How did you get your Charger?

[rattlehead_74]

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[Darkman]

Well, here's my story....

Wanted a Charger was looking around Aus. Almost gave up looking in Aus until I found what I thought was a bargain 15hrs away. Paid a deposit and waited for it to ship. It was a red "black plate" Cali car with no engine or tranny and was still in the US. Was told it arrived, so I drove 15 hours to be bitterly disappointed as it turned out to be a piece of junk. Drove 15 hours back and found an importer (Shermatt America) the next day and he began looking for me. We found a car (complete 68 Charger with minor problems - which was perfect for me) in Turners Falls Massechussetts, and arranged to buy it. The day we (my agent) went to organise transport, the buyer changed his mind and wanted to keep it  I looked on Craigslist that day and found another 68 in the San Fransisco bay area. We bought it  Now it is in an LA shipping warehouse awaiting import approval and it will be shipped.

[Grim Jhaixus]

Man, that's rough. It'll be worth all the trouble very soon. 

[lisiecki1]

Found my '73 in an autotrader around '95 when I was 17.  I wasn't set on a charger, I just wanted a mopar muscle car (dad's influence with his 67 GTX).  The charger in the picture looked nice and piqued my interest.  Showed the ad to dad and he said call em and we'll see.  Turned out the car was about 5 miles away!  2 days later we went and looked at it.  Guy was asking $1500, dad had the whole "how low can you go" conversation with him and he said no less than $1200, but another father/son were coming to look at it.  Dad gave him a pending "$1200" guarantee and we went home and waited for the call.  Guy called us the next day, said the others would give him his asking price but he would allow us "first come first serve".  Dad said we'd give him his asking price.  I had about $800 saved in the bank and mom and dad loaned me the rest with the understanding that if it wasn't paid off in a year they would take ownership (they probably wouldn't have, but you have to teach kids that deals have stipulations).  I paid it off to them in about 6 months.

I drove it for the rest of high school and a couple years after until the 360 we built for it had the carb stud come loose and go through the passenger side head and it's been off the road ever since.  About 10 years now.   God I miss driving that car.

Good topic, but you suck for making me miss driving it even more than I did 15 minutes ago!

[Brock Samson]

  this thread sure makes me appreciate mine, as I bought three chargers for a total of $3,500 the stripped rusty R/T SE from a junkyard awaiting the crusher, for the $2.5 K i was gouged by the Yard,... a super crunched all green 318 '70 500 for the entire drivetrain and seats, and the '69 S.E. i stripped in the junk yard for the black interior and trim it too was crunched and the drivetrain stripped... I bet anyone of them would be at least a $3.5 K car today... of course this was in '84 and computers were what I played pong on... but i did have my stripped R/T SE on the road in only two weeks.

[Khyron]

Brian found my charger for me.... on teh old dodge-charger.com site ... or maybe it was moparts, but I called the guy, went down and payed for it

The story does get more exciting...

I payed for it but then needed to come down the next weekend to get it. It was about 3 hours south from my house. Well, the weekend that I went to get it the town it was in was experiencing flash flooding, and my Chargers owner was right by the river that was flooding :shock:

I called the owner and he was busy putting the charger up on cinder blocks because the roads to get it out of where it was had already washed out... I drove down there like a mad man to see if I could get to it, but i got stopped about 100 meters away by a deap river over teh road, Nimo and the police wouldn't let me past, I swear i would have tried.

I had to come back teh next day, and I got real lucky... The car was up high enough where the water just got on teh tires, not even rim high... then again he had it up on 2 blocks per corner heheh

[Charger_Dart]

I was looking for a 69 Charger for about 3 years, but everything I found was either too expensive or too rusted. Finally in 1990 a good friend of mine called me one day and said he saw a garage door up on a subdivision townhouse. He said it looked like a Charger's back-end, but it was a 68. he gave me the address and I drove over the next day to see what the story was. The car was pinned against the wall on the drivers side and the front was up against another wall. It was covered in years worth of garage crap. I could not see anything but part of the top , trunk and passenger side of the car. The owner said he was going through a divorce and he did not want his wife to get it. He told me it was an original 383 Charger with an auto that had a locked up engine. I figured it was a non R/T Charger but I could deal with that. I picked up the car for $900 as-is and had a flatbed pull it out the next day. When it arrived home I real happy to find the 383 engine was not the original engine and the car was actually a R/T car. I also found out that the car was originally gold and not the brown color on it; and found a broadcast sheet under one of the seats. I have been enjoying the car ever since.
Mike  

Darkman - Turners Falls is the next town over from me. Do you have any other details on the that 68 Charger?

