Sommaire pour October 2019 de Mopar Action

IT’S TRULY AMAZING , it really is. The Dodge Challenger—reintroduced in 2008 and still going strong some 12 years later. I’d bet the folks at FCA are also amazed, ’Course, Challenger’s success didn’t just happen by chance. Credit goes to some shrewd marketing and competent engineering. First of all, the 2008 Challenger was faithful to the “soul,” if you will, of the ’70 model (which was, unfortunately, not the case with the ’78-’83 Bitsumishi version). As a matter of fact, when the new ‘08 Challenger was being designed at Pacifca, there was a first-gen Challenger on display right in the studio. The designers kept their eye on the ball, so to speak. The biggie, of course, was the SRT8 Hemi which put the car solidly back in the performance game.…

YOU KNOW HOW IT IS. All the braintrusts out there tell you that what you want to do can’t be done. So you show them. Or try to show them and fail, so you run to hide out in Argentina for a year because you’re too embarrassed. Ron Rothman says he’s not a big fan of Argentina, so when all his buds atCarlisle told him he was nuts to try and stuff a Gen 3 Hemi into a ’66 ’Cuda, that’s all Ron needed to hear. Just tell Ron “can’t,” then stand back and watch what happens (are you watching?) What happened is what you see on these pages, (if they haven’t been shredded by the Post Office. Or your dog.) Ron says he’s been into cars ever since he…

LEST YOU THINK that Ron Lim is just wrapped up in extreme customs, this ’71 Charger Super Bee should change your mind. He’s really just an ordinary average (Mopar) guy just like you and me and you (but not you). Ron bought this Charger new from East Bay Dodge in Oakland, California. He ordered the 383 Magnum instead of the Hemi because, as a student in pharmacy school, he couldn’t afford the gas. He could afford some interesting options—colored bumpers (Ron gets a lot of static from know-it-alls who insist he painted the chrome bumpers, but he has the original window sticker to prove it), rear rally lights, 4-speed, console, power steering and air conditioning. Ron and his Bee have been pals for 47 years and the car has remained…

“Plymouth’s ON THE MOVE!” That was the advertising slogan for 1963 as the Max Wedge era hit 426 inches and people began paying more attention to our well-remembered Mayflower brand (R.I.P.) There were drivers named Petty on the NASCAR tracks, while cars like the Melrose Missile and the Golden Commandos upheld the honor on the dragstrip. Up and coming in the performance marketplace, Plymouth was finding a niche for itself, and cars like the Sport Fury here made that happen. Transitioning towards the mid-sixties was a big deal for the Chrysler Corporation. Having assumed the presidency in 1961, Lynn Townsend had quickly replaced Virgil Exner with a dude from Ford named Elwood Engel. The designer of the 1961 Lincoln Continental, Engel became the primary driving force behind the cubist lineage…

“This one was sitting in a used car lot about 5 miles from the Mopar Nationals. The price I paid was $9500, but it is basically untouched, all original, great green brocade cloth interior. It’s a 318/non-air car, and I added dual exhaust, but it came with dual mirrors and 14” deluxe wheels. It has 14,000 miles on it. You know, some of these cars like this were simply kept in really great shape since day one; pay the extra money and avoid the hassles.”…

OF ALL THESE late-models Dodges, this one is Tim’s favorite. It is also the only one he has actually subjected to a high quality reworking, giving it to Andrew White at Apex Restorations to redo. This car is a native of Alabama, bought new by a young hairdresser who ordered it in triple white. “The two cars that I had in high school were triple white 1973s. I had a chance to buy it from the original owner, a lady up in north Alabama, and she wanted it kept nice, so she contacted me here at the museum. It is only the third triple-white version I have ever seen. “Anyhow, because of that, this is the one I actually set up as a driver. I sent the body up to…

