With the 2016 MCACN show in full swing today, I thought that I would post up one of the stars of last years Hemi E-Body Convertible Invitational. The "crown jewel" of Wade Ogle's collection, and quite possibly the penultimate Hemi E-Body convertible of all made - BS27R1B337604. This amazing car is 1 of only 11 1971 HemiCuda convertibles ever made. 1 of only 7 made for the U.S. market, and of those 1 of 5 made with an automatic. It is finished in FE5 Rallye Red with a SRX9 black leather interior and a V3X black convertible top.
Shown with the car was a placard listing the cars impressive options that include the A01 Light Group Package, A32 Super-Performance 4:10 geared Dana axle pkg, A62 Rally Gauge pkg, B51 Power Disc Brakes, C16 Center Console, C62 Six Way Seat, G15 Tinted Windshield, P37 Power Top, R35 AM/FM Radio and S77 Power Steering among other things. As the placard describes, this car was the last of the 11 1971 HemiCuda convertibles to "surface" and the story behind it is almost surreal.
A Phoenix Arizona resident named Morgan was seriously injured and paralyzed from the waist down in a motorcycle accident. As part of his insurance settlement, Morgan went to the Bill Luke Chrysler Plymouth dealership in Phoenix Arizona and ordered himself a loaded 1971 HemiCuda convertible to be fitted with hand controls. The car became a somewhat of a fixture at the Luke dealership. On Monday mornings Morgan would bring the car in for some sort of warranty repair, quite often with the interior filled with empty beer cans. Morgan would then pick the car up on Friday, tear it up over the weekend and then drop it back off on Monday to repeat the cycle.
In 1972 Bill and Bob Graham bought the car from Morgan for $1700. Bill and Bob were not easy on the car either. They took it on a road trip to Reno, and somehow wound up leaving the Shaker bubble at a gas station. They wound up filling the hole in the hood with a homemade tunnel ram setup. Then inspired by Vanishing Point, they fitted the car with off-road tires and turned it into a desert dunebuggy of sorts, and took some pictures of the car out in the desert doing its thing (still looking for those pics). In early 1973 they traded the car for a '67 tripower Corvette convertible. The new owner took the ‘vert to the east coast but almost immediately brought it back. In late 1973, again in Phoenix, the car was for sale again, this time for $1900. The Graham's considered buying it back, as it looked the same except for a hole in the rear convertible window, but they couldn't come up with the money.
Charlie Grant then bought the car, drove it for about 2 years, and then parked it in 1975. It had just 20K miles on the odometer. Being a car guy Charlie thought the car might be rare, perhaps one of a hundred or so, and therefore might be worth something someday (boy did he get that right!).
Dave Blake, who had the foresight to buy these cars in the '70s and early '80s, when they were still just used cars, was also a resident of Phoenix. In 1977, when Dave set out to buy any and all of the Hemicuda Convertibles, he encountered the Graham brothers, as they were both street-racing types. The Grahams said they used to have a HemiCuda convertible and they showed Dave an old insurance slip with the VIN showing that this was in fact legit. Dave went to the Phoenix DMV and, armed with the VIN and a single dollar, the DMV gave him a printout of Charlie's name and address. Dave contacted Charlie and tried, but Charlie would not sell. Try as he might, even though this one was born in and still residing in his own backyard, over the next 30 years he could not pry this one out of Charlie's hands. When Dave wanted to buy it for $20K, Charlie wanted $40K, and so on.
By the early 2000's the values of these cars were going into the stratosphere. As that happened, all of the other ten 1971 Hemicuda Convertibles surfaced - all except for this one. Everybody dreamed about finding this renegade car in a barn somewhere, but because the prices were already so crazy mostly everyone believed it had to have been destroyed and crushed over the years. Charlie, being a very quiet and reserved guy, didn't say a word to anyone. Dave also kept quiet - if you knew where treasure was buried would you tell everyone?
By 2005, Dave was getting crazy offers for his '71, and Charlie knew this. So Dave realized there was no way he could actually afford to buy Charlie's car anymore. After nearly 30 years of keeping his valuable secret, Dave finally leaked the existence of the red convertible to noted collector Bill Wiemann. Bill then hounded Charlie, but for several months Charlie flatly denied the car’s existence. But Bill's persistence paid off, and after about 6 months of effort Bill landed the big fish. Its public announcement in the August 2006 edition of Mopar Action Magazine shook the world, as the "Missing" 1971 Hemicuda Convertible had finally been found.
Bill only had the car for about 2 months before he "flipped" it to Wade Ogle. Some unsubstantiated reports indicate that the private sale from Wiemann to Ogle may have been "north" of the $3.5 mil brought for Kevin Suydam's blue '71 HemiCuda convertible at the 2014 Mecum Seattle auction. However, before selling the car to Wade, Bill had made a commitment to debut the car at the 2006 Chryslers at Carlisle which was only a few weeks away. Wade agreed to meet the show obligation, but to do so, the car was hastily thrown together with only the ropes surrounding it keeping the onlookers from realizing it was basically held together by half of the necessary hardware!
On the trip back from the Carlisle show the 'Missing' Hemicuda went missing again. Wade had 3 cars, this convert and two '71 Hemicuda hardtops on a transport going back to California from Carlisle. Two days into the delivery the transport company, Goldrush Motorsports, went bankrupt. For about two weeks, Wade got the run-around and did not know where his cars were! When he was finally able to get in contact with the truck driver, the driver was abandoning the trailer at a TA truckstop outside of East St. Louis, because he was out of fuel, money and the feds were coming to impound everything! Wade was able to recover his cars, but his story about it is a tale unto itself. Bang it here to read his first hand account of the event
http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=440332&page=2After Wade recovered from nearly losing his prized HemiCuda convertible in the Goldrush Motorsports fiasco, he had the car properly restored by Apex Autosports in Grafton WI. The car is restored as original except for he chose to put on billboards instead of the vinyl side moldings, and added the roadlamps and dual painted mirrors instead of the single mirror as a matter of personal preference. Because it is so highly optioned it is a 2-tag car, and has both original tags. It also fortunately has its original broadcast sheet, but because the car was sitting outside in the Phoenix desert for decades, with the sheet still in the car, the paper is intact but baked to a potato-chip crispness. Even though the car was abused early in its life it did not suffer any major damage, and due to the friendly weather in Phoenix it still has nearly all of its original sheetmetal. Much of the original paint was still on the car when Bill bought it, but while one side was red the other side was orange, heavily faded from facing the Phoenix sun for all those decades. Today, even though it has now been restored, the car still has its original Rallye Red paint under the interior door panels and carpet, and the underside of the floorpan is untouched, with just a fresh undercoating over the original factory undercoating. It also still proudly wears its original Arizona license plate PTE-971.
With its original motor, original metal, original paperwork, detailed ownership history, heavy performance and convenience options, desirable color combination, and colorful history the "Missing" 1971 Hemicuda Converible is one of the best of its breed, and one of the most valuable musclecars in existence.
