| Just after high school I was working at a local auto parts store in a North
Western Pennsylvania town making minimum
wage and spending a lot of down time cursing "the dock" talking about muscle cars and street
racing. My car, a major reconstruction project, at the time was a rusting hulk of
a 1972 Ford Grand Torino with a 351C 2V.
A co-worker (Bill C.) asked why did I not give up on
my beloved, but rusting Ford and buy his deceased brothers 1970 Dodge Trans Am. Heck no
I said...I was a Ford guy I did not want a GM...a older Mustang
maybe....but a Firebird no way!
After turning away numerous offers to
buy this car and trying to talk another friend into buying it, because
heck
I was a Ford guy and did not believe Dodge made a "Trans Am,"
I finally
saw the light. One night after work I came cross a story in Popular Hot Rodding magazine on the
1970 Dodge Challenger
T/A. T/A = Trans Am...One of 2400, a true muscle car not a rust bucket
Gran Torino lead/bondo sled like I had. SOLD...
Oh I wanted this car and could hardly sleep until I got to work to tell
Bill C. I would finally buy his brothers car, but what if I was to
late...it had been a few days since they car had been brought up in
conversations.
The days prior to picking it up were
long and for one weekend, full of conflict,.....Bill got
fired or quit as he put it and my T/A almost got away...again.
As the story
goes it was Bill's brother's car, he passed away in (1972 or 73) and the
car had been in
storage since 1973. With just over 16,700 miles on it I became the
second owner of this White T/A resurrecting it from a turkey farms storage barn
where it had
remained for nearly 10 years.
Bill's. brother bought the car new in 1970 and proceeded
to cruise and race it until he died. In that time she had seen some major
changes; the six pak was gone, the motor had under gone a high speed make
over (10.5 to 1 pistons and solid lifter cam 585/308), rally wheels were replaced by chrome rims,
4:11 rear gears and the T/A exhaust was now
open headers.
During the next year or so I was able to have the car repainted,
replaced the six pak, detuned the motor, installed T/A exhaust and out
fitted her with 15 X 7 rally wheels with Goodyear Eagles.
From 1983 until summer 1987 this great T/A and I attended many MOPAR shows in and
around the Pennsylvania/Ohio area. I became the PA state representative
for Special Interest Auto Club (SIAC), a T/A and AAR car club, and hosted
three "MOPARS on Lake Erie Car Shows". During those
years I enjoyed all the Car shows and met many great MOPAR people, but
life and its events over came me, a new
house, new baby girl and a no where job forced me to make some changes in
my life and in time the T/A, sadly had to go. I sold the car to a good friend of mine and he
later sold it to someone in the Columbus, Ohio.
Now fast forward some 15 years into the future.....
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By 1987, I finally figured
out auto parts was going no where, In 1988 I enlisted into the US Air
Force. My military career has taken me to many places around the
world, but none as isolated as Thule, Greenland or Iraq. But this
car chapter reopens on a cold dark day in 2000 when I
surfed across a Dodge Challenger T/A and Plymouth Cuda AAR web
page. This web page
had many informative features on T/A and AARs including a color reference
page featuring every color combo each car was produced in.
After clicking on the white cars (EW1) page, right there on my monitor was
my old car. Not a photo of a car looking like my car but the very
car I owned. This ignited a fire which smoldered for another 2
years.
2003 and I'm in Northern Iraq; during
some morale time to escape the daily grind I was
able to surf the net and again I came across the T/A and AAR page. I
went right to my old T/A. The soldering embers were hit with a
gallon of High Octane Racing Fuel. "If I ever get out of this
hole...I'm going to buy something cool...right another T/A." We
have all heard the stories of young soldiers selling their muscle cars
before going off to war, never to return. After my part of this war
was over...I set off to purchase another T/A.
Out of the hobby for 15 years I began
making some re-corrections with friends and surfed many pages to educate
myself on the state of the hobby and current prices. Along the way
getting side tracked with thoughts of Cobras and Hemi cars. And for
two weeks I owned a 1970 Hemi Road Runner (clone) purchased from a
"dependable MOPAR Guy" in PA, who backed out of the deal just
days before making delivery, his other deal fell apart...He was trying to
buy a Hemi Cuda, so he wanted to keep the Road Runner...gee whizzz could
have mentioned that before????
As I was making the Hemi deal I was
trying to negotiate for a low mileage dark tan metallic T/A.
Striking a deal for the Hemi car, I had to tell Mr. T/A owner I was no
longer interested. Well needless to say this upset the seller, but I
had a Hemi car and the T/A went on to another buyer via
E-bay... All is good right? 3 weeks later and after many efforts to keep the Hemi
deal together "dependable MOPAR guy" e-mailed telling me he was
pulling out sending back my deposit with an extra $200 for my
troubles. Great...that helps.
Back to the net and what did I find
on E-bay one low mileage dark tan metallic T/A back up for sale.
Contacting the owner I soon found out he would not reply to my
e-mails...great now what...I lost a Hemi car and the T/A guy would not
talk to me..."dependable MOPAR guy" cost me two deals. Then it
hit me...alter ego...new e-mail address and I was back in the game.
This time I was not going to miss out on this car....we struck a deal for
more then I really thought the car was worth but hey I had a deal,
now I just had to get the car without him knowing who he was selling it
too...easy. Oh yea I was 4,000 miles away too...No Problem.
One flight from London, to Charlotte, NC, then to Minnesota then
driving to Michigan...and two days later the T/A was under my roof.
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