Restoring Memories

I would like to share some memories of my second car, a lemon twist 1970 Dodge Challenger. I sold my first car, a 1969 notchback Barracuda for one reason; I wanted a car I could shift. I only owned the Challenger for 18 months and 18,000 miles, but it remained one of my favorite cars and I always had a bit of regret over selling it.

I was in the Army at the time and we stored her in my brother-in-law's garage for the first winter. It didn’t take long for the entire heater box to become filled with acorns and squirrel dung. The car has a lot of strong memories for me including my first car accident. I had lost control of the car and ended up stuck in a swamp off the side of the road. The tow truck driver insisted I report to the authorities before pulling me out. "What happened?" the officer asked me, and I answered with a lie saying I had swerved to avoid hitting a deer. "Was anyone hurt?" he inquired and I answered no, thankfully no one was hurt. Finally he asked, "Did you hit anything owned by the county?", and again I answered no. The officer then told me to "Pull it out and get her fixed!". Times do change!

And I did get her fixed. This also gave me a perfect opportunity to fix a recent error I had made while painting the hood of the car. I had acquired a particularly nice lace table cloth from my mother, laid it over the hood, and applied a coat of lacquer paint. Lace paint jobs were the cool thing to do at the time, but things didn’t go my way and a reaction between the different types of paint caused the paint to lift and, let’s just say it didn’t look very nice. I decided to paint the hood flat black, a style that definitely stood the tests of time a lot longer than lace. The wing on the back was pulled from a 1970 Mach 1 and fit the Challenger perfectly. I wanted her to have that funny car look. Big fat back tires and skinny front ones, but it was really just a bare bones car with a 225 slant six, bucket seats, and a 3 speed on the floor.

Fast forward to the present and I’m finally getting close to bringing that lemon twist Challenger back into my garage again. The car will be far superior in many aspects, especially mechanically, but my memories of the original will be kept with the same exterior styling I chose as a youth. Starting in August of 2009 a series of articles will be appearing in Mopar Collector's Guide covering the restoration of my Challenger. I invite you to watch as some memories are restored!

John Balow
Owner, Muscle Car Restorations