How did you get your Charger?

[Axels73Charger]

Tell me things like: how long you worked for it, how you found it, and the other important things that people ask about chargers! As of now im just "Counting down" the amount of work I gotta do. In hours and weeks, I got around 150+ hours and 3 weeks. So I thought this would be fun.

[jaak]

When I found the '69....I had been searching for a 69 Charger for about 3 years. Back in those days, I would just cruise the backroads and see if I could find anything. It was a nice Sunday afternoon, so I filled up my truck and started riding backroads looking to see if I could spot anything. I was up in southern Tennessee, when I got to thinking I better start heading home, like I said I was on a back road. I turn around to head back toward the highway. When I got to the highway, I came out right across from a service station/tire center. Sitting beside it was a 69 Charger RT....couldn't believe my eyes! I wrote down the number on the sign. The next day (Monday) I called to see if the car was for sale....and after numerous times hearing "Im gonna restore it someday" or "no, its not for sale" this one was indeed for sale, at a price I could afford on top of that! So the very next day (Tuesday), I laid out of work and went up there and bought it.

The '73 Rallye.... with the 69 being apart for a long term project....I needed a driver Mopar. After about 6 months of looking around on Ebay, Craigslist, and local ads, I found the '73 Rallye on Craigslist and it was located about a two hour drive away. I called the owner and spoke with him a couple of times and like what he told me. So I took a day off work and my wife and I, drove up there with cash in hand to check it out.....loved it, bought it, drove it home.

I had a '72 Charger for a while (Don't have it anymore), I got to work on a Monday morning and a guy there said he looked at a charger for sale that weekend, said he thought about buying it for him and his grandson to have a project but decided to pass. So he took me right then and there to show it to me. It was a '72, 318 2 bbl/automatic, and had some cool options (hideaway grille, rallye gauge), real solid and super CHEAP! I called my wife to have her run some money up there to me right then, I paid for the car, then drove it home when I got off of work.

The 69 Charger (I parted out) was found in a local free classified paper. I seen the ad, and it was just located about five minutes away from where I worked at the time, drove by after work to check it out. Bought it, disassembled it, kept what I needed for my project, ebayed the rest.


Jason

[b5blue]

My bro used to be fairly well off and as kids he always wanted a 70 Challenger. Having missed a good deal I found on a rag top one, from waiting to long to go look at it I had standing orders to check out any other Challengers ASAP and force him to go if they were decent deals. My friend told me of a 70 Challenger for sale behind a shop. I went the same day only to find I knew the shops owner. Waiting for him I looked around back and saw 2 Chargers but no Challenger. A white 72 (?) Rally 400 and a b5blue 70 Charger. He came back and I asked about the Challenger. Nope just 2 Chargers for sale......OH CRAP the 70 is for sale! The rest is history in my house! I still wish I could have gotten both Chargers, and the cherry Burgundy 69 Satellite (no motor or trans.) I found 3 weeks later, they (the white Rally and Satellite) were up for grabs for 700.00 each! It took all I had to get the Charger back on the road and ready for a move from FL. to VA. in 45 days. (1000 mile road trip in an old drag racer that had only been on the road 2 weeks before leaving!) That was 15 years ago.  

[Lizey]

was golfing with my grandpa and he said "you know, uncle John wants to sell you that Chrysler hes got sitting behind his barn". i stopped by later in the week and it turned out to be a '77 Dodge Charger SE. he said since we were family he'd take $300. drug it home the next day and the rest is history!

