First off, thanks to CudaChick for giving all of us Young Guns a place to share our stories, and for everyone putting up prizes. Shows just how awesome Mopar people are no matter what age or background. Thank you everyone.
And now, the story of my love affair with Mopar.
To say I grew up a car guy is an understatement. Just a couple months before I was born my mother, father, and sister went to the final Nascar race at Riverside International Raceway in California, my mother being pregnant got the family a free upgrade to the VIP suites, being that temperatures were in the upper 90s that day, so racing and cars were in my blood from the start. The start came August 28, 1987, that makes me 22 today.
All my life there has been at least 3 Chrysler products in the family. Two have remained constant for all 22 years of my life, my fathers 1970 Dodge Super Bee, and his 1977 Dodge Warlock True Spirit II. The Super Bee has always been in the garage, with the Warlock, known to our family as the BEESST sitting on the side of the house.
Taking an aside to describe the cars The Super Bee was my dads daily driver when he went to Cal Poly Pomona to study Civil Engineering from 1973 to 1977. At the time it was his nighttime racecar as well, with a 383 and pistol-grip shifted 4 speed stock. The car club he was in all had dark cars for nighttime street racing, so the Hemi Orange on the Bee got covered in a maroon color. Dad had the plan to make it into a tilt front end Pro Street style car, but upon getting married in 1982 the car was stashed away. Upon graduating from College, dad bought the BEESST, after a year long search. He wanted a full time 4 wheel drive, short bed stepside truck, with a 440, and finally found it and is the one and only owner. It was recently discovered that this truck could be one of 4 ever made with the 440. That was on the road until 1997.
As a young child my dad would take me to Mopar only car shows all across Southern California. I always asked about when I would get to drive the Super Bee. My dad is a huge model kit builder and collector (over 75,000 in the garage right now), and he started me off on the road to building a Mopar one at a time in 1/24th scale. The first model I ever built was of the 1988 Daytona Shelby Z he had at the time. I also had plenty of Hot Wheels cars, 90% of which were Mopars, I still have all of them.
Somewhere along the line, very early, I made what most of you would call a mistake, but to me I call it the right choice. I am a huge fan of Dale Earnhardt. Yes, the most Chevy of all Chevy guys, but if it werent for him, the Chrysler Kit car program would never have exsisted, and his first race in the cup series was in a Dodge, so its all good. My dad did seem a bit disturbed when we would go to races, in Phoenix, Sonoma, and eventually in Fontana, and I would wear GM shirts with a Black Chevy on them, and how my bedroom walls were (and are) covered with pictures and posters of Earnhardts cars, along with various Mopars cut from magazines or pictures I had taken as a child.
When I turned 15 and started driving with my permit, I really started bugging my dad to get the Super Bee back on the road, but it served as a storage unit for all of our camping gear and other items as I worked towards earning my Eagle Scout. At the Spring Fling that year I bought a t shirt with the Super Bee logo on it, just to egg him on. Every shirt I ever saw with a Super Bee logo on it from then on until late 2005 I bought, just to get my dad to get the car back on the road. I ended up marching in Pacific Crest Drum and Bugle Corps from 2005 to 2007, and on one of my first rehearsal weekends I wore one of my Super Bee shirts. One of the instructors was trying to tell the members where to go in the forms, and didnt know my name. He called me Super Bee because of the shirt, and the name stuck. To this day every time I see one of the guys or girls I marched with, they still call me Super Bee.
Upon graduating High school, I was given the choice between going away to school and living on my own, or a car. I really wanted a 69 Charger, but mom and dad said that was too big of a car for my first car. So I tried to get the BEESST, but with the fuel mileage it gets, that wouldnt work. Dad suggested I look at Darts or Dusters. So I picked up each Auto Trader variation and circled every single V8 powered A body I could find. Eventually he took a side trip on the way home from work and looked at a 1973 Plymouth Gold Duster with a 225 Slant 6. Dad managed to get pictures and showed them to me, two days later my mother and I went down and looked at the car. I test drove it, and loved it. Mom made me test drive over 40 other cars after that, trying to convince me not to get this 32 year old car, but I was already in love and would not be swayed. On July 28, 2005, my Duster came home. Unfortunately I wasnt able to drive the Duster for the first two weeks I owned it, as I was on the East Coast marching with the Drum Corps. But would dream about my Duster every night.
Upon getting home I set to work getting the car road ready for the upcoming school year, starting at Cal Poly Pomona in the fall, as a Mechanical Engineering major. That summer I took the Duster everywhere, showing off my old Mopar to all my high school friends. Starting school I quickly learned about all the quirks of driving the Duster daily. The starter died on me when I meant to come home one night in my first week of classes, a phone call to a friend had me pushing the car to the parking lot near the dorms where the Duster sat overnight until my dad would drop me off the next morning with a new starter. That was the first night I ever stayed up without sleep, worried sick about my car. A couple months later I was driving home when the car died in the middle of an intersection. After getting pushed by a few helpful people into a nearby gas station I learned the importance of having a spare key, when I locked myself out of the car without my jacket on a rainy night, just to go buy a Coke. Dad showed up with a new battery and we got the Duster home.
On April 11, 2006 as I was driving to school to take a Chemistry midterm, the original Slant Six blew at 65mph on the freeway going through Ontario, CA. My Duster was dead for nearly two months as I performed my first ever engine swap, replacing the dead Slant with a remanufactured one. I was extremely proud of myself, and my Dad found just how much fun it was to work on an old car with me, so we duster off the Super Bee and began to work in it with the goal of me driving it to Cal Poly once before I graduate, a homecoming for the car of sorts as it spent 4 years of its life on the same campus Im spending my time.
