The first time you saw your love

[Princess Valiant]

Remember back the first time you saw your car for sale. It probably looked different because you didn't know it yet. If you saved pics of it, you could go back now and see what you didn't notice before.

I saved this because I saw this car on CL and was in love. At the time I didn't think it was possible to get it but through a chain of events .....she is mine. I didn't actually get it as a direct result of the ad but not long after I saved the ad, the car surfaced. I look back and I see things in the original ad that I didn't realize at the time but now that I know the car inside out and backwards.....I look upon the car with the complete story.

Do you remember when you first saw your car(s)

since its fuzzy: "1969 Dodge Dart Custom 2 door, slant six car, V8 cross member. Clean interior, no engine or trans $1500. Firm"

Ah, the memories

 

[MOPARMITCH]

Still a work in progress

 

[abodyjoe]

well our dart is a little different. i never saw it for sale. a friend called me asking what i thought a 70 dart was worth. not seeing it i gave him a pretty wide price range.

long story short. he got the car for a real good price because he was the only one that didn't low ball the owner. infact the owner gave it to him for $500 less then he offered for that reason.

the picture below was the first time my buddy brought the car out. when i saw it i wanted it bad..lol,.. took a few years but when he was ready to sell we bought it right away...


when we first saw the car..

how it sits today.. it will have body color steelies back on it soon..

 

[doogievlg]

My car was listed in the news paper so no picture. When I went to look at it the car was bone stock with a 225. Doesn't really look much different other then changing the wheels and new suspension though.

 

[Dustdevl340]

Got mine off Kijiji. Still looks the same. It'll start looking different sooner or later once I decide exactly what I want to do with it. Looks pretty good as it stands given the reaction & comments I usually get from folks as I drive by.

 

[ragtopfury]

My ragtop Fury was put out to pasture with grass growing up thru the floor boards when I found it one day. It wasn't for sale, but I had to inquire. 5 years later I got a call saying "Joe is giving you the car if you still want it".... I regret never taking a picture where I found it, or the day we dragged her home. The day Jake and I went to see his 65 B'cuda, I took a picture of him standing next to it before we bought it.

 

[Ben Drinkin]

First time I saw her, I notice her two nice round headlights... Then I saw a profile shot and my, oh my she had some lines.. Then when I saw her from behind, I knew I was in love... And I bought her..

 

[Princess Valiant]

First time I saw her, I notice her two nice round headlights... Then I saw a profile shot and my, oh my she had some lines.. Then when I saw her from behind, I knew I was in love... And I bought her..

LOL ...she is a looker that is a fact. At first I thought it was a convertible, that top almost jumps off the car in the color combo.

 

[MileHighDart]

Somewhere I have the original ebay pics from when my car was for sale (in California).
But cant seen to find them.

Closest thing I've got is a few days after I got it home to Colorado.

Second pic is how it looks now, from the same angle.

 

[qkcuda]

Here it is 20 years ago and last year.

 

[sargentrs]

Had a $1500 '92 Toyo Camry for a daily driver that was running badly and I couldn't figure out why due to ignorance of all the computerized crap. Saw my Dart on Craigslist and thought to myself...."I understand that car". Guy wanted $1400 for her. By the time I walked away I gave him $500 and drove it home 45 miles away. I sweated the whole way wondering if I was going to make home. Now she runs and drives good and I'm happy!

 

[pishta]

I saw it a a muffler shop when I stopped for a red light. I saw the S on the fender and it took about 1 second to make my mind up to buy it, I flipped a *****, pulled in and leaned out the window to the guy in the shop and asked if it ran. He said yes and I told him I would be back in an hour with the money. I never even started it until he gave me the keys and the title. Drove it home that night on 5 cylinders and probably 5 year old gas. 8 plugs, new points, oil and gas the next day and she purred like a kitten, although she was a thirsty kitten, used oil almost as fast as gas.

 

[crj1968]

I've had a bunch of mopars but the best "at first sight" one was when I saw an ad in a very insignificant classifieds that said:

1971 Plymouth, Scoops on hood.
503 -555 5555

I called got directions and when I came around the corner in the neighborhood there was a stock, beautiful 1971 318 Sassy Grass Twister. $2500.00

That was 20-some years ago.

