Update on the 1 owner R4 Daytona "barn find"

[70Sbird]

Hi Everyone, I thought it was time for an update on the "barn find"  (OK... garage find) Daytona that I shared with everyone a year or so ago.

http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,75920.0.html

The plan always was to go back with a better camera and take some better pictures, air up the tires and actually roll it outside. We were planning a visit in central Il for the resident "automotive archeologist" and I thought I'd see how the Daytona was holding up. I spoke to the owner last Friday and he was up for visitors, but he told me that Daytona now had two flat tires so it wouldn't be able to come out of the one stall garage, not wanting to pass up another opportunity to see the car, we set a time and headed over there Saturday about noon.
Imagine my surprise when I pulled up his driveway and the Daytona was sitting there, washed and hooked up to a battery charger!
The car looked MUCH better in the daylight and with at least the top layer of dust washed off. This car has not been driven on the street in 10 years and had not been out of the garage in at least 4-5 years. We walked around and took a bunch of pictures, he then proceeded to dump a pint or so of gas down the old throat of the carb and hopped in cranking the engine!! After 30 seconds or so it caught and blew a nice cloud of soot all over the front of my car, but it RAN!!!!! I don't believe that any of us actually expected it to start
After a couple minutes of revving the engine and cleaning out the exhaust, it actually settled down to a smooth idle! Other than an exhaust leak on the passenger side, it sounded pretty good.
The gentlemen bought this car from the local Dodge dealer here in his hometown. He saw a Daytona for sale and supposedly went in to order one. He wanted a plum crazy Daytona, with a white interior and stripe, with the Hemi. Unfortunately this was late 1969 and they were finished with production. His dealer located this R4 red one at a dealer in Iowa (Dubuque, I believe he said) and they brought the car over. It had just under 500 miles on it when he bought it in 1969.
As I said in the last thread, this is the car that started me on the path to wing car ownership. I saw this Daytona as a kid on my bicycle and knew I'd have to have one someday. I'm glad to see it survived and is still looking good and is relatively complete!

Ryan has a bunch more pictures and I'm sure will reply with a link. The car looked much better that I remembered
So here are my cell phone pics for now

[70Sbird]

a few more once it was running, notice the big sooty patches on the ground by the exhaust outlets! it made a pretty good black cloud when it lit offf, and the headlights went right down as well!!!

[moparstuart]

    nice to see you helped him get it going and out in public  . 

[TheAutoArchaeologist]

Pictures?  What pictures?  I don't know what you are talking about.......

Caption to this picture is "Have you pushed a Daytona today?"



There might be one or two other pictures in here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hemipwr70/sets/72157629505544614/with/6954739770/

Ryan

[myk]

Great work guys.  Personally, I'd drive that beautiful 'thang every day if it was mine...

[A383Wing]

Interesting...turn down exhaust without chrome tips

Bryan

[Finn]

 

Looks good!

[TheAutoArchaeologist]

I was going through my pictures and I thought this one was just too cool to pass up.



Ryan

[1966hemi]

That is a neat picture!

[BigBlockSam]

  that just how i like them . there only original once 

[Scaregrabber]

What a beautiful car. That's my favorite type of car too, original and owned by an owner that loves it.

Sheldon

[Charger-Bodie]

That is just plain Awesome.

[Indygenerallee]

Wonder what happened to the rear window trim! too bad it's gone, That Daytona is super cool! looks to me like it has maybe been repainted once before? Awesome car!!!

[70Sbird]

I was going through my pictures and I thought this one was just too cool to pass up.



Ryan

I like that one too Ryan!

[70Sbird]

Wonder what happened to the rear window trim! too bad it's gone, That Daytona is super cool! looks to me like it has maybe been repainted once before? Awesome car!!!

At least one of the missing trim pieces are in the trunk

[hemi68charger]

Man !!!! And a 4-speed... I notice the dashpot on the carb..........  Thanks for sharing a nice Mopar trip........   

[Indygenerallee]

Or the fact there is no kickdown linkage...

[A383Wing]

or no trans filler tube on passenger side

Bryan

[hemigeno]

or the cast vacuum advance unit on the Prestolite dizzy.

Personally, this is what sealed it for me:

[UFO]

Hey would you look at that a Hurst T handle.

[hemigeno]

Hey would you look at that a Hurst T handle.

Oh, I noticed it the first time that photo was posted back in 2010.

Hurst has probably made, what, at least a couple dozen of those "T" shift knobs/handles over the years?

 

[UFO]

Wonder if he has any day one pics showing the shifter.