What got you hooked on A-Bodies anyway?

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My grandad was the mopar man in our little town. I idolized that man. I always wanted a muscle car era mopar. Didn't care which one. He had lots of B bodies. I bought my first A body bout a month after he passed. Its a shame hes not around to see it. Anyways he started it all for me. "Mopower!!!" he used to say.
 
toolmanmike said:
,My uncle had a 55 Dodge, my cousin had a 64 Dodge, my sister had a 65 Plymouth and I had a little 100cc Yamaha when I was 15. I traded the bike and $100 to guy painting our house for a 65 Dart. It was a 270 post car with a HP273 and a 3 on the tree. I cycled through Road Runners, Super Bee's, and Challengers. 12 years ago I decided to get back into the hobby and found my 66. A couple years ago I added the 70 Swinger to the mix. I may sell both and find a nice 64 Dodge Polara or 330 to finish out the hobby. Heck, I may find a old Arrow race car and put it back on the street. Who says you can't have fun when you're in your 60's!
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You are never too old to have fun, fast is never fast enough, and a man (or woman) can never have too many old Mopars. And I have never seen an old Mopar I did not want!!!!!!
 
The first Mopar I could afford was a 69 Dart Swinger with a 273. I bought it for $160 bucks in the early 90's. Wish I still had it.
My Mom had a 72 Duster /6 in 2nd grade, maybe that's where the seed was planted.
I remember seeing a Demon at a gas station and being mesmerized, also early 90's.
I was looking for a 70 Challenger in 2004-2005 and finding nothing but $10,000 basket cases.
I found these two Dusters, and bought the red one.

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The '69 Barracuda S had a 440 (383 factory) 4 speed with nose damage and the '71 Challenger RT I had was only a little 340 auto. So I traded for it and got a '66 Satellite with a bunch of misc. parts in the deal.
 
1984 I was 18, I was a big Dukes of Hazzard fan so it was either a 69 Charger or a 69 Dart convertible. I still have the convertible, plus a few more. A year after I bought the convertible I found a 68 GTS 383 4-speed on a farm, paid a grand and drove it home. The glory days.
 
My first car was a 67 289 Mustang. What a dog! It didn't have enough power to pull a fat girl off a bar stool! Bought a 1970 Tor Red, red interior 340 4 speed Duster brand new $2805.00 ! Been Mopar ever since.
 
A buddy of mine had a 71 demon 4 speed car. Gave me a ride that snapped my head back! Hooked ever since
 
What got me hooked was a ride at age 14 in a '64 409 4 speed chevy. Wow!!!! My first real taste of big time adrenelin!!!
Ever since a kid in the 60's I was into buying, selling, trading, training quarter horses. Horse trader in me. Bout '83 the mopar bug bit, hard, was not long before I tuned that $25 '69 roadrunner roller I jst bought into a $500 parts sell. I was off to the races. Mopars became my hobby (passion) and sideline business. I had my for sale trading cars and MY own cars. NO internet, just Hemmings and MCG. I always had cars advertised in MCG for sale, and before long people were calling me from 2 states away asking if I would buy such and such car they had, NO one local would buy it. They were cheap too. I came to buy some great cars at great prices this way. ie 70 AAR , 70 hemi cuda, 440-6 Challengers and cudas. and more.
Now we have instant internet, crazy cars shows on TV, Idiot CL listings, the biggest buffoon of them all..... car auctions (BJ)!!!! To buy an old Mopar at a realistic price now days, seems it takes a real Mopar buyer and a real Mopar seller to get it done!????
 
Working in a Chevron station right out of high school for minimum wage ($1.65 hour) and looking for a car I could afford in 1973. Found a four door '65 Valiant 273 auto for $125.00 (when I rebuilt the motor at Community College, found it had one burned exhaust valve). Fixed it up a little after that (see foto).

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Strangely I think it started off with my dads dodge Van w/225. Hated that Van! So while in the Marine I had the chance to buy a beautiful 69 Barracuda with a 340. Fell head over heels in love with the cars and that's when I found my Brand / Mark. Sense then I have had Bmw's and Merc's and Huge in the European cars, But Plymouth / Chrysler A-bodies will always be my brand..
1965 MMP Barracuda SC 5.9 / 46RE swap!

