Text by Patrick Bell.
Today we have a gallery that represents big bucks if all the featured cars survived and were for sale today. The Chrysler Corporation built some engaging cars during the muscle car era, and here is a good selection for your viewing pleasure.
This man bought his ’71 ‘Cuda Hardtop new, and kept it for 45 years per a search. It was equipped with a vinyl roof, and aftermarket body side molding, wheels, and mud guards.
A search on this ’69 Road Runner Coupe reveals it was a late year car with the optional 440 Six-Barrel engine. The owner built it for the strip with an aftermarket hood, headers, and wheel and suspension modifications.
Here is a V8 powered ’70 Challenger convertible from Illinois with no visible modifications. This was one of 3,173 convertibles made in the first year, and was the most popular of the two years of Challenger drop tops.
The featured car was a ’69 Dart GTS Hardtop with a vinyl roof and bumper guards. Modifications include wheels, tires, mud flaps, and traction bars. Other Mopars include on the left edge a ’69 Charger with the hood open, to the right of the pickup a gold ’72 Polara, and a copper ’74-’77 Fury or Gran Fury wagon.
A rusty ’69 Coronet 500 hardtop with modified wheels, tires, and a CB antenna on the deck lid.
This man doesn’t look too happy, nor does his dress mode fit with this ’68 Coronet Super Bee Coupe with no wheel covers.
A ’69 Barracuda Sports Fastback modified with CB antenna, spoiler, body side stripe, spring shackles, and wheel and tires.
I’ll bet the neighbor’s were loving this… Somebody was warming up their tires on a ’72-’74 Barracuda that was modified for the strip with an aftermarket hood.
Now this is a pair, a ’70 Coronet R/T convertible with Crager wheels, and a ’69 GTX hardtop. The R/T was one of 296 built, a rare one then and especially so now.
Ontario was the home to this ’71 Challenger R/T hardtop equipped with the “Shaker” hood scoop.
This ’69 Road Runner hardtop from British Columbia was close to new in this image. The owner had modified it with their choice of chrome wheels and red stripe tires.
A rain shower had just dampened this ’68 Charger from California. It was equipped with a vinyl roof, and had been modified with a “Dodge” decal for those that might not know, body side molding, mud flaps, wheels and tires where the wide one in the rear had kissed the curb; and possibly a color change as that does not look like an original color.
Here we may have a college dormitory where some of the students were packing for a holiday or break of some kind. A ’71 Charger Super Bee is up front, equipped with a vinyl roof, hood tie down straps, and was modified with fog/driving lamps, and wheels and tires.
A ’72 Road Runner equipped with a canopy vinyl roof and the 340 V8 engine and modified with aftermarket wheels and tires.
Thanks for joining us and have a great day!
Nice cars, those were the days!
Mopar muscle has brought crazy money the last 20 years or so. Wonder if that will continue as we boomers age out.
I could never afford the Challenger drop-top I wanted, but did find this ultra-rare Charger last summer, in the proverbial barn. It may be rarer than any other car shown here, a 1970 Charger R/T V-Code: 440, 4-speed with “pistol grip” shifter, 6-pack. 143 were made with the manual trans, about the same # with auto. I couldn’t afford proper restoration of a car like this, so immediately sold it to a guy in California, sight unseen. Woulda coulda shoulda.
pic:
If that 69 440 Roadrunner is in fact a A12 440 car that hood would be the factory fiberglass lift off hood. They all were black from the factory however
Each time I see a Charger R/T, I think of the chase scene in Bullitt.
Here I am next to my new 1973 Dodge Challenger, 318 V8, a/c, PS/PB, and vinyl top. I was an AIc (E4) and bought the car new from King Dodge in nearby Sacramento. I long ago traded the car but still have my original CA license plates. The dorms are in the background. I parked far away from the other airmen’s cars. I retired as a Lt Col.
Sigh, I could have bought most of these for $700 apiece back in 1977-82. OK, maybe $850 for the convertibles.