[TylerCharger69]

Well...Ive wanted a 69 every since the DOH aired on TV.   I was living in a lil s**t town called Ehrenberg Arizona.  On one of the few streets there are there....I was driving by and spotted the front grille from the street, and the entire back half of the car was buried in the sand, not to mention corrugated roofing materials stacked on top and all around it.  So long story short,  I made a deal with the old man who owned it to purchase the car for 600 dollars.  The car hadnt moved from that spot since 1972, and was still complete.  After hours of digging, and finding tires that would hold air long enough to tow the car home, I was ready to close the deal.  I said  "Here's the 600 dollars, now I need the keys and the title"   Well  I was informed that the title and keys were lost long ago, so I snatched a hundred dollar bill from his hands from the 600 and said  "I'll give you 500 and I'll take care of the paper work"  He agreed, since4 the car was originally tagged in California.   So I spent Thanksgiving Day of 1995 digging the car out and getting it home.  The car was rough.  He said he parked it because he got caught driving drunk too many times and couldnt drive it anymore,  so...the car sat in the same spot for 24 years.  I was at the right place at the right time, and came sporting all of its original parts!!!    500 bucks???  I'd say I stole it for that price!!!  And I'm preparing for its restoration if I can ever quit driving it long enough!!!!

[twodko]

My best bud and former co-worker (we both retired from that gig) has always been a mopar guy. I was always a GM guy especially Chevelles. He had 2 cars, one a 69 Charger R/T and the other is a 69 Barracuda 340 trype S both he bought new in the SF bay area. After I retired I found a 69 Chevelle my wife and I restored. It had a SB crate in it and was fun and fast for what it was........but there are a million of em'. We decided we wanted a "rare and special" car and a BB at that. My bud had the 'Cuda torn down, full rotis paint, new interior parts and the motor/tranny was rebuilt and sweetened. This beautiful 'Cuda is still sitting in his garage unassembled under a car cover for the last 12+ years! However, the still intact Charger sat right next to the 'Cuda for awhile then he put it in storage for a few years. In a moment of stark clarity I realized I had access to that "special' car we were looking for so I began to make it known I'd like to buy the Charger. This went back and forth for a couple years before he agreed to sell me the car. He had the tranny rebuilt, new brakes and MC, FirmFeel II steering box, new stock exhaust with tips, recored the rad and gave me a box full of OEM NOS stuff. Everything from new badges-batt tray-front turn signal lights-hood signal lights-trunk mat-this list went on. This was 2 years ago and it should be coming home from paint this week! The drive train is done (no rotis job but super clean) as is the interior -  thanks Legendary. All that's left is its new shoes. I've been sporadically posting my build but I'll need to do right by all you folks and post all of it when its done. Stay tuned.

Tom

[Brass]

I *heard* my first 68 before I saw it, as it passed us on the road.  It belonged to a friend of my older brother.  He recognized us on the road and did a furious drive by.  I was about 14 then and already loved Mopar, particularly Chargers, and thought that car was bad ass.  I bugged him shamelessly over the next couple of years until he sold it to me.  He had worn out the drive train and pulled the 4.11 by then - but still...  Had fun swapping in another engine with a friend, and had the meanest car in school.  Unfortunately I let that car go but I'm enjoying my "new" one.  Those many, many years in-between felt all wrong because I didn't have a Charger.   

[charger490]

in september of 67 i looked at the 68 charger and i wanted one so i ordered one and got it in march of 68. it was a 383 4sp power everything . well i had it till 1969 may when i got hit head on and that was the end of that one.
my son was in the air force in phonix  AZ  and found 17 chargers for sale in 1985 so i said buy the best one and drive it home. that car is the one i won best of show with last week

[mauve66]

you only have 3 wks of work left??? you haven't been at this very long have you..................... it NEVER gets finished................

had been looking for a RR for about 6 months, only had $3K to spend so of course everything i could afford wasn't even driveable

saw an ad for Mary in the Denver paper, automatic and mauve paint but what the heck, i'm gonna get black or purple anyway and you can put a 4spd in just by cutting a hole right............ and got the owner to drive down to Colorado springs to let me see it, finally got into town just as the sun was barely going down, paint faded so bad it looked silver but all the trim appeared to be there and damn there was alot of chrome inside that car, seemed pretty cool while we were driving around. then at a traffic light the owner said "you haven't even seen the best part yet" and told me to pull out the light switch, DAMN i was hooked for sure, those dash lights were just incredible, i had never seen anything like it before. she was mine the next weekend. on the way home from denver down into castle rock she did 120+mph and the wife was pissed when she finally caught up.