 

[gdrill]

I always take an "as found" picture. To me it's a big part of the finished car. Being able to see the difference (or similarities) from when it was rescued!

 

[adriver]

My number 1 was in a going through a bad divorce.
First she was forlornly sitting in the yard by a house around the corner.
Then I drug her home from the trailer park.
She's had new parts and a face lift.
We have hundreds of thousands of miles together now.
There are other women, but she is still number 1.

 

['73red-duster]

First pic is how I bought it. PO had painted the engine bay black, so while swapping motors I took it to my buddies body shop, to have it painted the right color. While it was there we had a huge hail storm, that just beat the crap out of it. Lady adjuster came out and said it was a nice car, it needs fixed. WaaLaa, new paint job. :cheers::cheers:

 

[sireland67]

Love / Hate
The first time I seen the Duster, I told myself no, drove by it for 2-3 months about once a week when driving up to see my dad.
One day my youngest son was with me and said look dad a old Duster, lets look at it, he was only 10 at the time.
Well, I stopped, ended up getting it for $800.
The car ran and drove, 318 auto with Eldebrock intake, carder 625 competition series carb, real nice duel exhaust hooked up to stock manifolds.
Car was relatively rust free for WV but it was dented bad on every panel except the trunk lid.
Did some minor work to it, when I got it home and drove it occasionally for a year or so.
The youngest son claimed the ugly duckling as his, so now I am slowly restoring it.
Sold the motor, trans, exhaust and wheels off it for $825 so basically it is a free car, (now money pit).

 

[dartnabout]

Well my old computer crashed and I have it at the shop where they say they can save my pictures so I don't have the ones of my 70 Dart. I gather this one up a year ago but no after pictures...yet! But here he (Brad) is arriving home!

 

[95teetee]

I remember the first time I saw my Duster (this was about 8 years before I bought it, so about 1982).
Ernie, the guy who built it (took out the bench, the 318, the original rearend and put in the buckets, the (extremely well built) 340, and the 8 3/4 with the 4.10s, painted it, etc) had it at a garage in town putting the hoodpins in it. We stopped to hang out (whoever I was cruising with must have known Ernie or one of the other guys hanging around).

I remember someone pointing at the trunk lid and saying "Look- a dust!!!" (yes, A dust) and Ernie coming over and going "WHERE???" and blowing it off.

Yes, he was meticulous about this car lol.

I ended up buying it after two other owners -the last of which wrecked the front bumper and the pass. fender when he hit a pole with it- I guess the power caught him off guard. He bought a fender off my brother( who also had a '72 Duster). I bought it and repainted it to (sort of) match the red acrylic paint the car had on it.

 

[partsman1965]

Craigslist! Same crap brown my first dart was back in 1985. Purchased in August of 2013. Getting rid of original yellow and repainted brown. Now I have the time to redo one right. I have had a 70 swinger, two 72 swingers.

 

[fratzog lover]

This is my love before I bought her.

 

[cosgig]

I was working at a job where the GTX was sitting across the street with a sport satellite convertible! Every day I would go over and run the numbers of all the parts, I couldn't believe how original it was, and solid too! It was missing some key GTX parts, which wern't being repopped at the time, but otherwise was all there! I drove my 64 belvedere to work one day and offered up a trade, even up! Couldn't believe when he said yes, and I was nervous as an expectant father waiting for my buddy and his flatbed to give me and my new prize a ride home!! Here's a pic about 6 months after I got it, sometime in 1995 I think! Still has the 66 Satellite taillights, the screw on gas cap, although obviously I had enough time to find the wheel lip mouldings and put on some magnums I has lying around!

 

[dgibby]

2012 a Co worker needed some cash. 2500 and and came With enough extra parts to cover the purchase price.

 

[torkflight]

it was 1979, I was 7 years old, my uncle pulled up to the farm with it as I was helping dad unload the hay wagon, I am sure I seen the car before because my uncle had bought the car brand new, but this is the first memory I have of it, in april 1988 I gave him 1500 dollars and pulled it out of a lean to off the side of the corncrib at my grandpas place, it still had 1979 tabs on it and 23000 on the odometer, car in my sig is the car, 27 years now.

 

[supercuda]

Then and now...