Over the course of the next few summers I would restore some part of my car, gaining money by performing chores around the house. Summer of 2007 was spent restoring the interior, summer 2008 redoing the suspension and adding sway bars. Also in 2008 I finally ditched the original hubcaps and 14inch wheels for a set of Cragars, which I loved because the same wheels were on the Super Bee.
In January of 2008 pulling out of the parking lot at school I was amazed to see another 73 Duster sitting in the parking lot. I immediately stopped an wrote a note to stick on the windshield. The owner of that car is now a good friend of mine, Tamara along with her father Mike. Meeting Tam was also my first experience with a V8 Duster, and man did I want what she had in her car. We hang out all the time and talk Mopar, as well as study together being were both Mechanical Engineering majors. Tam and her dad have been a huge help, and inspiration, for both my Duster project, and the restoration of the Super Bee.
By this time I had become a member of the Cal Poly Pomona Formula SAE Raceteam. This is an engineering design team where we design, build, and race a small, formula style racecar. I quickly got the nickname of Mopar on the team from my various Mopar tshirts and because no one could seem to remember my name. Since being on the team one part of the car has always been Hemi Orange my signature. The team would prove to be instrumental in one of my most memorable Mopar moments.
On February 9, 2009 tragedy struck my Duster once again, as the Slant Six broke its crankshaft. Everyone says the Slants are bulletproof, theyre not. I babied two of them, never going above 70mph, never racing, always checking fluids and performing tune-ups regularly. I hate the Slant Six. Not enough power, no auto parts stores have parts for them, and theyre far from bulletproof. This set in motion the gears to turn my Duster into the car it shouldve always been, with a small block.
At about the same time, my friend Tams Duster shattered the crankshaft in its 318 as well, and she and her dad had a 340 they were going to build into a 416 stroker and a 360 laying around. I struck a deal to purchase the 360, and after looking at it and getting a promise from Tams dad that it was mine, that I could pick it up the following Saturday, he turned and sold it to the editor of Hemmings Motor News. That sunk me fairly low. All geared up, ready to get down to business with my car, all my savings from my first few paychecks at my new job, and my plans blown wide open. Oh well, they needed to do what they needed to do to get Tams car back on the road, so its all good.
I managed to find an engine and trans for the Duster not too long after that episode, this past May. Unfortunately that 360 had been bored .060 over and I needed to find another, which I recently got back from the machine shop, not too long until I can start putting it together.
In the meantime, the formula team from school decided to go to Germany to compete against the best teams in the world. As I was browsing FABO I came across the information that the German Mopar Nationals were going to be the same time that I would be in Germany. I got more information from Tom, DieWilde13, and soon a plan was in place to get me from Frankfurt where I was with my team to Herten for the Mopar show. And what a plan it was, it involved me riding in a beautiful 1972 Plymouth Barracuda with a 318 along the autobahn. The Cuda was driven by a guy named Marc, whos slightly older than I am and has become a good friend, even on the other side of the world. The German Mopar Nats were amazing. I would have never thought that there were so many Mopar fans in Germany. I am eternally gratefull to Tom, Marc, and all their friends who I met over there and who let me enjoy their Mopar show with them.
And if the show itself wasnt enough Mopar in Germany, while I was competing with the team at Formula Student Germany at the Hockenheimring, there was drag racing going on on the other side of the track, and the Mopars were out in force. 1970 Coronet, big block Darts, small block Challengers, and a HEMI Duster. Amazing cars, and extremely distracting to me when they drove by where I was working on our racer.
Upon returning home from Germany I poured everything I had into my Duster to get it back on the road. A lot of progress has been made, but theres still a long way to go. At the time of this writing I am ready to spray paint under the hood and in some touch up locations along the body. I only need to purchase gaskets and bearings to put the 360 together, and the trans is ready to go. Hopefully the engine will be in the car and ready to fire by the end of the year. Im pouring nearly every penny I earn into the Duster.
Whenever I see another old Mopar hanging out somewhere, I have to stop and take a look. More often than not I leave a not telling the owner how much I enjoy seeing an old Mopar on the road and how nice their car is, no matter what shape its in. I know how good that feels, and Im always game to brighten someones day.
As for the Super Bee, it is currently up and running after 4 years of work, my dad finally drove it around the neighborhood, minus the front end sheet metal and exhaust. That car now has a 426 Max Wedge, 4speed, and 3.55 Sure Grip rear end. The neighbors somewhat hate when that car fires up, but it is pure music to our ears in this house. It is an absolute shame we have to put an exhaust system on it, but thats what cut-outs are for!
Some of my friends like to joke with me that the reason I am pretty much the only single person I know of is because of my car. As Ive said, nearly every penny goes into it, I talk about the Duster constantly, I have thousands of pictures of it, dozens of books on it. There are piles of Mopar and Hot rod/Car Craft magazines on my bedroom floor that stretch back eight years, and I still read them. My bedroom closet is full of Duster parts. The Cragars and BFGoodrich tires I bought for the Duster last summer are stacked and sealed in the closet, and right next to them are a fresh set of door panels and a new dash pad. Piled on the floor infront of my closet are engine parts, oil pan and windage tray, linkages, intake manifold, etc. That car is one of the most important items in my life, falling in shortly behind my family, my friends, and my country. There is no better feeling for me than driving the Duster, and hopefully that feeling will return shortly, because I just dont feel the same driving anything else.
MOPAR OR NO CAR!!!
Pictures are of the Duster as it was last on the road, me installing the rear sway bar, Duster a few months after I got it, river of trans fluid under the car during the first engine swap, the Super Bee as it currently sits, the Super Bee when it first rolled out of the garage to being the restoration a few years ago, and the BEESST as it sits today.
The Video link on the bottom is to a video of the Super Bee on its first drive in 30 years that occurred this past August.
Thank you very much again for putting this on, and also for your consideration.
