I'm back...after a long absense

[RzeroB]

I'm back...after a long absense. Indulge me for a few minutes while I tell you where I have been.

I've been a Mopar fan ever since I was riding the schoolbus home from middle-school around 1973-74 and a Sassy-Grass-Green 'Cuda closed on the bus from behind, lingered there for a while waiting for an opening, and then went roaring by. It was the most beautiful awe inspiring car I had ever seen up until that point.

Since then I've owned 16 Mopars to include seven E-bodies of which two were convertibles and one was a Hemi :toothy10: . I was cruising the streets, going to shows and racing with a 440 powered '69 Dart drag car I had during that time too. Even though I was in the military and having to drag my cars from state to state with each move to a new duty station, I was living the Mopar life and it was good.

Then I got married and had kids. As the needs of the family grew the Mopars became a luxury. I tried going with some A-bodies but over time I couldn't even afford to hold on to them. By the mid '90's all my Mopars were gone and I was driving a mini-van :sad10: . Yeah, I was Mopar-less. It was tough but I kept in touch with the hobby with the help of the internet and going to the ocassional show.

Now the kids are all grown up and out of the house. With that done, I would like to get back in the game. I realize the nature of the game has changed dramatically; the value of the cars has skyrocketed thus putting a lot of the cars into the hands of collectors or investors and out of reach of the average enthusiast. Okay, so I'll never again own a convertible or original Hemi car (if I only could have hung onto that 'Cuda!). That's fine, I'm sure there is a nice small-block or clone/tribute/recreation car out there somewhere just waiting for a new owner like me. Now all I have to do is start looking around and find one with the right deal that I can pick up without having to mortgage the house!

 

[AlleyoopMgv]

Welcome to FEBO!

 

[ramenth]

Welcome aboard!

 

[burntorange70]

Welcome to the site.

 

[moparleo]

Welcome back.

 

[RzeroB]

Thanks! Things have really changed...but change is the one thing that is always constant isn't it? Good thing for the internet. With the power of this forum (and a couple others) it makes it a lot easier to get caught up and find out what's going on out there in the hobby.

After seeing that Sassy-Grass-Green 'Cuda from the schoolbus I knew that I wanted one someday. I read everything about Mopars that I could get my hands on at the school library and the book store, I decided the car for me was going to be a 'Cuda (preferably Sassy-Grass-Green) with a 340 and a 4-speed. However, it didn't quite work out like that because I never had the patience to wait until I could find that ideal car. Before the internet it was hard to find things outside of your local area. There were classifed ads, Hemmings and word of mouth. So before long I broadend by search to include all E-bodies as long as it had a 340 and a 4-speed.

One day I came upon a newspaper classified ad for a '72 Challenger Rallye 340 but with an automatic. I think that it was the first E-body that I went to look at and I wound up buying it on the spot! It was a deep gold color (maybe Y7 Heritage Gold??) with a white vinyl top and a beige interior. It had the 340 and a console mounted slap-stick automatic. It also had AC, power steering, power disc brakes and the console mounted cassette tape player with microphone. It was 1979 and I think I paid $2,500 for it. I drove that thing all over the place. I took it on a cross-country drive from Albuquerque NM (where I lived at the time) to upstate NY (to see the folks) and back without a single problem. When I received transfer orders sending me to Alaska, everyone told me not to take a nice car like that to Alaska because the environment there was too harsh. they said most of the roads there were gravel and that you really needed a truck and preferably a four-wheel-drive truck. Sounded reasonable to me so I sold the car to a guy there in Albuquerque and left for Alaska. When I got to Anchorage I discovered that it was not as rustic as I was led to believe. It was a modern city with a little more snow than what you would get down in the "lower 48". The Challenger would have been just fine there. Live and learn.