[Tilar]

Man, there are some good stories here.

Mines pretty simple. I had wanted a 68 Charger since the time they came out. There was a tire shop next door to where I worked in Texas. It was a mom and pop shop and they worked out of a big garage behind the house. There was a long driveway behind the shop, maybe a hundred yards or so long. Their son had bought this 68 Charger and he would run this thing to the end of the road and back just as hard as he could. It was a 318 with a 3 on the tree. I just knew he was going to grenade that 318 and sure enough, after about a week he did. He pulled it out and stuck a 400 from a cordoba down in it and could never get it running. I tried for about a month to buy it and finally he agreed to sell it to me for $400, Only bad thing was I had just gone through a bad divorce and I didn't have $400. He agreed to let me make payments over the course of 6 weeks which I did. That was back in 86. I still have the receipts they wrote for each payment.

[Bob T]

My wife and I had always wanted a 68 and only a 68 would do, we had run of Aussie Valiants including a mint R/T 6pk car that I sold to put the money into my business rather than take a loan for more staff/business vehicles.
I had organised a Mopar run off another forum and we had about 20 cars on it, about an hours drive each way. One of the cars on it was a 68 burgandy RR1 with a white top, stock as. I got talking to the guy and his partner and we sort of got on well and swapped emails etc to keep in touch for future runs.

About 8 months later I had a email out of the blue from a guy wanting to buy my current car.

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,72020.msg808869.html#msg808869


When I knew I had a deal on the boil , I called my friend and told him I would buy it if he wanted to sell it. As it turned out, he wanted to build a big shed for the rest of his cars and I caught him on the right day so we did a deal on it.
The old car left on a trailer on Wednesday and I was driving my new 68 Charger home on Friday night in the rain. And saying to myself, "Man, I finally got a Dodge Charger" , finally cracked it, as they are so rare out out here and do not come for sale very often.

Pretty happy with that.

[chargerjy9]

In 1973, I graduated from college, got a job at Chrysler, went out and bought my 1st new car, 73 Charger SE, red w/ white top and interior, 400HP, 8 3/4, 3:23 posi, pretty optioned up. I loved that car.   Drove it for 2 years. wife "suggested" I sell it because we were going to start a family and GAS WAS .60 cents A GALLON AND THAT CAR WILL PUT US IN THE POOR HOUSE!!! reluctantly sold it, vowing to find another some day.

Fast forward to 2003,family raised, Kids are out of college, off my payroll, I suggested to my wife that it was my turn. She agreed. Found an ad in the local paper,(unlikely source) that described an original 73 SE with less than 2800 miles. thinking it was a misprint (meaning 28,000 miles) I called the guy who said, " no, it had 2,765 actual miles." I ran over to where the car was. found an unrestored, unmolested, fully documented, reference survivor.  400 HP engine, 8 3/4, A/C that blew cold. It had been in a private collection, under a roof, for nearly 30 years. Car was pristine, factory original right down to the spark plugs.  we drove the car, my wife says "this car drives as if it were brand new."  bought it on the spot, my search was over.
Today the car has 15,000 miles on it, ( just out of warranty.) it is no trailer queen. it has been upgraded to be a reliable and safe driver,  original stuff taken off the car is stored away,  IMO, Cars are meant to be driven, that's why they have wheels. It is a trip down memory lane. I would not be afraid to drive it anywhere.