I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT of Tim Wellborn as mainly a Dodge Boy. Back in the mid-’70s, there was still some differentiation between Dodges and Plymouths. You paid your money and you took your choice. Unfortunately, just as the R/T and ’Bee had already died at Dodge, the GTX, even as an option package, was dead meat by ’75. The Road Runner badge, luckily, soldiered on, as a B-body, thru 1975 (with the lowly G-code E44 as standard, unfortunately), and as an F-car, 1976-’80. Though quite different in front-end styling by 1973, mechanically, the Plymouths and Dodges were virtually identical. From my perspective, the same can be said of the R vs. W collectability. If anything, some folks think a Road Runner is a “hotter” car, value-wise than, say, a Charger S.E.…

HOMESTRETCH (almost)! The well-used 440-6 engine, killer Silver Sport 5-speed OD trans, original Dana rear, 11.75" front disc upgrade, and freshened stock Hemi suspension, are all close to our final install and good (we hope!) to go. That leaves us with a slew of minor but time-consuming details, before seeing if our used engine runs, and we judge it OK for a 4,000 mile jaunt! One sub-project yours truly gave up on decades ago that Brian, interestingly, felt 100% comfortable with, was installing the windshield and backlight. Since the ’80s, I’ve just called the local glass guy. Brian would have none of it. Some of his tricks and tips did make it fairly easy, especially the backlight. The original was installed at the assembly plant with self-stick butyl tape, but…

A ARON BECK DIDN’T RUN OUT OF MONEY on his Barracuda, or “Kuda,” as he calls it. He didn’t run out of time, and he didn’t run out of interest. In fact, what may look unfinished to you actually suits Aaron just fine, thank you. No, Aaron didn’t just throw together some scrap parts that he found lying around a few body shops, either. See, he’s a concept artist/designer who works for Weta Workshop in Wellington, New Zealand, and he’s worked on such major films as The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Avatar, Elysium, Godzilla, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Mad Max: Fury Road, among others. So, it’s no coincidence that there’s a little (or more than a little) Mad Max attitude in his ’Cuda. Aaron co-joined with his…

PROFESSIONAL DRIVER RANDY POBST is a name road racing fans are familiar with, as he has won the Rolex 24 at Daytona twice, competed on Pikes Peak five times, and held a lap time record at Laguna Seca, doing so in a Viper ACR-X. The track tester for Motor Trend for over a decade, he came to the hill in 2019 with the Charger Widebody Hellcat and Wesley Motorsports, and came away impressed. “It was a call from an old friend, Tom Odell at SRT, whom I met when we were testing Vipers, that got me on board. It was a high honor, and I had a feeling that that the supercharged Widebody might be a really effective way to climb the mountain. “I can tell you right now, it’s…

TELEVISION. Remember when you were a little kid, and it was a big deal to see people your age as TV stars? To be honest, I never chased after that sort of thing as an end goal. By the time I was in high school, it was far from my mind (street racing, baby—no TV cameras allowed!), and while it was sort of a kick to catch a glimpse of myself during some NHRA telecast as a photographer wandering around the starting line in the 1990s, it just wasn’t anything I ever figured would I would be involved in at a deeper level. Enter the 21st century and cable sports channels have come and gone and come again. Mopes are regularly seen on shows like Graveyard Carz, and I end…

CARS AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL. Both happened this year at Rockingham Dragway, but not at the same time. The Rock honcho, Steve Earwood, used a bit of sleight of hand or maybe Hemi voodoo to sandwich Mopars at The Rock between two bookends of rain days. Even so, the rain gods did get their dibs by cutting loose near the end of the event and short circuiting the final rounds in racing. ’Course if you stuck around for a few more days you could have been part of the huge Epicenter Festival featuring 70, yes, 70 bands (Ehrenberg and the 78 RPMs was no. 71 and didn’t make the cut) that the promoters were billing as The Woodstock of the South (or, The Hootenanny Knee-Slap Fest—we forget which). Oh yeah,…

