How important is #s matching to you? And, what is YOUR definition of #s matching

[The70RT]

"Warranty block" means walk away.

Unless you have 38 year old paper work like I do 

[SRT-68]

Now thats a good thing! Most of the time the paperwork gets lost. You are a lucky man.

[XS29L9Bxxxxxx]

Paperwork is KING!

[Brock Samson]

 I'll try to keep this short...  

My '69 R/T SE was a basket case car when I found her, stripped no interior or drivetrain, The body trim was all there mostly and in damn good condition too... Besides being all I could afford it was once a real R/T Special Edition which is what I had my heart set on as my First Choice for a car. That said I'm sure that if I could've afforded and found a real numbers matching complete example, I would'nt have enjoyed it more then building up my own with a Six-Pack Motor and custom paint the way I did.  This includes the time cost and aggravation of finding two doner Chargers and 14 or so years to bring it back to Big Block status,.. So in this case, I wouldn't change the way Mine came about.  

On the Other hand...
The all Original Numbers (save shocks, battery and tires) matching 1971 Road Runner 340 i sold this time last yr. Was a complete Pain, It was alot of fun for the first four Mos. of the three 1/2 years I owned it. I wanted to keep it as original as I could but though complete, It was needing or going to soon need everything, from Disc. Brakes so the dame thing would stop more than one time once the drums were warm to the Paint which was begining to show just too much wear...

In short - as nice as it was to find a Totally Orig. numbers Matching car That I allways wanted & that was kept in a garage since 1984, I much prefer my Resto Modded Car I saved from the crusher. Something far more satisfying about that.
 "Show poodles" (to quote someone else's term)  are all about them, while Mutts love you unconditionally,..

...or something akin to that.  

[HeavyFuel]

My numbers matching '68 R/T has been a mixed bag for me.  I feel obligated to keep it as original as possible, which has been kinda easy to do for the non wear parts, because I bought the car really complete and decent shape.

But the cost has been killing me:

$500+ to rebuild the orginal 4 piston brake calipers, to fit under my original 14" magnums that are too nice to replace.

$700+ to rechrome the orginal bumpers, because I don't want re-pops.

Re-building / refinishing original parts when it would have been cheaper to by repops.

And the list goes on, and on, and on.

Yet I have done some things performance wise that might not make sense to do to a numbers car, like subframes, torque boxes, rear anti-sway bar, CH4b intake, X-pipe, stuff like that.


My goal is to build a car that is as close to the real thing from '68 as possible, using as many original parts as I can, but have a better performing car by adding a few upgrades.  Hopefully the fact the car is numbers matching will justify the money going into it. 

That's what I tell my wife, anyway.

[70charginglizard]

Important but not so important that you start nitpicking other people about it.

I really hate that.

Thats all I have to say about that.