1964 Polara 383

White 1964 Dodge Polara 500 hardtop with a red side spear and red interior, front three-quarter at a show — 1964 Dodge Polara 500 two-door hardtop in white with red interior Photo: Greg Gjerdingen, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Factory statusFactory configuration

Body styletwo-door-hardtop

Trim / packagePolara 500

Engine383 cid engine

Inductionone four-barrel

Published power330 hp · Dodge advertised hp; basis not further identified

Published torque425 lb-ft · Dodge advertised hp torque

Forward gears4

Transmissionfour-speed floor shift

Matched period road testUnknown

What this record proves

The badge is only the beginning.

Dodge's 383 at 330 advertised horsepower with a four-speed floor shift is the Polara 500's base performance proposition, and it sits at the same advertised output as Plymouth's 383 in the same corporate year.

Dodge did not state the rating's basis either. The figure is what the division advertised, recorded with its gap rather than dressed up as a measurement, and no period road test is matched to this configuration.

That the Dodge and Plymouth records mirror each other so closely is itself evidence about how Chrysler sold street performance in 1964: two divisions, closely related packages, and a marketing distinction doing work that the engineering did not.