1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE By Mark A. Steele

This Is My Mopar:

I love the 440magnum web site. Here's my story and my before and after picture. Can I get it on the site?

A Love Affair with a 1969 Charger: When I was 14 years old, my Dad bought a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE. It was the coolest car I had ever seen. It was primered gray with the original green fading through with rust all over. Just the way any kids car should be. My mom hated it and my friends envied it.

This car was to be the link between the generation gap my father and I had discovered we were suffering from. Little did we know it would take ten years to cross that gap. To this day I firmly believe it was the car that did it. My Dad and I spent hours upon hours in the garage sanding, sanding, and more sanding with a little motor and interior work. Dad spent more money than my mom and grandma could possibly fathom. No one but he and I could understand why anyone would sink literally thousands of dollars into an old piece that looked like it should be at the junkyard rather than in our pictures on the walls of our garage.

This is what it looked like when we started. I still loved it like that. I can distinctly remember during my driver's education class I would beg my Dad to leave work to pick me up from school. Again no one understood why I would plead with him to leave his brand new corvette in the garage and drive the "Dodge." My Dad understood and on occassion he would do just that.

When I was finally 16, at least legally, I could drive the "Dodge" ,and drive it I did. I knew I had the fastest car in school and I was bound and determined everyone else at school knew it too. Dad spent, I thought, over a million dollars to have a local speed shop build the most souped up 440 to ever burn up P.C. North High School. I tried to do just that, burn it up. I know Dad must have been upset when he kept replacing just the right rear tire, even a posi-trac limited slip differential couldn't keep up with me. But he never complained and he never grounded me from the car. He just kept pouring money and time into my car. I think he thought he was going to get to enjoy it when he first built it, but he only saw it when it wouldn't run.

For more information and photos of this cool Mopar: 1 2

1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE By Mark A. Steele

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