RE: Come on in!!
I live in central Illinois. I'm a CNC machinist by trade. I enjoy writing for an E-body club newsletter. I own two Chall. R/Ts a 70 and 71, both 383 auto cars with lots of options. I bought my first Challenger in 1975 and have owned one continuously since, without interuption! I have had a total of five Challengers during my lifetime, plus several A-bodies along the way as daily drivers. The Challengers I own now, I bought over 20 years ago. My fun driver is my 05 Hemi Ram QC, red with factory 20s and an aftermarket SRT hood scoop on it with the center of the hood blacked out. I enjoy picking fights with Mustangs with this truck and of course I won't let it take any Sh#@t off of the Brand X trucks. It'll smoke all the other trucks I meet!
Two months ago I drove my first new Challenger, an R/T, with an auto. It had three miles on it when I took it out for a drive. I brought it back to the dealership with 11 miles on it. A salesman went with me. The salesman is a high school classmate of mine and my Dodge salesman for the last seven years. During those 8 miles of test driving what was a brand new car, not even broken in yet, I managed to contain myself, well somewhat any way. However, temptation was starting to get the better of me after I had "broke" the car in some more with an four or five more miles of tepid driving. Finally we stopped and I was able to see how easily it would smoke 'em by pushing one little button on the dash. Then a half mile later there was the spontaneous 70-100 mph dash, which took a couple of seconds. We did this on an empty county back road (I live in a rural area). To keep that car safe from inquiring minds and curious tire kickers like myself, the next day (after my drive) the dealer put the car in the showroom for the next several weeks. My salesman did say he wanted to see how one of the new Challengers ran when he invited me to take a test drive and he never complained when I hazed the tires for that 20 feet. At any rate, I obliged him. My final verdict on the test drive was that "once this engine gets broken in, it's going to run real nice." I proved that. Sure, I have to get one, right after this economy becomes more promising, I'll take on a new car payment and possibly give up my beloved Ram.
I got my driver's license in 1974, so that ages me. In that time you could find a lot cool cars on the street and in the junk yards. We all would kill for those cars today. I won't say that muscle cars were growing on trees in the mid-70s, but it was pretty easy to find the more common ones on used car lots. I remember in the spring of 1976 going to a medium sized Chrysler dealer in my area. They had several Cudas and Barracudas sitting on the used car lot as trade-ins. Most of them were 70 or 73 models with 318s and there was one Challenger Rallye 340. I was driving a super clean 72 Challenger 318 car that was Hemi Orange with a black interior. I didn't trade it because they wanted a fortune for their stuff and wanted to allow me nothing (maybe $1000) for my super clean car (it had about 26,000 miles on it at the time!). I don't trade with theives.
I'm fourth generation Mopar. My great-grandfather was born in 1872 and his first vehicle was a Maxwell truck (that was the name of Chrysler before Walter bought the Maxwell Co. out). My grandfather (his son) used that Maxwell to date my grandma in and I'm sure they made many fond memories in it. My grandpa was one amourus guy and used the bed of that ancient truck. Any way, it was my gramps who hooked his family on Mopars. Heck, he even hooked a couple of his son-in-laws on them. Of course the Mopar thing got handed down to my dad and he to me and I am now working on my 8 year-old daughter. She likes the looks of Mustangs, but I'm trying to convince her otherwise and have told he she will never get me to buy her one of those cars. Mustangs were always targets to me, to be sought out and embarrased thoroughly, which was one thing I did back in the seventies with my orange Challenger and do sometimes today with my Ram. That's a little about me.