So what got you into A Bodies?

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Easy. Here is a picture of the car my folks brought newly-born me home from the hospital in (and the house they brought me home to):

1117.jpg


Some of my earliest memories are of being strapped into a (primitive early) infant seat and hearing the sounds of a slant-6 engine being cranked and starting.
Cool picture...
 
When I turned 16, I was looking for my first car, my dad and brother being Chevy guys, also got me into Chevy, so I was looking for a 66 or 67 Chevy Nova (I liked that shoe box style car)....I was searching and searching to no avail, then my dads best friend Gary stumbles across a beautiful 1970 Dodge Dart that's for sale from the original owner. I absolutely fell in love with it the moment i saw it, and bought it for 2,000 bucks. Slant 6, 904, and factory 8 3/4 rear. Green on green! The paint was cherry!!

8 years later, I still have it today, working on it daily, building it into a street/strip/auto cross monster. I am a Mopar freak, and love nothing but!
 
Ever since i can remember, i was in LOVE with my uncles original 1973 Dodge Charger (hence my name here). he is basically the orignial owner (the actual original owner bought it for his wife brand new, but it was too big for her). my uncle bought the car towards the end of 73 with barely 3k miles on it! he driove it as a daily dirver for 25 years around petaluma and san jose for a little while. back in the early 90s, he garaged it in my grandparents garage and rarely drive it.

i rmemeber being very young and he would babysit my sister and i. we could hear the car coming for a mile away (literally! 400ci big block and true duals...suckers loud!)

when it came time that i get my licese and a car, my parents got me a 96 dakota. awesome truck, dont get me wrong. but i didnt get to shop seriously for it (they bougth it 2 weeks after i turnd 15!)

so last year i said goodbye to the trcuk in search for an affordable MOPAR, since Uncle Gary wouldnt givce up the charger just yet

i really wantd a v8 duster or demon or charger, but my lil /6 1970 dart swinger was too good a deal to pass on...$1500! it needs plenty of work but i already have a 360/904 combo and an 8 3/4 rear end waitin to be built and swapped in. itll make for a nicer high 13 sec. cruiser...just like my uncles beautiful charger (thats gonna b mine in about 10 years, probably)

phew, ok! Who actually read that?! sorry i love reminesing bout the charger. but since i got the dart, ive learnd a lot abvout all Mopars, A-body especially! i dont think theres much of anything ouyt there that can beat the reliability and cool factor that an a-body has at such a low price!
 
Well my Dad bought the dart in 2003 and I wasn't very interested with it untill he promised it to me as a high school graduation gift (he was bribing me to not follow my brother's path) and that was in 2004. Since then I've been reading as much tech as I could find on the internet and now I plan to be a mechanic.

BTW. Dad's stories about his old convertible '70 Challenger (318 auto) and his '70 Roadrunner (383 4bbl, 4sp pistol grip) didn't get the mopar infection cured.
 
I was just back from overseas having missed the end of the '60s. In 1971 at 15 I bought my next door neighbors 1962 Valiant V100. It was that dusty rose color with a light green 61 Lancer front end and a dark green trunk lid. $100 Bucks. I reworked the 225 with new bearings and rings and drove it around my sub division cutting grass to make cash. I when I got my drivers license I drove it to high school. 3 on the floor with a spark-o-matic floor shift conversion. It would do 45 in 1st, 90 in 2nd and bury the 110 speedo in 3rd in no time. I was hooked! Wish I had a picture of it. I can't eveny rememeber who I sold it to. Might not have sold it, it could have been parted, cause that was what people did back then.
 
Back in the late 80s I was working at a Ford dealership and driving Chevys. An older guy across the shop from me ( Troy R. ) did pre delivery on the new Fords. He had lots of time to talk LOL I learned he had been a top mechanic at a Cry/Ply/Dod dealer of Clevland Ohio back when. Too often I would be working on somethng and he would say "You know, Chrysler did yada yada. Infact, When he test drove the first SHO Taururs to arrive he compared its throttle responce to the 69 340 Swinger.
As luck would have it, my wife totalled our 79 Monte Carlo. A few days later I saw something odd and interesting. Wife and I went back for a better look.
Bought the car, drove it to work and told Troy "I bought us something to play with". A 67 Plymouth Barracuda. He couldn't keep his hands off that car and I didn't try to. LOL
Looking back, I suppose any old mopar would have suited him just fine.
I like to think that a whole bunch of A-body owners are glad I bought one.
 