Unhappy man next to Super Bee: “I told my son I would make half the down payment on a new Dodge Coronet 2-door sedan, but this is not what I expected.”
And then someone went and stole his hubcaps.
As a pre-teen, I read as many car magazines as I could. Including used car buyer guides. Circa 1978, Consumer Guide absolutely trashed the E-Bodies, as very poor second hand car buys. Going on memory, I generally can’t think of 1970’s era cars they more maligned, as a bad purchase. Perhaps the Vega, Audi 100LS, or Audi Fox. When factoring in the inefficiency of their design, the E-Bodies were near or at the top. One of the most likely abused used cars, you might find. While unable to withstand the abuse.
I am loving the many memories these pictures evoke .
Yes, E-Body MoParts were wretched cars to live with, built solely to sell upon their looks they were cramped inside and had terrible out ward view from any angle but they were light and mid size so they made many fun Hot Rods .
-Nate
try again…
’70 R/T V-code as found in the barn:
I give up! Bloody hell. I’m not good at re-sizing…
I use the snipping tool in Microsoft with a lot of success to reduce photo size.
I use this: https://picresize.com/
First page choose photo. Second page choose size reduction. I always choose custom and set width at 1600 pixels maximum. Then save as jpeg before saving to disk.
again?
It might be the extension, WordPress is ludicrously picky about images that aren’t .jpg
WordPress doesn’t normally allow images in comments at all, and the plugin Curbside Classic uses for that purpose is an older one that unfortunately only supports JPEG images.
Yeah I don’t get too bothered by it. I mostly use the site by my phone so if an image doesn’t post after a few attempts I just go “oh well”. That doesn’t bother me as much as the algorithm that for seemingly no reason sends my occasionally long winded comments to spam but you guys usually fish them out eventually(which I really appreciate!). But for images I just tend to just assume any image posting issue is a size/extension issue based on my experience
The spam filtering is something else: There can be lots of reasons something gets filtered, but one of the weirdest and most frustrating is that it apparently thinks it’s suspicious if you spend too much time on a comment before submitting it. If you start typing and then pause for a while before finishing it, that’s very likely to get filtered, even if you’re a registered user.
(If the comment posts but the image doesn’t, that’s not spam filtering, that’s a limitation of the system that allows attaching images.)
Wow, great shots evocative of a lost time and place.
The first guy with the Barracuda could be heading out to see Deep Purple’s Machine Head tour. Or maybe CCR before they imploded.
The Mario Lanza fan in photo #6, with the set jaw and ill-fitting blazer, looks like he’s posing near Public Enemy #1. That’s one bad Super Bee!
My 1973 Challenger Rallye 340. A two thousand dollar, 3 year old car for me. I owned it for six years.
Here is my ’73 Challenger. It was originally green with a vinyl top and 318. I bought it in 2006 from a dealer. Whoever put it together spent a lot of money on the drivetrain. It had a highly modified bored out 440 with a Torqueflite. That thing was an absolute beast. I finally decided it was more race car than cruiser. I sold it on ebay to a guy from suburban Chicago who said he was a street racer after I took him on a somewhat scary test ride. He was most impressed with it’s power and rust free body. I took the money and bought my ’66 Mustang.
Grumpy looking guy with the 68 Super Bee.
“This will teach those damn kids who hot rod up and down past my house to show some respect”
Here’s a picture of my ’74 Challenger, bought from the original owner in 1978, w/ 29k miles. Originally Honey Beige w/ a vinyl top. 47 years later I still own it, with 69k actual miles!! 🙂
Back in 76-79, high school parking lots were jammed with late 60s muscle, forget about the dents and oxidized paint – we wanted traction bars and 8 tracks.
Made for action packed saturday nights ..
I remember seeing a shiny blue 69 Coronet Super Bee for sale at ‘Fairly Reliable Bobs’ in Boise, Idaho for $2500
Good old days!
To think most of these cars are now ridiculously expensive if they survived. However, I will single out that poor red 69 Barracuda with shackles, large tires, and mud flaps.