became my everyday car for about 4 months then the motor let go (something to do with the motor mount letting the drivers side of the block go way up in the air and come crashing down while power braking, or so they say )

spent the next 6 months or so stripping the car and replacing the motor and carpet, trans shift kit in an army barracks parking lot, friends with the mp's so they didn't get it towed

moved to missouri,spent the next year as my everyday car until the starter went bad

sat for awhile and then i got a bug up my butt and stripped her to a shell in one night, about 10 hours or so. then she sat for 3 years

decided to move to nevada, had 2-3 wks to get her painted and completely put back together, got her about 95% back together

moved to nevada, spent the next year as my everyday car then the starter went out again

sat for next 11 years as i do little piddly stuff here and there hoping beyond hope that  i can eventually make her into my dream car

tired of waiting to do that , especially now with the economy in the toilet, so now i'm starting over and what every shape she is in come MATS 2011, thats the way she rolls down the street, paint, no paint, new engine/old engine, don't care, i just want to drive a V8 after all these years

[JT01]

The Dukes got me hooked on Chargers Im 37 and always wanted one and 3 years ago I bought mine off ebay it was pretty rough but I didnt care because I finally got one and I feel I saved this car I will be getting it back next week from the body shop then the fun begins putting it all back together.

[CaptMarvel]

Fell in love with the 2nd gen Charger around 1979/80 while staying home sick one day from school and a local station re-ran Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. Looked for one off & on for most of my adult life since. Then, in 2003 while working as a bldg insp. for City of Fresno, I came across a familiar shape under a car cover at a vacant house in the bad part of town. I knew it was 2nd gen obviously, but never guessed it was a factory R/T. After a windy weekend, back out on the job, I noticed the rear quarter of the car cover had exposed 68' bumble-bee stripes on a worn sunfire yellow Charger. I hastily tracked down the owner of the house (& the car-who was 2nd owner since 71') and he had just sold the vacant house and didnt really want to haul the R/T back to the bay area from Fresno, but didnt want noithing for it either as neighborhood kids had previously offered him. He gave me a figure of 3K, after nearly fainting I went & got the cash and drove it home (had not been driven in quite a while, but man what a ride!) All original, nothing missing, but not a clean survivor (needs repaint, new interior and some minor engine work) Its got a 727 torqueflite, 440 magnum, black vinyl roof, black interior but no factory sure grip! Still, its just what I always wanted...

[rattlehead_74]

I owned my first charger when i was 19 years old (1994) stumbled across it at a local used car lot,,it was a 1973 dodge charger se factory black 400 4barrel car,,they wanted 700 bucks for it,,I ended up trading my 78 t-bird and 200 bucks for it ,,,awsome car i drove the piss out of that car for three years,,,blew the timing chain out of it (nylon teeth),parked it in the parents driveway for 6 years,ended up parting it out later ,,frame was rotted,,


I, like everyone i know have always wanted a 69 ,But, like everyone i know couldnt find one that was in our price range so after years and years of drooling  over the very few i would see on the streets or at shows i stumbled across a 69 maybe within my reach, on non-other than www.racingjunk.com  trade only type of deal so i sent an e-mail offering up my 1949 chevy buisiness coupe (4x4 lol) and we ended up working out a deal on the coupe and a v-dub buggy i had ,,and thats how i got my dream car!   thanks , BTW great topic!


I still have some original parts off the 73 for any of you 3 gen owners out there ,LMK

[ChgrSteve67]

 I was working for a trucking company delivering freight between Sacramento and Stockton CA.

One day I rolled up to the transfer station in Stockton and sitting out front was this red thing with black stipes and it had a for sale sign in the back window.  I walked into the office and asked who is selling that car and how much.  Went to the bank the next morning and got a signature loan for $1000 got a friend to drive me down to Stockton and drove my Charger home. 