“I’LL TELL YOU, these cars will get the same big thumbs-up that my Hemi cars do. We are at an age now where the styling on these Chargers is appreciated by people, regardless of engine.” This coming from the guy who once owned more 1971 Hemi Chargers then Chrysler ever did at one time, Tim Well-born knows the Mopar hobby inside and out. Regarding the final G-series Dodges from the final two years of production, they may be the last frontier of affordable B-body survivors that demand street respect, even if they don’t have 400+ horsepower. As you may know, the Hemi machinery from ’71 has climbed to be rated the top B-body Mopes behind the NASCAR specials and convertibles. When we recently planned a stop in lil’ Alexander City,…

“This one is cool. The Rallye package got you some upgrades like the body-color mirrors, side stripe, and better wheels;. I added the Cragars. It’s 100% original black-on-black paint with a black graphics and black vinyl interior. It has an aftermarket A/C unit added, and it was given undercoating by someone because it came from up north. However, it was not driven in bad weather. No power brakes, power steering, cool 8-track outfit. This sort of gives you an idea of how some of these cars can show up, as this car is not as original as some of the others, but it had not been butchered. The price was right, it had no rust, the glass and top were both good, and it has a great color combination. Someone…

“This is the only big-block I’ve got, and it’s a 400 (440 was still available thru 1974). The big-block is the one option I think would add collector money to these cars, but a lot of those cars were bought and run into the ground years ago. This car has painted mirrors, 150 MPH speedo, Tuff wheel, and air conditioning. The engine has never been out of it, we just put plug wires on it and it runs like a 383. I hate the 5MPH bumper guards, and I took them off most of these cars. Because it’s a big-block SE, I left them on this one.”…

“This one is a recent purchase, and it has higher mileage than most of these but it is in my absolute favorite color, which is that gunmetal grey, and 100% original paint and interior. This is a E44/D34318/A904 combination, has all the smog equipment on it and is still very original. 120 MPH speedo, the redesigned dash, with the remote hood pull-opener inside. It has a brand new spare in the trunk, and a black cloth bench seat interior with center divider. You know, if you liked girls, the bench seat was better anyhow…”…

BEEPER3 is, as the name implies, the third Mopar Action Road Runner project car. As with the original 1972 Beeper (circa 1999), this will be a very mildly modified resto-mod, with only a few upgrades as a tip of the hat to modern drivability, handling, and braking levels. Starting with a true V-code (440-6), Pistol Grip (which will now be connected to a SST 5-speed), Super Track Pack (4.10:1 Dana axle), Air Grabber, B5 blue 1970 RR, we’ve taken this bird from, as the saying goes, junker to jewel. Then it’ll get really interesting: We’ll drive it cross-country, NY to San Fran, where we’ll load it onto a tramp steamer to owner Brian Dowell’s shop, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, where it will see many more road miles (OK, kilometers). Down…

THE CURRENT ERA CHARGER is already a fairly substantial car. Built on the underpinnings that have made the LX platform an excellent all-around road machine, the recent announcement of the Charger Widebody Hellcat and Scat Pack models for 2020 would frankly give this sedan even more substantial girth. It would also give the car the ability to house a larger tire and would give Kevin Wesley and fellow driver Randy Pobst the opportunity to present the car in its all its possible glory at the 97th Running of The Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. While the announcement on the new car came the same week as the legendary Pikes Peak event in late June, the build program at Wesley Motorsports had begun much earlier, at the start of 2019,…

GLENN MCCULLAGH acknowledges that purists may hiss at him for modifying a clean, stock V8-motivated ’72 Dart. But he really doesn’t care. His car—a triple green automatic—was purchased out of Oregon 18 years ago and then stored away in a container for 15 years in Glenn’s hometown of Orangeville, Ontario Canada. Well preserved by our northern neighbor’s signature cold air, the Dodge was rolled out of the box, defrosted, and stripped to its icy shell. The vinyl top was removed, and the roof reskinned. A repaint in ’71 Citron Yella is complemented by Demon hood graphics and the B’Bee stripe in satin white. While he was at it, Glenn bolted on a wing, ’70 grille, and installed a rally dash. Glenn also removed the power steering (for whatever reason) but…