My family mom, and uncles always had a MoPar:happy10: They was the only thing they would buy to get from one point to another.
If it was a Monaco, New Yorker or New Port that got us across country to the next season...
I owned a few barracuda's two A bodies and about 4 E bodies and a couple Challengers and sold them off to help raise my children. I picked an A body because I knew they could get me from point a to point b with out any problem and if there was a problem most any part would get me back on the road from any other Mapar.8)8)8)
I picked up a 71 4 door Valiant from an USAF base with a 318 in it and found military patches in it :happy10: That thing would eat up the 1/8 mile for a bone stock Plymouth
Believe it or not :clock: I have never owned a duster :angry7:
 
My kids..I wanted a hobby that I could continue to work with them after MX...
 
Easy. Here is a picture of the car my folks brought newly-born me home from the hospital in (and the house they brought me home to):

1117.jpg


Some of my earliest memories are of being strapped into a (primitive early) infant seat and hearing the sounds of a slant-6 engine being cranked and starting.
Dan!:cheers: Long time no see.

By the way we have similar child hood memories, only mine were about 2 or 4 years later and mine started in a 65 Falcon (The body work is coming along nicely on that one) only to evolve in a 70 Dart.
 
Grew up in a Mopar family.

In high school I drove a 74 valiant. That thing just kept going. The first car I actually bought was a 68 Valiant 4 door. I beat the hell out of that car for two years. I replaced it with a 71 Duster I got for $150. It had a blown rear wheel bearing and the right wheel had come off. I put about $200 worth of parts into that car over 2 years. Rear wheel bearings, wheel cylinders for the brakes, exhaust, points and new heater core. Drove it for two years and then sold it for $200 to a pizza delivery guy that drove it for at least 3 more years. I never should have sold that car.
I have owned a bunch of K cars. One of them the wipers quit working and I removed something from the wiper motor and they worked fine after that.

2 years ago I saw a craigslist ad for a 76 feather Duster. I wasn't going to buy it but my wife bought it for me for my birthday. Now I just need to find parts and start disassembling so I can fix it up.
 
"affordable everyday car"

You hit the nail on the head. I can't afford to play this game with $30,000+
cars. A's are affordable (early A's even more so). I had B and E bodies when I was younger and they were a $3000 car. Besides, my first car was a 65 Dart
and it was fun car. I wanted to go there again. toolmanmike
 
I just moved back from Shittsvile, North Carolina, needed a car and it was only $450.

Don't think I'd live there either...:shock:

For me, it was about the car. I first saw this when I was 16. Black on black with the white stripes and at night. I thought it was the sexiest car I had ever seen.

Goes on the rotisserie next month. Can't wait to tear into it.

Ken
 
Because @ 18, Dad said he help me out and it had to be a cheap cr since we all didn't have a whole lot to spend on a BMW or like car. So, for %750, I got a 318 Duster and loved it since. I have 3 so far and look foward to another w/ a BB in it.
 
If I told my whole story I could probaly write a book, like most of us could, so here is a condensed version, 1st car @16 hand me down from my Aunt: 1971 Dodge demon /6, drove that car through high school, while in last year of high school bought motor cycle almost killed myself on it decided If i was going to go fast needed a car with some sheet metal to absorb impacts, still had the demon at this point, it was a rust bucket, had 80,000 miles and was tired, a buddy of mine who was going to the local tech college told me about a duster that was mint and cheap, looked at it and was the only car I ever saw with a roll back (factory) sunroof, everyone was putting in those leaky popup sunroofs, this was 1980, bought it sold the Demon to buy rims and tires, and I have had it ever since, just celebrated my 30th anniversary with it, had it longer than my wife. Will NEVER sell it. My kids fight over who gets it when I die....I'm only 49, they are going to have a long wait........hopefully.
 
riding down the shore in the back of my grandmothers gold 66 barracuda with the back seat folded down looking up at the stars through that big back window


LOL, that is a little different story than mine, for that seat that laid down under that big back window when I was 17. :toothy10:

Actually, it only took me a year to trash the 57 Fury I got when I was 16.