Drove the Charger for about 6 months and due to lack of funds and CA smog laws I had to park the Charger.

Charger sat for about 15 years before I began rebuilding her.

The rest is history.

[Axels73Charger]

"you only have 3 wks of work left??? you haven't been at this very long have you..................... it NEVER gets finished................"

Well that maybe true but I can finally own one! You have a very good story! Long but hey its pretty cool!

rattlehead_74 Thanks I thought it was a good idea. Now Ive kinda given up on 69's even though I LOVE them! I dont have alot of money and ive been busting my but for the past 3 months to get more money.

PS Keep the stories coming there cool!

[mleist89]

i acquired my 1973 dodge charger from my grandfather after he passed away in march of 09.

[Iceyone]

Bought my first Charger in 1978. Paid 250 bucks for it and drove it home. Tried to buy my dad's old 69 SE a couple of months earlier but it got bought out from underneath me. Had a chance to buy an original 68 Hemi Charger for 7 grand about six months later. 7 grand sounded like 7 million to me back then so I passed. If only I could have seen into the future on that one. Still have that first 68 Charger and try'n to get it back on the road after sitting for the past 28 years.

[AKcharger]

Found mine abandoned in a storage lot. Bought it for $750  (including back storage). All it took was lots and lots of time and thousands and thousands and thousands of dolloars to fix it up.

[Brock Lee]

My main car was passed around like a bottle of hooch between a group of rednecks from the late 80's into the 90's. I would see it around and ask to buy it, but each one planned on "passing it down to their son". The car would develop a problem and it would end up being traded t another hick in the group, get half assed back together, then passed on again when a bigger problem occurred. One of them broke the chain and traded it for a snowmobile to someone outside the group. He had it for some time. I would hear "I would love to get that, but he wants way too much for that". But nobody threw figures out. One day in 1998 I went and spoke to the guy myself, he wanted $800 for it. By this time it was running, but had all kinds of hack shadetree mechanic work done to it. The body was straight and original though. So I spent a year going through it and have been driving it ever since.

[elanmars]

1st Charger- 1973 SE 400. Had been looking for a few months and this was during the high price years. I quit even peeking at 2nd gens, only the 1st and 3rd were realistic but even then, prices were high. found one on a craigslist ad in north carolina. talked to the guy, flew to check out the car...and it was waaaayyyyy better than in the pictures, so i drove that car back to louisiana. extremely happy i was...drove the crap out of that car, didn't really give me any problems other than having the transmission re-done. i would love to get another 3rd gen sometime, 73-74 and have the 71-72 hideaways on it...













2nd Charger- 1969 with a 400, formerly a 318. i sold the '73 for a very nice, high price. i had started to learn that not all was groovy with the car and it had some things that would be expensive to fix in the long run if i had kept it. well, expensive for me. specially with a child on the way. for some reason i thought this '69 Charger was in decent enough shape. hey, it drove, you know? just barely...while i bought it at a good price, it needed A LOT. it truly looked like a barnyard find, why, the dude thought it'd be a bright idea to get drunk with friends, swing by home depot and spray paint the gray primered car...you guessed it....ORANGE. holy crap did it look absolutely redneck ghetto. i was able to knock the price down a good bit because of that, that spray paint was EVERYWHERE. all over the trim, tires, wheels, windows...and when I said the car needed a LOT...brakes, front drive train, transmission, belts, alternator, body work (had a LOT of bondo, replaced the hood, windshield, got all kinds of seals all over the place, etc)...and i got a lot of that done, body shop headaches and all. but i didn't get it finished...i still needed to fix up the interior, the floor, get new front and back bumpers, put a final coat of paint, a/c...and with a child on the way, it was just not do-able. it's too bad because it was getting there..





























