500 Final back after two years in body shop prison

[hpmike]

No FAST intended for this one. I will bring to all the big shows though.

I guess those 7500RPM valvesprings are a waste then,  huih   Only kidding, looks great, and runs awesome,too

Mike

[69_500]

And here I was hoping to finally get some video of a Charger 500 blasting down the track in FAST racing. I guess I'll have to hold out for someone else to do that huh?

[Charger_Fan]

That's looking really sweet, glossy engine paint & all.

[Highbanked Hauler]

Your correct in that Creative did have a check off sheet. However after talking to a few people who worked there at that time, those check off sheets are like check off sheets at 99% of jobs. Just a pile of trash paper. They did the job, and got the cars out of the door. That is all that mattered to them.
The bezels are supposed to be stripe color according to the paperwork. I'm averaging about 65-70% of cars that I've run accross that have the bezels painted body color instead of stripe color. Seems they got a few correct but a heck of a lot of them wrong.

My guess is that Creative was paid  a flat price to convert each RT to a 500 and the less you did and could get by at the shop with the more money you could make, its a flat rate fact like it or not so the earlier cars  PROBABLY DIDN'T  get the bezels painted.  mine were body color.After somebody got their ass chewed, later cars probably DID get painted besels.  You guys with the numbers might be able to tell if that is true.  When I took the seats out of my car there was broken glass everywhere and there was  broken glass stuck to the byutal tape which held the rear glass in, so the window was broken out and  NOT  removed.  For what ever reason my car  didn't have a deck lid stripe on it when I got it.  I wish I had a picture of it without the stripe but I don't.  Mine also didn't have a jack use/storage sticker as some of the glue had been painted over.  When my  car goes back stock  I probably won't put the stripe and sticker back on it.  Al

[Ghoste]

I imagine Chrysler was after them to do it quickly too so they in turn could get NASCAR off their backs and establish the cars legitimacy.

[hemi68charger]

Ed.. Man !!!!   She's looking great !!!!!!  Talk about inspiration.......   

Did ya drop the body over the motor and k-member?

Troy

[69_500]

I've been trying to figure out the whole painted bezel thing for a few years now. I haven't figured out any rhyme or reason to it yet. I know that some are and some aren't. I say that both ways are correct. Just depends on how your car was. Might have depended on what time of the day/week your car was leaving Creative, I don't know. I've seen one car, that had the bezels painted body color, and the next car down the line VIN sequentially, had them painted stripe color. so who knows.

[XXHEMI]

There is only one car in between my two and its besels are body color also. I know that this white car has been restored but? If they where red then you would think that they would have redid them in red? but who really knows.
Either one of my cars bezels had black paint on them. So there's three in a row of body color! Guess they where sleeping that day.

[hemi68charger]

There is only one car in between my two and its besels are body color also. I know that this white car has been restored but? If they where red then you would think that they would have redid them in red? but who really knows.
Either one of my cars bezels had black paint on them. So there's three in a row of body color! Guess they where sleeping that day.

Ed, here's a picture of Dana I got from the third owner when it was still in Cheyenne...... It appears the bezel is painted stripe color.... The owner said the car was still in it's original paint. This picture was taken in the mid-70's.......

Troy

[69_500]

I don't think the photo posted, but I think you posted it in another thread once before. My car has the bezels painted body color, and I have old photo's showing it with it that way in the early 70's.
My dad's old HEMI 500 had the bezels painted stripe color, and it is 3 digits after my 500 that I have now. So who knows, I guess it as random as they come.

[hemigeno]

I suppose there's still no way to know what order the cars came out of Creative Industries, is there?  The Daytonas don't have an exact order, but the assumption is that the later shipped cars were also the later converted cars - and they definitely did not follow the VIN sequences.  Maybe (just maybe) some tendencies could be noted for them, but there are no absolutes.  Also... just because some cars have sequential VINs doesn't mean that the cars went down the line at Hamtramck in order, which further compounds the confusion.

From what I've been told, the shop at Creative was more like individual bays all lined up in a row, not an assembly-line type as at Hamtramck.  That might have played a role too.  Could have been that the guy who worked on bays 6-10 painted all his cars' bezels, but the guy working bays 1-5 didn't paint any of 'em.  (Hypothetical example, BTW).

Ed, your car is looking fantastic, and I can't wait to see it in person at some of the shows this year.   

[69_500]

Which could explain some things as well, as to why caras got the wrong rear seats in them and such. I mean if they are in batches, say, and 3 out of the 5 in that batch have black interior, they just pick a seat and reinstall it.

Probably the same for the bezels. If you put the stripe on, and there is 3 sets of R4 red bezels, but those three cars need black or white bezels to match the stripe, you just put the R4 red one's back in to save time.

[Ghoste]

We need to run an ad in the Detroit Free Press looking for anyone who worked for Creative at that time so we can quiz them.  Greg Kwiatkowski's a Motown boy, he must have looked some of those guys up by now?

[71gtx]

a 69 charger 500 :

[Aero426]

The Creative shop was (and still is) pretty much a big open building.  There really were no work stalls defined by walls as such.     

When we had the Aero Car meet in Detroit in 2001, we took a bus down there and made an impromptu visit.  The business that is there now prints up the Cruisin News paper for the Detroit classic car crowd.   They had no idea what to make of a bus of spectators, cameras in hand pulling up to their building unannounced.   But they were very gracious and let us snoop around and take photos.  It was very clear that the back lot behind the building was where the cars were all queued up in various states of completion.  The photos were shot off the roof.  Likewise, on the front side of the building, there are landmarks across the street that remain from the photos of the completed cars on the haulaway trailers.   Easy to identify where the photos were taken.

[Ghoste]

That's interesting as I was going to suggest an ad in Cruisin' News in addition to the paper.

[gtx6970]

Al is one of the ones I mentioned as having said that his car had the bezels painted body color.

Another gentleman in Ohio also colaborated the same with his HEMI 500 which he bought new. Another gentleman in Missouri who bought his 500 with 900 miles on it in 1970, said the same for his HEMI 500.

However another origional owner said his was with stripe color.

I'm going to ask the two with the HEMI 500's if their cars still had the canister. I don't recall seeing any 500's with the canister still in them, but then again its not something I typically looked for.

The yellow one near me I'm about 99% sure the canister is still in it, and it only has something like 12K miles

[69_500]

Is it a Yellow HEMI 500?

I don't know if I know of that one, or not. I have a photo of a Y2 HEMI 500 from that area that was taken in the early 80's could be the same car.

[poppa]

HEY....What gives???You can't end this like that.More pics...it's been like five months since the last post.How is that sweet lookin ride doing now?

P.S. It does look excellent !!

[XXHEMI]

Poppa

Sorry for sleeping on the job! Took some time off but should be back on it shortly. I will update you very soon.

Thanks Ed

[chargerman68]

man that car looks great keep it going....

[69_500]

yeah please post some photo's of the finished project. Would love to see it.

[69_500]

Got a chance to look Ed's car over at Carlisle as well. VERY NICE CAR. Did a very nice job on the restoration Ed.

Was hoping to get to talk to you a little bit more in person though, but I realize at a show like that everyone is busy just trying to talk to their buddies who they don't see that often, let alone answering the hundreds of questions I would have asked you about the car. Great looking ride though.

[4speed]

:drool5:maybe one day

[hemigeno]

Congrats to Ed C. (XXHemi), whose R6 C500 was voted first place in the '69 Charger Stock class at Carlisle this past weekend, and was a celebrity pick as well!

That car was well-deserving.