How did you become a Mopar A-body Enthusiast?

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Bought a 72 dart for $500 back in HS from my boss at Pep Boys. Built an engine for it and drove it from Georgia to Texas and back a couple of times....both with the hot 318 in it, and later a transplanted 225. Learned a LOT from that car. It had the KH disc brakes (and they sucked) and I managed to blow up the 7.25.....memories!

Late had a 65 Barracuda that I built a slant for...and a Coronet that my and my dad built a 440 for, that I traded an 833 transmission for...it was in a guys chicken coop.

Anyway, got my current Dart early this year...saw it on Craigslist out in Midland. It is the same model as my 1st car....they say a sucker is born every minute. Well here I am, and I am going to apply 27 years of experience to this Dart that I shoulda' done to my 1st 72....

lots of other stuff, but that's the reason for the Mopar sickness.

sb
 
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Was cruising down the local main street, about 2 am, in my 72 Nova, warmed up 350, etc, had just dropped off my girlfriend and was heading home. Sitting at a light when a Duster 340 pulls up next to me. I look at the dude and he nods. We both rev up waiting for the green light. Light changes, I hammer it and get a length or two on him. Think I got him. Hit 2nd gear and I hear this banshee sounding wail as he pulled on me, he hits 2nd and walks away from me. 1st time I raced a 340. Stop at the next light, give him a thumbs up and proceed home with that 340 sound replaying in my head. Few months later talking to a new guy who was working nights at the same place I was. Get to talking and turns out its the the same guy! Was a good friend before we went our separate ways. Never forgot that sound and how impressed I was with that lowly Duster 340. Fast forward 35 + years and when my daughters said they wanted a muscle car project. Our Duster came up and here we are! Never forgot that fateful night many years ago....good times!
 
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when i was a kid,..riding my bike up n down the drive way,..there was dads 71 340 duster dark green matalic,..my uncle darryls white 340 duster,..uncle kennys 73 black twister duster with a bad lil 318/3 speed! his wife's 74 sky blue duster/6 prettiest one in yard! g'pas 70 318 3 speed b5 blue,..grew up,.. moved off to town and traded a boy a 77 Z28 for a 71 cuda 318 car,..then a month later bought a 71 340 4 speed 8 3/4 3:91 with all the lil tricks done to it,..rest is history been hooked on pentastar dust erry since,..shoulda keept the cuda and duster but young dumb...anyway today i got a D150 /6 od833 lil red wanna be and a 2000 sebring convert as daily drivers as i collect parts to build my 73 duster to street/strip standers and my 75 /6 auto/air/ps duster into usable transportation....
 
Spring of 68 I found me a mint 57 Belair with an oil burning 283 for $395. I got my learners permit, and drove it till fall and pulled the engine. I rebuilt it and dropped it back in in spring. Drove her for the summer of 69, and parked it for the winter. I was 16. By the middle of the following summer the tranny was cooked, and I traded it to my brother for a 69 CB350 Honda motorcycle that he had just plowed into a tree. I figured putting on new tubes was easier than fixing that PowerGlide!
But now I was without wheels for a time, so I began shopping.I had $1200 saved up, and I wanted a muscle car! I took several different cars for a ride, all out of my price range, but I was aiming high.
In the fall of that year,1970, I ran across a fellow selling his 1970 Swinger 340/4-speed/3.55s. I showed up at his place just after dark. It was PlumCrazy! He took me for a ride, and I was sold! I haggled him down to 2400, and we shook on the deal. Now I was committed. Next day, I went to my bank of 4 years where I had been dutifully depositing 20% of my paychecks since age 13, and inquired about a loan. Sure we can lend you 1200, no problem, they said.
So, I go back to this fella's house, to seal the deal, and when I get there, there is no FC7 car there. Instead I see a Pink Panther Dart.
It turns out under a Mercury Vapor streetlamp Pink turns Purple.Well, a deal's a deal, so we traded our assets, And I was well on my way to having a new nickname.
That was late 1970. I drove that car til the snow came down, and those stinking nearly-new E70-14s gave up,then parked it 'til spring. At the first sign of pavement, I was out there learning how to drive all over again.
I won't ever put Goodyear Polyglass GTs on anything again. I burned those off in short order, and it was good riddance.Over the time I had that car, until spring of 76 when I sold it,That Car, managed to burn up 6 more sets of rear tires. That's 7 sets,including those loser GTs, from spring of 71 until fall of 75.
It also wore out,or broke, IIRC; 2 sets of synchronizers, 2 MS gears,1 shift fork,2 clutchs,1 rear end,1 alternator,and 1engine.I got rid of that money-pit in February of 76 just as the starter cranked for the last time.I was 22.
I was of course hooked on Chrysler Power.
That 340 did not do well at the track, turning just 98@14.4, but after I put in the 4.10s and the custom slapper bars it took all comers on the street.Right up until I blew the engine. Thank goodness for the 5 and 50 Warranty.
But the second engine was a dog. I was not sad to see the old girl go.
Then I met a girl. Then I met a 65 V100 longroof. And a 340.
After that comes a lifetime of Mopars.
I lucked into that pink Swinger. It had only 11,000 miles on it. The tires were practically new when I got it.But I kept breaking stuff,and as a very young man still going to hi-school until 73; on my part time work,I couldn't afford to pay someone to fix it for me. And so I had to learn how to fix the stuff I broke or wore out. I became sorta knowledgeable on Mopes and so I stuck with them.
On the yard or nearby I still have 6 of my own, 3 of which are currently little more than empty shells, and 2 are drivers, and one I think the valves are stuck. I while back I hit the key to move it, and it made an awful racket....
I guess I'll be fixing that then.
I'll be 64 next month, and still fixing Mopes. That's nearly 50 years, I suppose.