[1BAD68]

My first Charger (70 R/T SE) I found on Ebay about two hrs away, total basket case but it was all there and complete just pulled from a 20+ year hibernation in a barn.
Spent the next 2 1/2 years fixing that one up before I could drive it, and sold it when I sold my first house.
Then I found 69 1/2 Six Pack Bee, beautiful low mileage car. Just too boring owning that one as it only needed to be occasionally washed so I sold it.
I decided I wanted another Charger preferrably a 68 that needed some work but wasn't a full blown restore so I searched the internet constantly for weeks when an ad on auto trader popped up one Saturday morning.
It was what I was looking for so I spent the whole day calling the number with no luck. Finally it was just before 10 pm and the guy answered, we talked about it and he said his voicemail was full and he was weeding through all the calls. I told him if its what you're telling me then consider it sold and I'll be there at 10am Sunday morning.
Unfortunately it was Superbowl Sunday and I feverishly called all my friends at 10:30 at night to find someone who could run down to Illinois with me at 7 in the morning. Luckily one of my good friends said he'd go. I swear I've never been in such a wound up high gear trying to pull this off in only 12 hrs.
First I had to find someone who wasn't watching the game, then I had to get 7500 in cash, I had to put together some tools and parts in case something broke down and pick up my friend by 7am it was a 3hr drive one way and I planned on driving the Charger home. Unbelievably, I got there a little early, looked the car over and the seller handed me a huge stack of records and receipts. This car was awesome, never abused, just a base model 318 Charger out of California with brand new brakes, tires, rims, engine rebuild and many other parts.
Drove the car home that day without any trouble.
Had to let my friend drive it too, here's a picture from that day...

[Axels73Charger]

 

[RallyeMike]

Charger #1. Knew a guy who knew a guy. Pulled it out of a back yard and towed it home.
Charger #2. Saw it behind a fence. Rescued it from a shop where the title was signed over because the bill could not be paid.
Charger #3. Found it in a parking lot downtown with tires slashed and front and rear windows busted. Left a note on it. Brought two tires down the next day and drove it home with busted glass.
Charger #4. Guy at 7-11 told me he had a derelict one (looking at mine) and I went and picked it up.
Charger #5. Bought it from a pal that pulled it out of a wrecking yard (my current Charger)
Charger #6. Traded a friend my 68 440 Dart for it.
Charger #7. Purchased from a guy on this site. Drove 200 miles and pulled it out from the edge of a wheat field.

[UH60L]

Well, like alot of others, I fell in love with the '69 charger when I was a kid and saw the Dukes of Hazzard on tv.  In the mid '80s during my high school years, I searched for one that I could buy, but had no luck.  They were all either well beyond my price range or the owner stated that he was "going to do something with it eventually.

In 2004, I decided it was now or never, and started looking seriously again.  I started following a couple on ebay, and put a bid in on one.  I kept bidding higher until it hit $7000.00.  I put one last bid of $7100.00 on it and, long story short, I won the car on a Sunday evening in May.

I drove out to Utah from Salem Oregon and drove the car home with a 440 and 727b in it.  It's been alot of fun since then.  I belong to a car club now, and my wife and kids go with me to cruise-ins and car shows.  Unfortunately I haven't driven it since 2007 because I dropped it into the body shop, got the body and paint done (well, mostly) and now I am out of money.   

I just recently started a thread on the restoration of my car.  Should be on the first page somewhere.  I'm posting lots of pictures.

[Charger´69]

I´ve loved '68-70 Chargers since I was a kid. Last fall I decided to sell my supercharged Iroc-Z Camaro which I had 7 years and buy my dreamcar: '68-69 Charger, '72-74 Barracuda/Cuda or Challenger. Well I started searching my dreamcar first here from Finland, but I didn´t find enough good and reasonable priced car.

I had purchase advertisement for those cars here on few Finnish american car forums and some dealers from US contacted to me and started to offer their cars to me. Well, pretty soon I was searching Charger and Barracuda/Cuda only, Challenger didn´t anymore interest me as much as those first two. After maybe 6-8 weeks and many many Chargers/Cudas pictures/info later, one of those dealers sent me 120 pictures from '69 Charger which was XP code, R/T clone with 440cid Magnum and unrestored. And no rust. It looked so good in pictures that I reserved it immediately to me. It was reserved to me maybe 2 weeks before I bought it, because I wanted this same dealer to check few other Chargers and Cudas that he and I have found from Craigslist. Well, we didn´t find better car so I bought this one to me. There was a long story to get it to here Finland, but when it came here in late april 2010 it was worth it, I really love this car 

If anyone interested to read and see more, there is many pictures and info in my topic, just click my signature below