340 horsepower rating

thanks to all you guys for the thoughts...

i bought my first 340 4 speed formula s in the summer of 1970 from "Gabby", a plymouth dealership mechanic at Glen Dale Motors in Glen Dale, W.Va. Gabby bought this car new and did a number of performance mods to the car including putting in the hooker fenderwell headers. back then, no one cared about sawing out fenderwells of "new" cudas. i can't imagine taking a sawsall to an original cuda fenderwell now.

as to an "old school build" ... after high school, i ran a body shop from 73 to 75. lots of repairs were "old school" back then. as such, my current cuda had all the small rust holes repaired with LEAD and i gunned down the body with very nice ACRYLIC LAQUER turbine bronze paint. the only place i was able to find this paint now was from TCP Global in San Diego, Ca. (of all places!!). Every pannel on this car was shot with "slow" thinner then after a couple of days, sanded with 2000-2500 wet paper then "buffed" with a random orbital buffer. no H2O paint on my 45 year old cuda! I have nothing against the modern restos but I have to say, mopars NEVER looked like they do with present materials when they rolled off the car carriers in 1968. the turbine bronze on my 68 cuda doesn't have anywhere the depth or shin as lots of resto cars i've seen at car shows. however, my cuda DOES look like it did in 1968. and, my car is 99% original. i literally "reconditioned" and reinstalled every nut and bolt and trim piece that was on the car. there are a few small parts that i couldn't save and had to replace but you could count these parts on one hand.

i would call my car a "survivor restoration" and it has lots of imperfections all over it. the underneath was even UNDERCOATED - just like i did to my first 68 back in 1970 to protect it from the w.va. snow and salt on the roads. now when i look at this car, and then look at myself in the inside rear view mirror right before i fire this baby up, i see two great items that have aged a bit but still a lot of fun to be around.
jim coster, pittsburgh, pa