another one of my 'FLASHBACK' articles....just sitting here in 'the home' remembering the good old days
late 1988....
...I had a several people wanting to buy my '69 Dodge Daytona, but it just wasn't for sale.....I didn't have anything I wanted to replace it with soooooo....
...I was restoring a Panther Pink Challenger T/A and found a pair of NOS front fenders for sale in the Winged Warrior Newsletter, so off I go to Cleveland Ohio to buy them....
...when I arrived at the guys garage to pick up the fenders he had a red Challenger partially covered sitting on one side of the garage....I made a few inquiries and found out it was a HEMI RT/SE.....he showed me the car and I was dumbfounded, it was the most perfect and beautiful Challenger I had ever laid eyes on....he wanted to sell it, the price was a firm $48K....I didn't have the money to make the deal work, but I did have lots of people expressing interest in purchasing the Daytona....in short, I soon sold the Daytona for $46,900. and bought the HEMI Challenger RT/SE....when I went to pick up the car he told me he thought it might even be the 1st one made, but I didn't really know what to think about the comment.....paid the guy his money, loaded the car on an open trailer for the 4 hour trip back to Indiana....well, the weather changed about half way home from a sunny 50 degree day, to a blinding ice/sleet and snow storm.....it took 10 hours of gut wrenching driving to make the 4 hour trip home....remember Gilligan
...we got the HEMI home safely and thawed her out....there she was, the most beautiful car I had ever laid eyes on....the VIN# was JS29R0B100015, I assumed it was the 15th Challenger, and maybe, just maybe the first HEMI....a few weeks later I was going thru some old magazines and found a Car and Driver Magazine from Nov 1969 that had an article about the new 1970 HEMI Challenger, and it was my car they used in for the article....
after extensive research, I found out the first 12 VINs were assigned to Barracudas(HEMICUDA #100003 belongs to a friend of mine) and the Challengers started with #13....I found #13 ( a white 318 conv.) while at the MOPAR Nats, it belonged to a guy and it was so horribly rusted he didn't know if it could ever be restored(I've never seen it since).....#14, I never did find out any info about, so that leaves #15, my HEMI RT/SE......it was the only HEMI RT/SE manufactured(build date of 801) before the magazine deadline, so it had to be the same car as the Car and Driver Challenger(the writer hated the car by the way)...
I kept the car for nearly a decade before tiring of it and selling all the MOPARS I had left in my little collection...It was in numerous MOPAR and musclecar magazines, books, and was even used in the set of MOPAR Cards about 15 years ago(remember those)....it was very well publicized during the years in my possession...do I miss it, no, not really.....my interests changed to Vipers and I have had a long string of them too, Prowlers and Vettes have also come and gone in great quantities....but I did just buy another T/A a few days ago, the itch it still there sometimes...
ps...the green Daytona went to Mason Dixon in Tampa Florida and he kept it for about 10 years and it now resides in the Cleveland area...the Pink T/A was sold before the restoration was finished....it has since been finished, judged and quietly resides in a garage about 10 miles from my house(he also has a perfect Yelo 6 Pak SuperBird)....the HEMI Challenger RT/SE is still in the possession of the guy I sold it to and I think he has moved back to Michigan after living in Pawley Island, SC for several years...it still looks and drives as perfect as that Christmas day in 1988 when I brought her home to Indiana...
the FIRST HEMI Challenger RT/SE ever made.....JS29R0B100015...I drove it on the street quite often, but with the lack of stripes it never really got much attention till I set the H60 Polyglas on fire....
