Just like to say hi and introduce myself. I don’t have a bunch of rare mopars or even ones I can drive right now, but I have been around them my whole life. The two mopars I currently own are project/basket case cars that are my first and second cars that I have owned. My first car I bought was 70 Cuda when I was in high school (1975?). It was a matching numbers 383 magnum, 4 spd, 3.23 rear end, black interior and that dark Ivy Green Metallic Paint. An interesting side note was that it was label 340 one side and 383 on the other (hood emblem & hockey strip) from the factory. If you ever worked on an assembly line you can understand how easy it would be for this to happen. That mismatch made for some very interesting street racing on Telegraph Rd (west side of Detroit). Anyways, it was a nice car for young kid in high school (see old photo). A couple years later a bought a 70 Challenger that was a semi-basket case. I put back together as a non-matching numbers 440, 4 spd, 3.55 read end, black interior, black vinyl top and white exterior. It looked similar to NZs Challenger, but with a full black vinyl top and cragars. (No photos of it in its prime, all $$ when to engine) But of course, it was not as detailed as NZs Challenger, by the way NZ congratulations and nice job. The Challenger had an 850 Holley, High Rise Aluminum intake, headers, large cam and it ran pretty good for a street car. I have hung on to these cars for the past 30 years, you can read about my entire sad story about how they have remained untouched for 20 some years at
http://www.carsinbarns.com/Mopars%20In%20Barns/pg113mopar.htmLike I said, I have been around Mopars all my life my father worked at Dodge Main Assembly (Hamtramck) and Jefferson Assembly all his life. He always bought Newports. I also worked at Dodge Main Assembly also for several years when they were building Aspens and Volaries.
I still live in Michigan, near Howell/Hartland area and have been working in the automotive testing field for the past 25 years. One day I hope to put them back together, Cuda will probably be black on black with the red hockey stripes and the Challenger will be similar to NZs (I hope!). My son is getting interested in cars, so I have been taking him Milan Drag Strip, Woodward Dream Cruise and we also went down to the Detroit Auto Show to see the new Challenger (See photo). I hope with your great web site, members input and my son’s interest in car I’ll be able to keep the cars on a higher priority in my life so I can drive them once again. I sure do miss driving them.
