From 426 to 5.7 L Hemi: History of the Elephant

Time flies. It flies for any number of reasons. Could be because you’re having fun. Could be because of the theory of relativity. Or it could be because you’re driving a car with a Hemi under the hood – a really fast, powerful car.

Granted, if you’re driving a fast car, you’re probably having fun, too, so maybe you’re experiencing time twice as fast. Someone should check our math on that.

But we digress.

This year marks the 50^th Anniversary of the Hemi engine, but really its history dates back further than that. It draws its heritage from fighter planes and tanks, the great war machines of the 1940s. There was a time in the 50s when it was known as the FirePower engine, or the FireDome, or Red Ram.

The trademark Hemi was introduced in 1964 at the Daytona 500 race, in Richard Petty’s Plymouth Belvedere. He won. And he won. And he won again, taking eight races on his way to the ’64 NASCAR championship. Other Hemi racecars won a total of twenty-six races, earning four of the top five finishes on the year. They called that engine “The Elephant,” not just for its payout on the track, but for its massive payload, displacing 426 cubic inches, or 7.0 liters. It was so dominant that first year, NASCAR changed their rules, requiring engines to be street legal and available in production cars.

So Chrysler switched to drag racing and cleaned up there instead, until they released a street Hemi in 1966, at which point they returned to trashing the competition in NASCAR.

Today, the 5.7 L Hemi, the engine we know and love, is still a beast. The modern Hemi takes advantage of variable valve timing and the Multi-Displacement System to generate one horsepower per cubic inch. That’s anywhere north of 350 horsepower, depending on what you’re driving. The 5.7 L Hemi is available in a number of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and RAM vehicles.

Chrysler has released a line of 50^th Anniversary Hemi merchandise, which will be available this month. If you have questions about the 50^th Anniversary Hemi merchandise, or if you want to know which of our stock is packing the 5.7 L Hemi, leave a comment, email comments@leithmail.com, or ask one of our team at Leith Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM in Wendell.