Wheeldon insists on keeping his in the game.

Somebody once offered Ed Wheeldon a quarter of a million dollars for his car. He said no. The Delta, Iowa resident known to drag racing fans as Fast Eddie owns a 1968 Dodge Dart built as a factory special-edition Hemi drag car, and instead of selling it for a payday most people would take without hesitation, he keeps racing it at Eddyville Dragway, for an appearance fee of exactly $200 a show. A magazine cover story later confirmed just how special the car really is. What is it about this Dart that makes a quarter-million-dollar offer easy to turn down?

A $250,000 Offer, Politely Declined

Ed Wheeldon’s 1968 Dodge Dart is a genuine factory Hemi Super Stock, one of a small batch of special-edition drag cars Dodge built specifically for professional and semi-professional quarter-mile competition rather than street use. When an offer of $250,000 came in for the car, Wheeldon turned it down, a decision that says as much about what the car means to him as it does about its market value among Mopar drag racing collectors.

⚑ Featured Gear

Start Car Conversations →

← Prev Next →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Racing for $200 a Show, Not for the Money

Rather than parking the Dart in a climate-controlled collection, Wheeldon runs it in exhibition passes at Eddyville Dragway, where event organizers pay him $200 just to bring the car out and put it through its paces. That token appearance fee makes clear the arrangement is not about profit, it is about keeping a genuine factory Hemi drag car doing exactly what Dodge built it to do, in front of fans who may never get another chance to see one run.

Mopar Max Magazine’s Cover Story Confirms the Car’s Rarity

Wheeldon’s Dart earned enough recognition to land on the cover of Mopar Max Magazine, which noted his factory Hemi Dart ran a best pass of 6.501 seconds during testing, a serious number for a car built more than five decades ago. The magazine also raised a question that resonates with drag racing historians: how many of these ultra-rare, six-figure Hemi Super Stock cars are still being actively raced rather than kept as static collectibles?

Why Factory Super Stock Darts Are So Hard to Verify

Confirming a genuine Hemi Super Stock Dart requires far more than a badge or a seller’s word, since the factory build sheets, VIN codes, and documentation trail for these low-volume drag specials are frequently incomplete or lost entirely after decades of racing use. Wheeldon’s Dart carrying enough documented history to support a magazine cover story and a quarter-million-dollar offer speaks to an unusually well-preserved paper trail, the kind that separates a verified factory car from the many tribute and clone Darts that have been built to resemble the real thing over the years.

How the Dodge Dart Became a Factory Drag Weapon

Dodge’s Hemi Super Stock program in the late 1960s took a compact, unassuming platform like the Dart and stuffed it with the same 426 Hemi engine found in full-size performance cars, creating a purpose-built package aimed squarely at NHRA competition. These cars were never intended as street drivers, they were factory-built drag weapons, produced in small enough numbers that surviving, documented examples like Wheeldon’s carry both historical and monetary significance well beyond a typical restored muscle car.

The Broader World of Mopar Match Racing

Exhibition match racing, the format Wheeldon still runs his Dart in today, has its own long history within drag racing separate from NHRA points competition, built around head-to-head showdowns between recognizable cars rather than championship standings. Tracks like Eddyville Dragway have kept that tradition alive for decades, giving fans a chance to see genuine factory-built drag cars like Wheeldon’s Dart run in person rather than only reading about them in magazines or watching grainy archival footage online.

What a $200 Fee Says About the Exhibition Racing Economy

What a `$200 appearance fee like the one Eddyville Dragway pays Wheeldon does not cover is the real cost of maintaining, transporting, and safely running a vintage factory drag car, meaning owners who accept these bookings are essentially subsidizing the show themselves out of love for the car and the sport. That economics only makes Wheeldon’s continued participation more notable: he is not chasing a payday from these appearances, he is covering a small piece of his costs while giving fans a rare chance to see genuine Mopar drag racing history in person.

A Sport Special Badge That Still Confuses Owners

One commenter on the video mentioned recently buying a 1968 Dart with a “Sport Special” badge and asking what the designation actually meant, a question that highlights just how much confusion still surrounds Dodge’s various late-1960s Dart trim and performance packages. Unlike Wheeldon’s documented factory Hemi Super Stock, many surviving Darts from this era carry badges and options that require careful research to fully identify, since Dodge’s compact-car performance lineup branched into several overlapping variants during these years.

Why Six-Figure Hemi Super Stocks Rarely See the Track Today

Most surviving Hemi Super Stock Darts have long since been retired to static collections, their six-figure valuations making active drag racing a financial risk few owners are willing to take. Wheeldon’s willingness to keep running his car at events like Eddyville Dragway puts him in a small minority of owners choosing exposure and use over pure preservation, a decision that keeps the car’s factory-built purpose alive rather than reducing it to a display piece.

A Drag Racing Legend Who Still Shows Up

Fast Eddie’s story is as much about the man as the machine: a racer who turned down a life-changing sum of money to keep doing exhibition passes for pocket change, simply because the car was built to run and he intends to keep it that way. In a hobby where six-figure Hemi cars increasingly disappear into private collections, Wheeldon’s Dart remains a rare example of factory Mopar history still doing its job in front of a crowd. For fans lucky enough to catch one of these appearances in person, cars like Wheeldon’s Dart are as close as most people will ever get to seeing genuine 1960s factory drag racing history running under its own power, engine note, launch, and all.

See the full video above and join the conversation in the comments.

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Related posts:

Who is the Greatest Drag Racer of all Time? NHRA’s 50 Greatest 1952 Indy 500 Car John Snowberger Restores His Dad Russ Snowberger’s 50’s-70’s American Street Racers. Where are they now? 2+2 = FAST! One of the Rarest Pontiac’s of the 60’s Beats 67 Barracuda w/ 383 The Most Embarrassing Vehicle to Drive? Rarest Muscle Car is a Hemi Configuration 1966-1971 1965 Shelby Powered Mercer Cobrat By Virgil Exner This Hoss Is The Boss, 1969 stock 500 hp Boss 429 Mustang! Built by Kar Kraft Almost Vintage Mopars Against The World Video Ubly Dragstrip Hey You! Got A Woodie? Car that is…