THE YEAR IS 1990 and yours truly was doing double duty in the body shop and a pizzeria? Yes, I was living a double life, getting high from paint fumes and then making and eating pizza. This was my version of Zen in 1990. So here I am slinging pizza in one of New York’s finest which wasn’t the worst job as it gave time for the paint fumes to escape my system for some rare moments of normalcy. Crec, what does pizza and Mopars have to do with anything? What, ya’ never ordered pizza while wrenching? Sit tight; it’s comin’! I met a lot of good people and one guy still stands out in my mind. There was an old man named Andy who used to come in all…

BARRED? Mr. Ehrenberg – I have a 1965 Belvedere that I have only owned for two years. I was under it the other day draining the oil, and I noticed that one torsion-height adjuster, on the right side, sticks out much more than the left. Is this a cause for worry? James Avalon Sacramento, CA Jimmy–Probably not. Here’s the explanation: Cars with light or standard-duty torsion bars needed long adjuster screws to pre-twist the bars enough to obtain normal ride height. Cars with the stiffer HD bars didn’t need as much twist to obtain the same height, so the screws didn’t need to be as long. Using a standard screw with an HD bar left quite a bit of the screw exposed beneath the control arm, causing a possible road-hazard…

IT WAS JUST GOING TO BE A DRIVER. That’s what Ron Lim had planned when he picked up this 1970 Road Runner from a friend in Redding, California. Well, things didn’t turn out as planned, as the beeper seemingly took on a life of its own. The ’Runner’s original 383 was barely running when Ron brought it home. The paint wasn’t in much better shape, either. The car was kind of a letdown for Ron who also owns a few high dollar exotic imports. “Let’s get this bird some wings,” he said. Actually, he didn’t say that at all. We just made that up to amuse ourselves as tapping away on a computer keyboard all day can get pretty boring. Ron had a bud—a Mopar guy who built engines, renovated…

YOU COULD ALMOST HEAR them snicker. A Challenger daring to compete in the Pony Wars against the vaunted Camaro and Mustang. Some nerve. This was the second running of the Pony Car Wars, which is part of the Horsepower War series. The first shootout just had Camaro and Mustang knocking their heads together. This year, the warlords invited a Mopar to do battle, that is if one had the cojones to show up. One did—Arrington Performance., which fielded a 2019 392 Scat Pack Challenger. Staring them down was the Camaro team from Vengeance Racing, and the Mustang boys from Power Automedia. The rules specifed naturally-aspirated factory hi-po cars as a starting point. The competition for the new cars embraced four challenges—autocross, quarter-mile drags, 60-zero stop, and chassis dyno. Each team…

“This one is a ’74, but it is painted red, which is nice. It has the 120 MPH speedometer and it has the console with the ball-knob shifter, I think they were using up parts, plus the new, smaller diameter steering wheel. Like the others, it has 15,000 miles. I bought it from a doctor who told me his wife never drove it and his son never drove it, so other than the dealership delivery, he was the only one who ever put his hands on the steering wheel. He even left some of his drugs in the glovebox. By ’74, there was more smog stuff in the engine bay, which is all there. The key to these cars is to find the low-mileage ones like this, ones that have…

WHEN THINGS seem to be too good to be true, there’s usually a good reason. The ’72/’73-up quadruple-whammy of safety, emissions, insurance, and fuel economy are well known, and these are some reasons for true Mopar muscle’s decades-long hiatus starting in said era. Ma Mopar herself, however, was also in part responsible for the downturn. Corporate product planners decried Chrysler’s taut, T-bar suspended true unibody platforms, which, they claimed, didn’t ride as smoothly or quietly as the competition’s offerings. Mopar’s stopgap fix on B-bodies, starting in 1973, was to rubber-isolate the K-member. The K’s primary purpose (a factoid lost to aftermarket suspension vendors) was to tie the front longitudinals (“frame rails”) solidly together. With this K-brace effectively gone, lots of steel needed to be added to compensate, and the result…

