Plymouth Fury 1964 426 Wedge Convertible

Wearing factory Sandalwood paint and a 426 Max Wedge under the hood, this 1964 Plymouth Fury represents the final, sharpest version of Chrysler’s wedge-head big block before the 426 Hemi took over for good. With only a few hundred Max Wedge cars built across the whole B-body lineup that year, and a four-speed stick rarer still, every surviving example gets its paint code checked twice.

Very cool, and very original, 1964 Plymouth Fury featuring a Sandalwood (not Mauve) paint color and a hot 426 Wedge V8 under the hood!

The paint code on this Fury’s build sheet apparently caused enough confusion that somebody felt the need to correct the record: it’s Sandalwood, not Mauve, and if that sounds like a strange detail to argue about on a car this rare, that’s because everything about a real Max Wedge Fury tends to invite that kind of scrutiny. 1964 was the last year Chrysler offered the 426 Max Wedge before the Hemi took over the following season, and by then the factory had pushed the “Stage III” version about as far as a wedge-head big block could go. Only a few hundred of these left the factory across the entire Plymouth and Dodge B-body lineup that year, which means every surviving one gets picked apart down to the paint code. So what exactly made the final Max Wedge worth arguing about, decades later?

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The Last, Meanest Wedge Chrysler Ever Built

By 1964, Chrysler’s 426 Max Wedge had been sharpened into the “Stage III” package, offered with either an 11.0:1 compression ratio good for 415 horsepower or a race-only 12.5:1 setup rated at 425, numbers that put it among the biggest engines you could order in an intermediate that year. It was also the first Max Wedge year to offer a four-speed manual behind it, and Chrysler built shockingly few that way: just 65 Plymouths and 61 Dodges left the factory with the A-833 stick that season, since the corporation hadn’t had a manual transmission tough enough to survive the engine until then. A four-speed Max Wedge Fury from ’64 isn’t just rare, it’s one of the rarest possible combinations Chrysler ever bolted together on purpose.

One Year Only, Then the Hemi Took Over

The Max Wedge program only ran from 1962 to 1964 across Plymouth and Dodge’s B-body cars, Savoy, Belvedere, Fury, and Sport Fury, before Chrysler retired the wedge-head design entirely in favor of the 426 Hemi for 1965, which means this Fury represents the absolute final word on a three-year performance experiment.

Why a Paint Code Argument Is Really a Provenance Argument

That short production window is exactly why a detail as small as “Sandalwood, not Mauve” matters to the people who care about these cars: with only a handful surviving in original, unmolested condition, getting the smallest details right is the difference between a nice old Fury and a documented piece of Mopar’s final wedge-era statement.

The Max Wedge Program’s Three-Year Arc

Chrysler’s Max Wedge program began in 1962 as a direct answer to the emerging factory drag-racing arms race, first appearing in lighter Plymouth and Dodge bodies built specifically to maximize a power-to-weight advantage at the strip. By 1964, the program had been sharpened into its final and most powerful form before Chrysler retired the entire wedge-head concept in favor of the 426 Hemi the following year, giving the Max Wedge a compact but influential three-season run.

Why ‘Wedge’ Describes the Combustion Chamber, Not the Car

The Max Wedge name refers specifically to the wedge-shaped combustion chamber design machined into the cylinder heads, a distinctly different geometry from the hemispherical chambers that would define the following year’s 426 Hemi. Understanding that distinction matters for anyone researching a car like this one: a Max Wedge and a Hemi are related by manufacturer and era, but they are fundamentally different engine architectures, not two names for the same design.

A Convertible in a Coupe-Dominated World

Most factory drag-package Max Wedge cars left the assembly line as lightweight two-door sedans or hardtops, body styles chosen specifically to shave weight for quarter-mile use. A convertible carrying the same engine and transmission combination is a far less common pairing, since buyers chasing the fastest possible elapsed times rarely wanted the added weight and reduced structural rigidity that came with a drop-top body.

The Cross-Ram Question

Every Max Wedge from 1962 on breathed through a distinctive cross-ram intake manifold, a dramatic-looking setup with long, crossed runners feeding twin Carter AFBs on opposite banks of the engine. The 1964 Stage III didn’t soften that one bit — it got a revised short-ram cross-ram casting tuned for higher rpm, not some more streetable layout — which means verifying a specific car’s exact original induction setup, right down to the casting number, matters just as much to documentation as confirming its compression ratio or rear gear.

How the Hemi Overshadowed the Wedge’s Legacy

Because the 426 Hemi arrived just one model year later and went on to dominate drag racing headlines for the rest of the decade, the Max Wedge program is often treated as a footnote in Mopar history. That reputation undersells its importance — the Max Wedge was the engine that first established Chrysler’s name for building genuinely race-ready factory big-blocks, laying the groundwork for everything the Hemi would later build on.

What a Numbers-Matching Stage III Commands Today

Surviving, documented Max Wedge cars are exceptionally scarce given how few left the factory across the entire three-year program, and a four-speed example finished in its original color carries a significant premium over an automatic car wearing a repaint, regardless of body style. For a convertible specifically, that combination of rarity, correct color documentation, and a stick-shift Stage III engine puts this Fury near the top of what the Max Wedge era has to offer collectors today.

How the Max Wedge Compares to Later Chrysler Big-Blocks

Set beside the Hemi that replaced it and the later 440 Six-Pack that carried Mopar performance into the early 1970s, the Max Wedge reads as the transitional engine that proved Chrysler could build a genuinely race-competitive big-block on a production line. Later engines refined the formula with different induction and combustion-chamber approaches, but the Max Wedge is where Chrysler first showed it was willing to build something this aggressive and sell it to the public. That willingness to gamble on a genuinely radical engine is the thread connecting the Max Wedge program directly to everything Mopar performance would become.

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