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My first car was a 64 Polara with a 2 barrel Poly 318 and a push button 727. What a great car, put a lot of trouble free miles on it. But it was hard to find performance parts for a Poly. And I wanted something faster. My dad bought a used 67 fastback Barracuda for my brother Tom, about 1971. We still have it. Still a test mule. Then I bought a "64" 273 2 barrel Barracuda 4 speed. You could get all kinds of performance parts for that. I don't think the original motor made it a month before it was pulled and sent out to the machine shop for a set of TRW 10.5 : 1 forged pistons, rebuilt rods, and new cam bearings. Irwin and I put the short block in by hand, and I finished assembling it from there. What a great engine. Made a home made custom dash using Stewart Warner tach, 160 mph speedometer, and vacuume gage. I drove that car everywhere. It handled great, had plenty of power and got great gas mileage. It was my test mule and daily driver for about 20 years. Thought about replacing the Barracuda but every time I test drove anything, the Barracuda was faster and felt better, so I just kept fixing it up and upgrading it. It even had a hot 170 engine in it for awhile after gas wasn't good enough to run the 273 at 10 degrees BTDC. After the third accident, it took a year to decide to pull all the parts and let her go. I still have the 273, maybe I'll transplant it into something some day. Since that 64, I've always had an A Body, from 170 cu in to an Original 383 HP.
 
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I'll make it short. At 16 in '69 i can remember going to our local small town strip and watching Swingers routinely beat most anything in stock classes.I had Cuda's and Challengers all through the 70's but i could never beat a dart or duster..i eventually gave up the glammor and went for performance...and never looked back!
 
When I was in high school (1985), I was looking for a 67-68 Firebird for my first car. Ran into a deal on a 68 Camaro for sell from an airman at Travis AFB that had to sell quick because he was getting transferred out. Bought the Camaro and sunk a ton of money into it. Camaro was a great car, but I kept reading magazine articles about the 340 Darts and I thought they were awesome.
Sold the Camaro and went to trade school in Phoenix, Arizona. I found a 68 Dart GT for sale there with a drive train from a stock 340 car - 3.91 suregrip. Car was very cool and fast. Had no problem smoking my friend's 68 chevelle 396 - 4.11 rear car. Unfortunately, had to sell it when I left AZ.
I've owned two 68 Darts and two 69 Darts, and a few 68-69 B bodies. B-body cars always seemed too big to me...A bodies are just right.
 
I got started with a 67 Dart GT with some kind of V8 (probably a 273) back in the late 70's. The engine gave out so I swapped in a 340 from a 72 Challenger. Somehow I let that one get away from me to my eternal regret. Then in the early 80's came a 73 Duster /6 auto. This one got me into the Mopar Hall-Of-Shame, as I'm one of the few people who ever destroyed a /6. This was due to being an idiot and running it out of both oil and water about 20 times apiece before I did it for the last time. :BangHead: 1994 comes around and I buy a new Ram 2500 diesel that I still have today.

Fast forward through another 20 years of life, and I retire and realize I can finally go find a fun car to build and drive. This gets me to my 66 Valiant, which is slowly getting the pile of parts installed to make it a fun little street runner.

Mopars are like a disease, if you get it you just can't get enough of them. Great thread, and great stories!
 
My cousin bought a new bright green 1970 Duster six cylinder car. I wanted one, but being 14 at the time I would have to wait. Four years later I couldn't afford a Duster but I could afford a $500 1964 Dodge Polara 500 with a 361 and a 4 speed. I eventually rebuilt the engine with all of the bolt on upgrades of the time, DP4B aluminum intake, AVS from a 440, headers, 480 purple cam, beefed up valve train, windage tray, ACCEL dual point distributor, and a street/strip clutch. The car was a good runner.......or so I thought. I had joined a Mopar club in 1975 and one night a fellow member and I got into a race. He had a completely stock 1974 Duster with a 360 and a 3 speed. I barely got him by half a fender! I thought to myself that I ought to look for a 360 Duster to buy and beef it up.
I was working for the parks and recreation department at the time and one of my duties was to prep two softball fields on Friday and Saturday nights, hang around until the last game, bring in the equipment and shut off the lights. On Saturday nights, the parking lot would start to fill up with odd muscle cars after I shut the lights down. One night I decided to hang around to see what was going on. That park was the meeting place for our local street racers to set up their matches. That night it happened that the featured race was between a guy who had come from another area with his modified 1970 396 Chevelle looking for our local factory 1971 340 Duster. It wasn't even close as the Duster dusted the Chevy. It was right there that I decided that I would get me a 1971 340 Duster.
I finally bought an orange 1971 340 Duster in 2010 after getting my two daughters through college and marriage. I am in the process of getting it reunited with a 1971 340 (non numbers matching but period correct).
 