3rd Charger - 1969 383, formerly a 318. I got this last one after needing to get a more complete car and abandon the "dream car" due to having a baby, if i was to have a Charger at all. sold the second one for a great price, way more than expected-drove it to the dude in texas and that was that.

i knew about this car being for sale before, having seen it here and moparts. then seeing in person that it hadn't sold when i went to see travis for some parts for the car i had at the time, i was just curious if it was still for sale and the answer was yes. didn't think more about it until it came time to sell my 2nd Charger....while i wasn't keen on it having a white top, it has a certain charm to it. the tinted windows (which i sadly have to get rid of for more "legal" tint, as a lot of cops HATE that in the town i go to university), the black stripe, the actually not-bad-for-being-15's wheels...."OOOoooooh there's one nearby that already has air conditioning and it's his most driven one..."

so came up with the total, which took a week or two and it was driving me crazy not having "an old car" but i was determined not to let this one get away. i had already missed my chance for a very nice '68.

it's the first time i only had to travel 30-40 minutes for a car and not go across states. that was nice too...and being able to roll with air conditioning in louisiana heat and my baby can ride in the back no problem...awesome!

thankfully i've always been able to get drivers within my means-i'd love to have the money or/and time to learn and do it on my own, to have a car just down right the way i want it but i'll live totally fine with having a driver. all my cars have seen rain and been driven all over the place. i didn't bust my ass to get something just to sit in a garage and clean every now and again for a show, you know?

i may be thought of as insane for driving Chargers as my dailies the last few years but oh well, that's just how I roll.

not that i wouldn't mind a new Challenger SRT8 but that's WAY beyond my means.





for more photos, follow my sig!!

[bull]

My first Charger, a '70, I saw on my school bus route back in 1980 during the original airing of the Dukes of Hazzard TV show. I told my dad I had to have it so we went and offered the guy something like $300 for it. I did some crappy body work on it, painted it Trans Am red and then drove the piss out of it for 11 years.

My second Charger, a '68 R/T with no engine or trans., was something I fell into. I had helped a friend buy it from a private wrecking yard next to his house and when he had no place to store it I bought it from him for $50. All I did was move it about three blocks and parked behind a friend's storage unit and there it sat while I lived 350 miles away. It had a lost title so I did all the footwork involved in getting a new one in my name and pretty much as soon as I accomplished that he wanted it back. Shortly after he bought it from me he dropped a 400 in it and it got wrecked. I should have kept it because he's into Camaros now.

FFWD about 9 years when I got a job surrounded by Harley-Davidson guys telling me how they paid $17k or more for these big monstrosities they call motorcycles and I thought, I should be able to pick up a nice '68 Charger (my favorite year) for that much money. Well, sort of. I got the car for $5,500 and then I've poured more money than I like admitting to into its restoration since but, oh well. But I didn't have $20k+ to spend on one that was driveable so I did what I could. How I got it was kind of backward. I first started a national search shopping online for about a year and after getting frustrated with less-than-honest sellers and the idea of buying sight-unseen and spending $1,000+ on shipping I decided I needed to tap into the local market and exhaust it first. My Mopar buddy (now deceased) told me to get in touch with the local Mopar clubs and restoration shops and ask them and that's when things really started happening. I also have a coworker who cruises side roads all around town as a hobby looking for classic cars. After about two days of research gathered from about three sources I suddenly had 5-6 '68 and '69 Chargers to look at within 20 miles of my house. I found my current Charger, a '68 383/2bbl/4spd, sitting in an alley about 12 miles away. I bought it and then spent a year trying to decide if I should do a full resto on it. I finally made the decision and now it's in about 4,000 pieces in my garage. But I work on it pretty much every day and someday I'll get to enjoy the fruits of my labor... I hope.

[69bronzeT5]

I figured I had already typed this out on the site somewhere but I can't seem to find it so here it goes again.



