My amazing 318 story;
So…. I answer this newspaper ad, not joking here… it is for a 1979 Dodge Magnum GT for $500. I figure it’s a wreck rusted out POS junk box, which is one of my favorite things to screw with.
So I answered the ad.
I meet the fella, the original owner and we talk as I walk around the car. I say I’ll take it. And he asks me if I like his paper work trail on it. I jump at it with a smile and say yes! It’s a ridiculously detailed record from day one. Starting with how much gas he puts into from the dealers lot. He even records when the radio light bulb goes out, where he took it, who the tech was and when he returned it again a month later to replace the replacement bulb and that techs name.
Yea, imagine this kind of record keeping! Amazing.
So —— I get to the end of the paper work which stops almost exactly 10 years after he started it. It ended with over 324,000 miles.
This lead to two questions. Why did you stop after 10 years and WHERE! Did you travel to log over 324K miles???? He held up his hand as to say, grab a beer and sit down, this is gonna take a minute or two…..
Twice a year, every year, I loaded up the wife and my two kids and visited every state in the United States and we toured the states we were in. I do t like flying, but I love driving.
I laughed my *** off, gave him kudos and talked about what the various states had to offer and how the kids were and etc…..
My second question was, so… what happened since the records stopped. He says, Oh! By this time, my daughter was up for collage. She took the car for that 4 years, (proceeded to roll his eyes backwards and moaned…) she drove that home every weekend. Then his sons got it for the next 4 years at the same collage.
For context, New Yorkers will understand this distance between locations)
He lived in South Babylon, Long Island, his kids went to Binghamton, so that’s a couple of hours! LMAO!
I asked if his son came home every weekend and he said NO.
Well, I would t ether but I know what most guys do! Let’s go to Boston for eats, let’s go to DC, let’s go get beer in Milwaukee, there’s a blues fest in Kentucky, whoa!!! Rock & Roll ball of fame is a good weekend away from school, let’s go!
He went on to say he used the car there after as a daily driver to work. Which turned out he was a 9-5 fire fighter in NY. I find out where and it was oddly down the block from where I worked in Queens NY, a town called Jamaica. I said that’s an easy 40 miles one way. Well, he looked at me and said exactly 40 miles, how do you know that? ….. more talking….
So… if the car had 324K in ten years, daily driver for work, 80 miles daily, 400 miles a week, for 52 weeks, for 10 years, unknown mileage each weekend to and from collage by his daughter, Lord GOD almighty only knows where his son went and the mileage in addition….
How many miles do you think that 318 logged?
500,000 miles?
During its time with the owner, he swapped on an Edelbrock Performer, 600 carb & cam for the package. The only thing it actually could have used, was an oil pump.
The 318 was getting 18 mpg Hwy, 904 trans, 2.76 gears.
The car was on the dealers showroom floor. It was a XE dressed as a GT, he showed me the stripes inside the door to prove it.
I still have the car but not the 318. A 5.9 took its place.