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I have been a Mopar guy all my life! My first was a 75 Dodge truck with a swapped in 383 out of "I'm not sure what". My brother ended up rolling that one for me. Then it was 80's and 90's Dodge trucks, I still have an 89 150, an 03 1500 and a 10 2500. In 05 when my first child was born, I found myself looking for a 74 Charger SE, as I always loved them (still want to build one someday). While searching for a Charger, I stumbled across a 74 Duster with a 360, 727 and an 8 3/4" rear for sale super cheap locally. I pulled the trigger on it, thinking then that I was settling, because I didn't love the A bodies then, but I sure do now.

It turned out that the 727 was a 904 and the 8 3/4" was an 8 1/4" but that is still the best automotive purchase I have ever made. Even though that Duster was amalgamated with another Rust free Duster (Not a VIN swap), It's still the same car to me! I am an A-body guy forever now with plans for my next car, a 74 Dart Sport with a tunnel rammed 360, 4 speed and big N-50s stuck out the wheel wells! It's a disease, and I'm glad I got it!

Cley
 
This picture is literally what got me hooked on A bodies,Tim Davis KOS Demon from the 90s.

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My Dad and older brother always had Mopars when I was growing up. I went with my brother in 1970 when I was 10 to pick up his new 440 Challenger, which I loved riding in, especially when he wound it up going out of town! But when the time came for me to buy a car I didn't care what make it was, I just wanted something with a V8 and a stick. I could have easily found a Chevy or Ford but I found a 71 Duster, 318/3 spd on the floor, as my first car and never looked back!
 
April 1969, Lenny's (Honest) Auto Sales 3500 East Lake Street Minneapolis
1962 Valiant Signet - my first car. Powder blue exterior, medium blue bucket seat interior. None of my friends knew how I drove the car without a shifter - that they could see. Then a 65 Signet convert (college babe magnet car), 70 340 Duster, 3 spd on the floor, 61 Valiant 3 spd on the floor, 64 V200 4 door, 74 318 Scamp, 76 Dart Swinger SE, currently 63 V200 4dr , 65 V100 2dr (40k), 72 Scamp.
It's a sickness that I hope never finds a cure.
 
Back in the 70’s, the older guys in my neighbourhood had all sorts of rivalry going on. 68 mustang with the 351 cleveland, the gtx done right up with the big metal flake and crush velvet interior. My favorite was the dart with the hang ten, biggest gold metal flakes you ever saw. And gold crush velvet interior. I really like that car.
I was like,12 at the time.
The barracuda with the massive back window was a car my sister’s friend had.it was so cool.
I had the 76 dart w/hang ten, but had to give it up due to no where to keep it. Got it back this summer when i was hunting for a rear end for the 65 barracuda. Going to be a fun summer next year. Can’t wait!!
 
Was hooked on the Dukes of Hazzard show! Of course loved the orange charger. From there on set out to get my hands on a charger. In 1998 my dad had a friend that had a junk yard and in his yard low and behold he had a charger. It was missing the running gear. Some bodywork was already done. Engine bay was plum crazy shiney i was mesmerized. Sadly when we asked his buddy he had no title. That dream died fast. My owned a dart sport and i always had a soft spot for it. Metallic dark brown and parchment interior with a slant 6. Not exactly a muscle car but looked the part to an extent. He told me i could have it when i got my license. I was soo happy. Again sadly tragedy struck car got totaled by an idiot that ran a stop. Long story short today i got a dart sport found @ another junk yard but is rougher than my dads car was but had to make do!!:D this is what i have now!
 
These are some of the best posts that I’ve ever read on this forum. Thanks for sharing your stories, guys.


A-Bodies, even the prettiest Barracuda 340-S, etc are relatively humble cars in the world of classic muscle. It seems to me that fans of these cars almost always have reasons for loving these cars other than “it makes me look cool.” I have profound respect for that.


For me, ending up in an A-Body was inevitable. My dad has always been a Mopar fan (had a ’67 GTX since I was 3) and through osmosis, I knew even as a young kid that I needed to find a way to get a 60s/70s Mopar into my life ASAP, preferably as soon as I could get my license.


