Sample 1968 Dodge Charger Ad
Once upon a time, there was a 1968 Dodge Charger looking for TLC. It was orange in colour and had most of its original parts – 727 Torqueflite automatic transmission shifted through a console, 3:23 non-Suregrip Differential, a 383H numbers-matching (supposedly) big block, 1969 fiberglass fenders and the typical torn vinyl seats, carpet, vinyl roof cover and headliner of a used car of that era (actually, the headliner was prestine!). It lived off of Ford drive in an adjacent town called Oakville. I had been told it was previously owned by a brother who had a grand plan for restoring it, but due to financial hardships, it fell by the way-side – leaving the other brother the responsibility of selling the car to offset some of the debt they had accumulated.
At around the same time, there was a boy who was looking for a classic muscle car to call his own. As he made his way through high school, he worked part-time at Canadian Tire, first in the Automotive department in a retail store and later at the Autoparts Depot – needless to say, he received all the auto-parts knowledge and experience he was ever going to need to tackle a car project. He’d been driving a 1977 Honda Civic he received from his uncle who wasn’t going to drive it any longer. All the maintenance on this car, he did himself (oil changes, tune-ups, brakes, body, electrical, etc.) and the only thing he didn’t/couldn’t do was swap-out the manual transmission for a 5-speed (it came from the factory with 4) which he unbuckled and hauled out of a wrecking yard. He read a seemingly endless stream of car magazines and parts catalogues planning his strategy for his car restoration. He attended a number of car shows and swap meets, looking for cars and becoming familiar with how the shows worked and parts/accessories he’d be able to find. There were many late-night session in friends’ garages where they’d fix cars or tear them apart in preparation for a swap meet. Needless to say, this boy felt more than qualified to own and restore a muscle car of his own as he began looking through the local buy-and-sell automotive classifieds, looking for “the one”. Based on cars he’d seen, rode in, drove, saw in TV shows and movies, he whittle his decision down to his 3 top-picks: 1967/68 Ford Mustang Fastback, 1967/68 Chevy Camero, 1968/69 Dodge Charger – oh, and what the heck, he was open to a 1970 Dodge Challenger as well. Ideally, he dreampt that someday, he’d own his trifecta collection…67 Mustang, 68 Camero and 69 Charger.
Well it seemed at the time that the cars he was looking for were just not readily available or the ones that matched search criteria were much too expensive. The same was true for cars being sold at shows. It looked like his dream of owning a muscle car was doomed to remain a dream. Then, one day, while flipping through the pages of Auto Trader, there it was…a 1968 Dodge Charger, $3,500. The ad was pretty vague about its specs, but it looked in decent shape and the price was certainly right. And when it was STILL in the magazine the following week, he knew it must be a sign and contacted the gentlemen. As luck would have it, the car was still available so he arranged to drive-out to see it.
Welcome to my very first blog post! As you might have guess, the “boy” in the story is me and the car is “she”. The picture in the website header was taken when I first brought her home, in the street in front of my parent’s house. It was raining that day and I drove a basically untested car about 60KM home, on the hiway – thank goodness the wipers worked :-). But what a ride! I’d been driving a Honda Civic up-to that point – so to feel the rumbles of a Mopar big block under the gas pedal, to experience the massiveness of this Charger (in comparison) and the way it felt steering, accelerating and cruising – well, it was a dream come true! And, eventhough it did need TLC, what a great feeling to turn a dream into reality – I bought it outright, free-and-clear, this car was mine! It is my hope with the future posts on this blog to share with you the journey of this car, my plans for it, the trials and tribulations, my hopes and dreams and to even solicit input from you. With any luck, the blog will end with this car finally being finished and us having learned a lot. Or maybe it will be a continuing story of its adventures back on the road.
Looking forward to sharing all of this with you!
Nic