“This car came from the estate of the only-ever owner, who had passed away, and it has 12,000 miles on it. It came with hubcaps and steel wheels, a real base model, so I did put wheels on it. Personally, what I like is that it’s Petty Blue with a white top and that pearlescent interior. It is pretty uncommon. Again, never busted up, never driven in bad weather, and has the original 318 with the factory stuff under the hood on it. I’m going to leave the bumper guards on it. Bench seat and all basic equipment, but these cars were reliable drivers and are just fun cars. Here in Alabama, obviously, you want air conditioning.”…

STEVE RANKINS is holding his cell phone to his ear with his shoulder as he helps push a race car into the shop at Mass Acceleration Motorsports in Denver, North Carolina. “Oh, the white Charger, the one with the twin turbos. Yeah, quite a story behind that car.” The white Charger is a 2013 Super Bee model is owned by a young guy who goes by the handle Roho Snyper. Heck, he can call himself anything he wants, fine by us. ’Course the Charger—a leftover that Ro bought at the dealer—starts out as Ro’s daily driver—like many of the modifieds that we feature. This daily driver lasts about six months then gets kicked off the shelf when the speed bug bites, and Ro drives the Mope over to Mass Acceleration.…

OUR TITLE ASKS A VALID QUESTION, one seemingly simple. However, the answer can a bit vague, so hence this work of prose. Be forewarned: It is a bit like scrambled eggs, and a lot of the conclusions drawn are highly subjective. Your opinion—and we’re talking just that—opinion—may well vary. The object here is to get you thinking about it, in depth. So here goes. If the vehicle you’re wondering about (or dreaming of) was 100% designed and engineered by Chrysler in Highland Park or Auburn Hills, Michigan, or any of its subsequent owners, such as Daimler, Cerberus, or FCA (also at Chrysler World HQ), the conclusion is obvious: Yes. It is a Mopar. Of course, this assumes that you are using the name Mopar to refer to a Chrysler product…

THE IDEA of the Widebody components was actually simple—get more rubber under the car. Marketed as a more aggressive, modern exterior, this optional set of fairings first showed up on the Challenger and has now been introduced for the 2020 Charger. The new Widebody models will only be offered with the 392 Scat Pack and blown Hellcat drivelines, taking a page out of the past ala Super Bee, which had only the 383 and Hemi available during ’68 and early ’69. Go big in the Widebody, but bigger should still serve a purpose. Size matters… tire size. New front and rear fascias with integrated fender flares add 3.5 inches of width over the standard version of the Charger, then make practical use of this girth by automatically featuring 20-inch by…

As long as the pointer rests on zero (just bend it if not), and free to move (not rubbing), a $20 tool is virtually laboratory (NBS) accurate. You can use said cheap-O torque wrench to check the calibration of your fancy-pants version. All you need is an 8-point socket that fits both square drives, a workbench (or even a sidewalk!), and a small chunk of wood. A second pair of eyes, or the video capture mode on your smartphone, is handy (to read the low-tech scale with minimal parallax error). Arrange the socket so the “lab grade” wrench is approximately horizontal, with the wood contacting the handle directly under the pivot point (circled in pix). A loose-pitting pipe strap over the socket and screwed to the bench (arrow’d in pix)…

BILL ADAMS, from Oakdale, California is the current owner of this ’luxo Chrysler 300 convertible. The previous owner was Howard Desart, one of the founding board members of the WPC (Walter P. Chrysler) Club. Howard was a retired cop from San Jose, California. Bill’s dad and Howard had been in contact for years, and Bill pretty much grew up with them going on car tours and such. About a year ago, Howard revealed to Bill that he had been diagnosed with the cancer and he wasn’t gonna make it very long. He asked Bill if he would consider taking this car and finishing it for him. The body and everything had been done. It just needed to be put together. Bill initially declined, saying he didn’t have the wherewithal to…