Somehow I got the message as a teenager in the 1990s that while a Challenger, ‘Cuda, Roadrunner, GTX, etc. would be out of reach for a long time to come (on my meager grocery bagger’s wage), it was conceivable that I could find a Dart or a Duster and still have a great looking, reliable, simple, hot rod to work on and drive to school. I must have been an extra smart kid because somehow, I liked Darts/Dusters pretty much as much as any of the higher dollar Mopar machines anyway! So I set out to find one as soon as I had some cash in the bank.

I almost bought a /6 ’71 Demon but changed my mind at the last minute because of my realization about the cost/difficulty of the body work that it needed…and as if it was mean to be, I found my rust-free (impossibly rare for Connecticut) V8 Dart Sport a couple months later, fell completely in love at first site, bought it for $700 and it has turned out to be exactly the right car for me at every age so far. I wouldn’t trade it for a 1970 AAR ‘Cuda 4spd with $100k strapped to the roof! :D
 
Not U.S., but European/Austrian story:

My first own car was a little Japanese coupe (Mitsubishi Celeste aka Plymouth Arrow), then I had some german cars, mainly Ford, till the time came, - I was in my midtwenties - when I had saved a - small - amount of money to spend it on a more stylish and faster car.
Four cars I had for choice: 73 Pontiac Formula 400, Jensen Interceptor, Volvo P1800 and a 71 Duster 340.
I took the way out fastest of this bunch and I own it still, next year for 30 years.
 
My father's first car, Chrysler
My first car, Chrysler
My son came home from the hospital in a Charger.
And his first car was an A.
One of my As was rescued from a bad divorce in a trailer park. (400 dollars)
One of my As was rescued from the junk yard. (600 dollars)
Because someone had to do it.

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My father was always a Chrysler guy. When I was a kid we had a '51 Dodge Coronet and a '56 Plymouth Savoy. In 1960 my dad and his friend both decided to buy one of the new compact cars. They heard the Valiant was the best, so they both went to a Plymouth dealer to buy one, but my dad was a tough, stubborn bargainer and couldn't reach agreement with the salesman on a price, so he went to the Mercury dealer and bought a Comet instead. His friend bought a Valiant Suburban with the 170 engine. That Valiant could run rings around the Comet. There was just no comparison between the power and handling of the two cars. Then at 46K miles the Comet lost compression and needed a ring job. (The early Falcon engine had a metallurgy problem with the rings, and Ford had to consult with Chrysler metallurgists to figure it out.) I bought the Valiant wagon from my Dad's friend when I got my driver's license, and it went for about 200K miles without an overhaul. I've been a Chrysler guy ever since.
 
I was brought home from hospital as a newborn in a Dodge Aspen.
When i got my driverslicense i was looking for something american with a V8 and no more than two doors,bought a magasize with adds in it and i found an add with a small pic of a 73 Duster hey it was a two door with some cool stripes on it, it had a 318 and a suregrip what else could i ever ask for? well it even had a fiberglass lift of hood and hooker headers it was just no way to ignore that car and it was right in my pricerange(i sure didnt own alot of money at that point in life ) So i called the owner and set up a meeting,got my *** on a train to the town where it was with a pocket full of cash and as soon as i saw that car and heard it rumble to life for the first time i knew i had to own it there was no other option,and i still own that car.
 
66 Formula S,My first car........a few years back....and still drive it
 
I was a kid and loved muscle cars. Specifically Chargers and Mustangs. I ended up watching a TV show called "From Wrecks to Riches" and saw their '68 Dart build. Once I heard it was lighter and can fit any engine in it, I was like, "Why would I want a bigger car (B-Body)?" So, that's when I fell in love with A-bodies, specifically '68 Darts. I've had 3 since then. 2 I got after high school, but didn't do anything with. I found one of them at Spring Fling last year as a guy from FABO bought it from the guy who we sold it to for his son. The other car disappeared. Now I have a Dart that's my "dream ride."
 
Mom had a 65 Newport with a 383 when I was learning to drive, would beat some pretty hot cars so I got a 65 New Yorker with a 413, not fast enough, then a 69 Charger with a 318 I hopped up, then a 70 Charger with a 383 then I went for a ride in my friends 340 Dart Swinger. Bought it and had a blast til life caught up. About 15 years ago I got my 69 Dart Conv and dropped a warmed up 400 in it. Livin the dream.
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