Because my friend owned this Duster. It was sold in Sweden, a /6 car but with all the options of a 340 car. Disc brakes, 8 3/4 rear, floor shift and console, ralley gauges, woodgrain on the dash etc etc. He put a 360 in it with 4.10 out the back. I loved it from the first moment I saw it and that is how it all started for me. I love mopar a bodies, but I really like old cars in general too.
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When I was 13 years old, my neighbor was an engineer for Chrysler. Almost every week he would drive a different car home. In 1965 he drove a 1965 barracuda formula S home. I still remember the sound of the single exhaust. The color was ivory with gold interior and stripes.
Now that I have one, I am excited to hopefully make my 65 formula S as nice as I remember.
 
well, one of my older brothers had a 340 Demon that he built, never lost a street race. Another older brother had a 318 Duster with 340 heads/4bbl. I liked the Duster/Demons a lot, but not as much as I like my brothers '68 GTX or my sisters '68 Satellite. Well, long story short, I couldn't afford any 68-70 B-body, neither could I afford a nice E-body, so I drove A-bodies (and liked them a lot). Guess what? I still can't afford nice B/E bodies, so I have A-bodies now... (but now I love 'em). No regrets, I it's my car history now.... sentimental to me now :)
 
Bought my '67 Barracuda in 1974 at a Georgia Ford dealership for $600. Needed a daily driver. 273, 2bbl, 4-speed. Car came from New Mexico, sand had frosted the windshield and stripped paint from the front end. Over time, put in a JC Penny lifetime battery (best money I ever spent), rust-proofed when I moved to Michigan, new windshield, painted the body (twice), MOPAR electronic ignition, Holley 2280 carb, stored the car when salt was on the roads (not a speck of rust on it). Just rebuilt the Holley after 25 years. Looking forward to driving it again during its 50th anniversary model year.
 
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When i was 15, i started going to the dragstrip with one of my relatives and helping him out with the car, running pit crew and stuff lol. A couple years later during summer break, he decided to give me his old bracket car, which he had stripped everything out of, except for the cage and frame ties. We put a 7 1/4 and a /6 front end with dry rotted ball joints and all, so it would roll to get on the trailer to take to my place. We spent 2 straight days and nights getting that thing rolling. Had about 2 hours of sleep total. Got it to my place and i started bring it back as a street/strip car. Btw thats my dart, and this happened last summer :). Im only 17 but somehow ended up with a pretty sweet car IMO.
 
I grew up around them, father bought a '71 FJ6 Duster new and still has it along with our race cars always being A bodies. In 2013 I got one of the cars we no longer ran ('69 Dart GTS) and a year later picked up a '74 Scamp for a driver to high school.

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How did you become a Mopar A-body Enthusiast?

when i was 7 years old one of my brother's friends came to the house in a new 70' Cuda and BAM !!!
i was hooked ...pun intended
 
64physhy thank you for your years of service.

I am recent transplant to TX. it is a big state!!
Thank you! Yes, it is. IIRC, El Paso is about the halfway point from Yuma, AZ. That's all the way through AZ and through 3 hours of NM, hit the TX border, and just halfway to Fort Worth. I do like the town I'm in, though.
 
First car I have a memory of is a 1966 Barracuda. I was born in 63 and my dad bought the 66 new, but not sure how old I was at my first memory of it. He was a Mopar guy. I remember a Scamp, Valiant Brougham, Volare', Fifth Avenue, Then he got crazy and bought two brand new Sapporos! He had a Horizon, then I remember a Cirrus and a couple of Sebrings.

Mopar wore off on my and although I hung out with Chivvy guys working on their cars, my first car was a 72 Duster bought at the original Manheim Auto Auction for $440.

I never forgot that 66 Barracuda and about 6 years ago, I bought my first, following a year later by the one I have now.
 
Grandpa's FORD broke down on a mountain road. We walked to a payphone and he called his friend to come get us. They guy showed up in a tan 1970 Duster. I got in the backseat and thought I really want one of these someday. I was 5. Finally got a 1971 many years later with a 440 in it.
 
Growing up my uncle had a Dart GTS race car in various stages of disassembly in his garage. He was a car guy growing up and him and my grandpa would tell stories of working on cars. I always thought the car in his garage was the coolest thing. Its a shame he sold everything before I was of age to buy it all.
 
My buddy asked me to build him a shop! As I was standing on the roof, I saw this bubble back window car out in the field! "Oh, that's Max Russell's car, I've been trying to buy it for years", says my buddy! I asked him if I could ask Max about it, and he told me good luck!! $400 bucks later it was mine, and my buddy was so happy about it he told me that it would be the first car done in his new shop!! That was 1993, and the car is still with me today! Sadly, my buddy passed away a couple years ago, only having driven the car once!! Seems he would rather borrow my GTX, which was always gladly loaned to him for as long as he wanted it!!
 
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