Another MOPAR barn find

I got a call a week ago from an old friend who has recently finished restoring a '72 corvette just like the one he bought brand new when he got his 'butter bar' in the 101st. After catching up on his activities/family/other friends and my trip to RRIV he says "never guess what I found". He was correct it never would have occured to me other than it some car that it would be one of these. A '69 Dodge Daytona.

Put away in '92, it was in survivor condition, needing fluids flush, new rubber and brake lines, unstick the brakes and good to go.

That was a cool homologation find Bob, although I would be ambivalent about actually owning one myself I think. I had no idea the interiors were so plush, they were on their way towards the rich Corinthian leather era I guess. :D

I've seen those go for BIG money on the auctions

Oh yeah, definitely a rare car, don't get me wrong. But, not being Richard Petty, I just can't imagine actually driving one on the street.

I suppose maybe it's past the point of driving it, (there are so few public high banks :D), and it's at the point of just being an object for a collection. Still, a very cool barn find though.

Cool ...very cool ,yet can you imagine tryin' to park that thing ? LOL

Friends dad gave one up for use, had the 440 magnum as well and a 4 speed. Faster than my fathers 530i of the day on the top end, way faster! Untill we spun the rod bearing from oil starvation racing a Chevelle LS6. Thank God for all the Winnabagos that ran the 440's. I was impressed at how much you could feel the diffrence at speed by adjusting the horizontal on the spoiler. There was only about a 2 in adj. The other intresting Aero was that the rear windows were fliped. Instead of being concaved as were the Charger's giving a convexed contour. I allways wondered who thought that one up the factories or the racers. I do know it was not Richard Pettey or Dave Marcus because I asked then both. Just a bit of old school triva form the days spent going to Wake Forrest and living awhile in Stock Car country. David Parsons was our Perfect Circle Gaskets and Rings Rep at the shop I worked at in Yadkinville N.C. Ah the old days of stock car racing. Not big on this new form of auto sports going by the name of NASCAR

I would agree that while an interesting car based on its homoligation status, I could not imagine driving one either now or in the day. I am told they did not get very good cooling air under 180mph, so a lot of overheated motors.

"Honest officer I was just trying to cool off the motor." lol

And Tom he might just take you up on that offer.

Bob, as WC Fields said of elephants - "I like to look at them, but I wouldn't want to own one".

That looks to be in beautiful shape! I remember as a kid, my brother and I going down to the local Dodge dealer and staring in the window at these things. I don't think we understood the homologation aspect. We just thought they were completely bizarre.

Check out the infield in this pic I took at Michigan Intl Speedway:

http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...0&d=1299717038

Porsches are cool cars...as all here clearly acknowledge....but when I was 17 and two buddies and I bought a '71 Roadrunner for $1,800....it was THE coolest car in the world we didn't give a toot about handling...I think we actually thought it handled well....well enough I guess...We smoked the tires off the back of it in the first month of ownership trying to impress our buddies and more importantly in our minds the girls at the McDonalds on Friday nights...then off to the junkyard to find a new set of rear tires and repeat..I think we went through 3 sets of tires that summer...Dropping the clutch and watching the blue smoke pour out of the back of that thing never got old....That's what your buying when you buy one of these cars....Our '71 was a complete beater, but in our minds it was just a little work a paint job and a couple other items away from being a show car....we sold it the next summer for $1,800 before we all went to school and I went back to driving my '72 beetle.....I'll take if no one else wants it....love to hear that gear driven starter once again...<grin>

A buddy of mine got a beautiful blue new '68 Roadrunner for graduation. Nobody could believe how lucky he was, and how cool we were cruising Euclid Ave in it. Chrysler was building some pretty radical street cars in the late 60s and early 70s, and the stripped out and relatively cheap (under 3K) Roadrunner was in the mold of the R, a company built hotrod of a car. Keep the Superbird, I'll take one of the first year Roadrunners. And there is the alleged Brock Yates connection...... Beep beep!

When my friends were running a GT350, boss 302, '65 GTO, Roadrunner, GTX etc, I was hot rodding BMW 2002s and road racing. Handling was everything to me but just not in their calculations at all! My firend David could shift that GTO leaving about 2' of clean pavement between slabs of burn-out rubber. His successful father put a Nascar motor in it. That's what defined a pissah cah to them (not that there's anything wrong with it). [wink]