68 Charger RT need some help.

[Homerr]

I'd say save it if you think you can, they aren't build any more.   

I'd suggest getting things worked out with the state, chances are that you'll end up with a state issued VIN.  But if you're building to keep then no worries.  Document everything, even post it here or elsewhere publicly to reinforce the car's story.  Hopefully the story and end result will give some value to offset the lack of VIN tag.

You can look at the registry in my sig to get an idea on some VON numbers, but it won't really help you find out anything in particular.

Someone here posted this guy's youtube channel here a month or two ago, he's got more to work with than you but it shows what some hard work can do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pVwXqIKsFg

[moparfan53]

...    I would agree it was definitely a factory manual car because in the one pic you can see were the factory ball mount for the z bar was torched off the frame rail on the driver side but isn't that a small block wiper motor in the cowl?  I did notice the stripes on what's left of the quarter panel did only R/T cars come with those?...

FYI; There is no small block / big block wiper motor. There is 2 speed and 3 speed. The 2 speed was standard and 3 speed an option on all engines except the Hemi. Hemi cars had 3 speed wipers as standard equipment due to the air cleaner size / clearance problem.

Yes, only R/T cars had the stripe. The stripe could be deleted on '69 cars but I do not know about '68 cars.

[60Buick]

I appreciate the comments and suggestions thus far. The registry is impressive. I can date the car to Nov 67 by the K frame stamp but the SO numbers are all over the place.

I have a little update on the car as well.

I got up in the middle of the night to make the 4 hour drive up to North Carolina to pick the car up expecting a long day. We decided it was too risky to drag the car to the trailer so we made a path to back the trailer up to the car. We took out 2 trees, the crest of a hill and filled in ruts in the eroded path just to back up to it. Then we had to drag out a van that had it blocked in. We picked the Chargers nose up with the tractor and backed the trailer under the car. I didn't hurt the car at all loading it up. The car was easy to load as if it ready to get the heck out of there.

I cleaned the car out. I found an 8 track tape, some 1970's pennys, a pill bottle and a whole lot of broken tinted glass. The pill bottle made me laugh, I couldn't help but think of Kowalski popping pills in Vanishing point.

Next we went parts hunting. I filled the bed of my truck with parts off this car. There is a bus that had a bunch of dashboards in it. There are dashes from A bodys on up to E bodys and every single dash has had the Vin removed. At least I know he didn't sell the numbers with the dash. I found the original dash frame to the car and bought the nicest charger dash he had.

Since the dash was a bust to get the Vin, we went to the file cabinet in the office looking for a paper trail. The files are great, they have BoS/titles, build sheets, receipts and some have tags and vins. Unfortunately instead of filing the cars by make/model, he did it in the order purchased. So the first car he bought was #1, the second was #2 and so on. The road runner next to the Charger is #373 and I remembered a 10 on my Chargers pass door in white.

His procedure was to photograph the car when it came in. Then he had a notebook where he would give a description of the car and give it a number. He then spray painted the number on the car and it was ready to be picked clean. He had a few thousand cars go through the property in this manner until he passed away.

We found the note book that he kept track of every car that came through the yard. Car #10 was a truck. The notebook shows #10 as a D50 Dodge Truck. Scanning for chargers we go back to the car with multiple numbers because I didn't notice any other numbers on the car. I was wrong, looking closely you could make out something faint on the drivers quarter. I "washed" the drivers quarter and sure enough there is some very eroded spray paint, it was #61.
We check the notebook. #61 is listed as 1968 Charger R/T orange. #61 was bought in 1987 for $100 and I doubt it had a title because he wrote the word title next to cars that had titles.

Back to the file cabinet to find it's bill of sale and possibly the Vin and fender tag. Well the file in the junkyard office only goes back to 2005 and he bought this car in 87. So he probably has those records in his home buried in a closet or attic. Then there is always the possibility he threw files in the trash every so often but we do know they were not lost in the fire that destroyed the yard and his Superbird in 85.... His granddaughter is going to dig around some when she gets time and look for a file on car #61. I offered a nice bounty on the tags or paper work should they be found.


Looking over the car for physical evidence it's pretty safe to say the car was a stick shift. The frame was torched for the Z bar mount and he torched out the tunnel. It also has the grommet for the clutch linkage. Is there any physical evidence that says this car was an R/T other than Marty's description? Yes. The car was repainted one time from red to orange. When they prepped the car to paint it orange they removed the original vinyl stripe and left a little bit of the original black vinyl stripe on the edge of the quarter. They didn't prep the area very well and repainted the stripe in the wrong spot.......

This car was a 70's hot rod. It had an aftermarket coil mounted on the fender. The exhaust was under it and it had 3 foot long straight pipes run off 4 bolt flange headers. A chrome dip stick was found as well. We did find the 8 track tape and a few other rusty chrome dress up parts in the dirt and leaves under the car. It was a Joe Dirt Special at one time.

The only other thing to add is, I gave it a bath. My wife still calls it the General Ug Lee.

[TTG]

Wow, that's a great story!!!
Hope everyone is staying safe during these times of peril!

TTG

I'd say save it if you think you can, they aren't build any more.   

I'd suggest getting things worked out with the state, chances are that you'll end up with a state issued VIN.  But if you're building to keep then no worries.  Document everything, even post it here or elsewhere publicly to reinforce the car's story.  Hopefully the story and end result will give some value to offset the lack of VIN tag.

You can look at the registry in my sig to get an idea on some VON numbers, but it won't really help you find out anything in particular.

Someone here posted this guy's youtube channel here a month or two ago, he's got more to work with than you but it shows what some hard work can do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pVwXqIKsFg

[MoparMike68]

It's a convincing history as to the cars identification but maybe not enough for some to
Purchase without a proper vin. I would pass only because if I had a choice I'd prefer documentation.
But by all means save it I love that combination