What a excellent project!! I've always wanted to do this car. I can't wait to see it finished. I had a long discussion with ted Stephens about the real Part 1 cars since he owns the Part II cars. They were in the original town visiting the gas station that was in the film and the old timer that owned the place actually worked on the cars during the original movie shoot. They weren't running right because of the altitude I guess. This man confirmed that all 5 cars went to the crusher after filming and Chrysler did not want them going back out for resale after the abuse they took. This is why they never surfaced for sale. There is more interesting stuff to the story, I'll have to ask Ted again to fill me in. He had a lot of info on them.