So Dad took me to the bank repo area, and they had a 64 Barracuda, with a caved in driver's side quarter. It was a 273 4 speed, white with red guts, and I fell in love. (they also had a yellow 67 S Coupe, but he wouldn't even let me look at it! It was the current model year)
Christmas Day, it was out in the garage, with the quarter panel fixed. Under the tree was the payment book, a set of keys, and a few tools.
It was one of the happiest days of my life at 17! A four speed Barracuda, and no more HUGE fins!
 
31$ got me into my forst a body, 69 valiant 100 them were the good old day's :cheers:
 
I bought my first A body, a '68 Dart, for $250 around 1980. I was 16. A friend down the road had it sitting in his back driveway (I nearly bought his mid 60's Nova/Chvy II which had nice Corvette buckets and a 4 speed but the car pulled bad when braking). My high school buddy was a big Mopar fan because his father owned a dealership in the late 60's and early 70's. He got me into the hobby.
 
Actually never gave them a second look till I was looking for a beater car.Found a '72 318 Dodge Demon for cheap and couldn't believe how solid it felt to drive and how reliable it was.Been trying to replicate that experience ever since.
 
Dad was a Mopar guy with several that he restored over my growing up years. My first car was almost a 70 Swinger but it fell through. Once I got of college I really wanted an e-body but the prices as we know were way out there. I always loved the 68-69 Darts so that is what I chose and I have been happy since.

Everytime we go to cruises or shows there are a handful of Mopars mostly B and E bodies so I enjoy being different in that aspect.
 
Worked at an Olds/Austin Martin dealership in Lakewood CO. We were able to buy trade-ins for $100 over cost. There was a MINT '67 Charger that was traded in, and I wanted it, BAD! They told me that they could make lots more money on the car by jacking up the price and selling it (trade-in cost was $800). They said the next car I wanted to buy ($100 over cost), was mine.
Along came this '67 Barracuda FB MINT as well. They put up a fight, and I agreed to buy it for $3000. This was in 1984!
 
My family got me into the wonderful world of mopars. My grandpa had dodges since he got out of WWII. He had everything from cars to 2 ton dump trucks. His vehicles had everything from first generation hemis to 440's, to factory 413 cross ram motors. Unfortunately he didn't keep them. But hearing him talk about them and fixing up my dad's 78 step side truck made me want to get a mopar of my own. After looking for a while I found a Dart that I could call my own.
 
I wanted an old American muscle car since I knew what they were, and when I was 15 or so I started looking into Mopars in particular. I got a ride in a 440-powered '65 Dodge Coronet street bruiser made to look kinda like an old Super Stock car (saw the car parked at Wal-Mart one day). The way that thing sounded and boiled the tires for 30 feet made me promise myself to own a Mopar at some point... Couple years later my dad gives me a budget, $3000 for a car. Obviously since this was 2007 I couldn't find a driving Roadrunner or other big-block B-body so I settled on my 1970 Duster, original 318 2-bbl, 904 and all. At first I was kinda disappointed but once I learned about the performance potential of A-bodies I wouldn't want to have anything else. Even a really tired 318 with duals, 4-bbl. and cam makes a light A-body fun to drive.
 
I was fortunate to be in high school during the muscle car wars. Even before I had my license, I was always on the lookout for them prowling the streets. I really liked the more compact looks of the fastback fish and the Swingers. The big block GTS' were just plain bad azz! I used to while away my class time dreaming of what I would buy if I could afford a new muscle machine. The 340 Swingers were about the only models that were even remotely within my financial reach. Never did buy one, although I priced out several, but I also never really lost the appreciation for them. When the opportunity came up decades later to score a good deal on one. I was on it like stink on schatt! L8r

Jim
 
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