Hi all...
Just found this site and it looks great!
I bought an AAR in 1971. It never really did run quite right, as I think it had a hard life before I got it. Factory exhaust was missing, and the driver's door had been hit and repainted....
The original motor labored on until sometime in '73 when it blew up big time. I took it out and put a junkyard 273 hp in it and continued to drive it to work and such. It actually ran a bit better than with the sick 340.
Anyway, I started my own business in '74, and didn't have time to mess with it, so I sold it. I also had a '70 EB7 hemicuda at the time, and sold that too. In retrospect, perhaps yet another "not so bright" move.
Lost track of both cars, until I heard someone talking about a blue AAR behind a house under a tree about 30 miles from me. This was in 1990, I found out the location and paid the guy a visit. Turns out, it was the guy who bought it from me. He'd kept it a few years then sold it, and lost track of it too. He missed the car and traced it through DMV, and bought it back. He towed it home, and put it in his backyard where it had been since 1980. He told me people had been bugging him about buying the car for years, because it could sorta be seen from the road in front of his house. He refused to sell it, but since he sorta knew me since he bought it from me, he decided that I'd give it the home that it deserved.
Anyway, I struck a deal for the car, and...the original blown engine that he still had in his garage that I had thrown in with the deal when he bought it. The car was a mess, but it was my original car, so it just had to be put back right. Full restoration time, and the original motor, luckily repairable, rebuilt and reinstalled.
What a thrill that was to fire up that 340 again after it blew on me some 25 years earlier! And now it's once again "matching numbers".
If you were at Carlisle this year, you might have seen it. It was the only EB5 AAR with an EB5 interior. I tried for years before I got it back to find another one like it, but to no avail. It also has quick steering, four speed/no console, 3.91 rear and the "plain" dash and nothing else but the AM radio...just the way I like it!
I was camping on the grounds all weekend with some buddies, and I had it parked with all the Trans Am cars.
I also have a GG1 four speed '68 hemi Roadrunner hardtop that I've had since 1976, and an EW1 440/6 Superbird. The latest addition is a FC7 '70 Challenger RT/SE, that I'm still getting to know. My first "survivor" car with it's original paint. I've been going to the Nationals since about 1990 and Carlisle since it started the Mopar thing. I've been a Mopar guy since my first one that I bought new in high school...a '68 440 GTX.
I'll post a few pics as soon as the weather is nice enough to take something out for a drive and a picture.
Looking forward to meeting some of you folks next year! I'll probably have one of my cars at Carlisle for sure..
Guy