Super Stock Hemi Satellite

Jim Isherwood spent decades behind the wheel of Mopar Super Stock race cars, and this ride-along in his 426 Hemi-powered Satellite GTX Belvedere captures exactly why fans still talk about him. Since his passing, the comment section has turned into something between a technical breakdown and a tribute. Watch, and listen, to understand why nothing else sounds quite like a Hemi under full throttle.

Some ride-along videos are just entertainment. This one turned into something closer to a memorial. When this footage of Jim Isherwood taking his Super Stock Hemi Satellite GTX Belvedere for a hard pull first circulated, it was simply a loud, well-documented look at a race car most fans had never seen up close. It plays differently now — the man behind the wheel has since passed away, and the comment section underneath this video has become something between a tribute wall and a technical discussion about one of Mopar’s rarest race-bred street engines.

What Made the Satellite GTX a Super Stock Contender

The Belvedere and Satellite platform served as Plymouth’s mid-size performance base throughout the late 1960s, and when paired with the 426 Hemi under NHRA’s Super Stock classification, it became one of the most formidable factory-backed drag cars Chrysler ever campaigned. Super Stock rules required the car to remain largely stock in appearance and chassis while running a full-race engine package, which is exactly the combination that made cars like Isherwood’s Satellite GTX Belvedere so intimidating — a car that looked like a street cruiser but ran quarter-mile times that put it firmly in serious race car territory.

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The 426 Hemi’s Reputation, Confirmed by the Sound Alone

Commenters on this ride-along repeatedly focused on one specific detail: the sound. Multiple viewers described the Hemi’s idle and full-throttle note as unmatched by anything else in the muscle car world, with one commenter admitting the in-car audio alone was enough to make an impression before the car had even left the line. That reaction lines up with the Hemi’s broader reputation among enthusiasts who grew up around it in the 1970s, several of whom describe being able to physically feel a Hemi car launch from the grandstands, not just hear it, a sensation younger fans watching this footage decades later say they finally understand.

A Quarter Mile in the Nines

One commenter specifically referenced a nine-second quarter-mile time associated with this car, a genuinely serious number for a Super Stock-class vehicle running what is, underneath the modifications, still a production-based chassis and drivetrain. Getting a car like this into the nine-second range requires far more than just the Hemi’s factory output — a fully built drivetrain, chassis preparation for weight transfer, and a driver experienced enough to manage that much torque off the line without simply spinning the tires away, all of which Isherwood clearly had dialed in by the time this footage was captured, the product of years spent tuning the same combination rather than a single lucky pass.

Remembering Jim Isherwood

Isherwood’s history in Mopar racing goes back further than this particular car — commenters recalled watching him campaign a 1963 Plymouth at the old Mission drag strip in the mid-1970s, meaning his involvement in Super Stock and Hemi racing spanned decades rather than a single build. That mid-1970s Mission track history means Isherwood was already a known quantity in regional Mopar racing circles well before this Satellite GTX Belvedere became his signature car. Since his passing, this video has become one of the more visible records of his driving still circulating online, with fans in the comments extending condolences to his family and describing the loss as one felt across the broader vintage Mopar racing community, not just among people who knew him personally.

Why Ride-Along Footage Matters for Cars Like This

Static photos of a Super Stock Hemi car capture the visual details — the stripes, the badging, the stance — but they cannot convey what actually makes a car like this significant: the violence of the launch, the drivetrain noise under load, and the way the chassis behaves under full power. In-car footage like this preserves that experience in a way a written spec sheet never could, which is exactly why ride-along videos of cars with documented racing histories tend to circulate and get rewatched long after they are first posted, especially once the driver behind the wheel becomes part of the car’s own history.

The Belvedere and Satellite’s Place in Super Stock History

Plymouth’s B-body Super Stock program produced some of the most feared factory drag cars of the 1960s, competing directly against Dodge’s own Hemi-powered Coronets and Ford’s Thunderbolt-based entries for NHRA class supremacy. Cars like Isherwood’s Satellite GTX Belvedere represent the tail end of that era, built and campaigned as the factory Super Stock wars gave way to purpose-built Pro Stock competition in the following decade, making surviving, still-running examples like this one an increasingly rare direct link back to when Detroit’s biggest manufacturers were racing each other with cars close enough to stock that regular buyers could technically order the same engine off the same dealer lot.

The 426 Hemi’s Broader Legacy

Chrysler introduced the second-generation 426 Hemi in 1966 specifically to homologate it for NHRA and NASCAR competition, rating it conservatively at 425 horsepower for street applications while race-prepared versions like the one in Isherwood’s Satellite routinely exceeded that figure by a wide margin. That engine went on to power some of the most feared Super Stock and Pro Stock cars of its era before emissions regulations forced it out of production by 1971, which is part of why documented, still-running examples pulling nine-second passes carry so much weight with today’s vintage drag racing community.

A Legacy That Outlives the Car

With Isherwood gone, the future of this specific Satellite GTX Belvedere is not something the video itself addresses, but the reaction underneath it makes clear the car’s significance was never just about the quarter-mile numbers. It is now inseparable from the story of the man who built and drove it for decades, across multiple cars and multiple eras of Mopar drag racing, and for the vintage racing community that grew up watching him run, this ride-along has become as much about preserving his memory as it is about documenting a genuinely fast Hemi Belvedere — a small piece of footage doing double duty as both a technical record and a farewell.

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