I grew up watching the Dukes Of Hazzard reruns. I loved everything about the show....I was obsessed to say the least. However the obsession grew from the show into the car they used. The General Lee caught my eye from the first moment I watched the show. It was 1997, I was 5 and all I knew was I wanted my own General Lee. My dad started looking for one so we could restore it together. 1998 rolled around and a family friend called my dad and asked if that car he was looking for had a pop-up gas cap. My dad replied 'yes' and he said 'I found one sitting in a field near my house'. I remember me and my dad going out a few nights later to look at the car. It was rusty, beat up and missing a lot. Someone had thrown the front bumper through the windshield and keyed (or a screwdriver) a lot of the car. I remember looking at it in amazement, this was the first time I had actually seen a Charger in person. I still remember looking at the tail lights and that confirmed this was the same car the General Lee was. Anyways we went to the closest house and asked about it. The guy who owned the house said it was his friend's parts car for his '69 R/T. After getting in contact with the owner, we were able to buy the car for $400. I don't remember much of this time, I was 6 but there are still certain scenes from that night that play in my head. I can still picture looking at the passenger side of the car under that ripped tarp using only a flashlight to see in my head like it was yesterday. Even more so, I still have the image of me sitting in the front seat of my dad's car looking up at the tow truck with my Charger on it as we followed it back home on Christmas Eve. My dad made it official that night (1998- I was 6) by giving me a box with the keys to the car in it. My dad still tells me my mom wasn't impressed when she saw what was sitting in the driveway. Apperentley my dad snuck it into the driveway without her knowing Here's a few pictures that my dad took of me with the car a few days after Christmas.......

[69bronzeT5]

A newish picture of it....

[G-man]

I got mine as follows...

Allens friend was selling his daytona clone to buy a superbird, Allen wanted the daytona so he was selling his 68 QQ1 blue charger, I wanted Allens 68 QQ1 blue charger so I am selling my  red 68 charger.



I think im the winner in this whole ordeal 

Thanks Allen!

[doctor4766]

I have actually bought my Charger twice.
First up I bought it with my wife to do a GL clone for a charity bash here in West Oz.
Found it in a country wide magazine and had it shipped from Melbourne to Perth.
Spend a couple of weeks stripping down the car to send off to the panel shop.
While it was still in there my wife and I seperated.

Purchase number two was at divorce time when she thought the car was worth more than it was.
I had to pay her out the same amount of money that I had already spent on the car by that time in order to keep it from ending up in her hands.

Oh well.. sh1t happens.
She's now driving a piece of crap and has squandered all of her share of the money from the sale of our home.
I bought the home btw and I leave the garage door up just so she can see the Charger when she drops our son back after his couple of days a week at her (rented) house.
Is gloating a bad thing?

[CRZNYT]

Back in 1983 when I was in grade 9 my dad drove me to school and we would pass this one house everyday. I remember looking into his back yard and seeing this shell sitting back there, and I just had to have it. It was a 66 Charger all apart and just rusting out, I went to the door every week for 2 years but got the same story not for sale it's a resto project. Was driving to school one day a few months later and the car was gone, went to the door to inquire about it and he said he sold it. I said I have been here every week for 2 years and you told me it was not for sale, he says you are just a kid I thought you were kidding 
Fast forward to 1993 now 25 years old and still have that car in the back of my mind I tell my wife and dad that I am in the hunt for a Charger don't care what year as long as it says Charger. I have been looking for about a year or so everywhere in the area and a friend of mine who works at a body shop behind my dads car lot says there is a 66 sitting in the back, been there since 1980. Figures one block away and I had no idea it was there.
I go take a look and the car is sitting on the rockers sunk down in the mud, I take a chance and give the guy his money and bring it home. To our surprise the rockers and frame rails are in great shape with a few of the usual holes in the floor. Takes a few years to restore but in 2000 it came out and has been a blast to drive ever since.
By the way it turns out years later I befriend this guy and we get talking about the one that got away back in highschool and he informs me he bought and it was a factory hemi car. I asked where it was now and he told me he sold it to  a guy in Florida.
I have owned another 66 a 73 and now own a 77 Daytona package along with the 66.
Cheers Don