There were 3 Trans Am E bodies in Glenview IL 45 years ago...

[JH27N0B]

My hometown is Glenview Illinois, a suburb of Chicago around 15 miles north of that once great city.  I saw Vanishing Point on TV around '76 and fell in love with E bodies as a result, I was 14 at the time and read about the T/A in an article about Challengers in Car Craft magazine soon after I saw the movie, and decided T/As and AARs were the ultimate E bodies and what I aspired to get when I got my license in a few years.
One day I was out in the driveway piddling around with my mom's Pinto, when lo and behold a red Challenger T/A rolled by!  I watched it in awe as it headed down to the next block and parked in front of my friend's house.  I hopped on my bike and rode down there to admire it!  The first T/A I saw up close. It belonged to my friend's older brother's buddy Scott.
At some point not long afterwards, I saw a purple AAR with no stripes on it pull into my high schools parking lot.  It wasn't a student's car, it would park by the auto shop, maybe a former student visiting the shop teacher.  I spotted it there a few times.
I turned 16 and after a few months of searching, bought a red Challenger T/A of my own that came up for sale in a town about 10 miles west of mine!
So now in the late 70s there were 2 Challenger T/As and one AAR in my village!

[JH27N0B]

To continue my tale, sometime around the time I graduated HS, I finally met the AAR owner, his name was Jim.  By then he'd replaced aftermarket mags he had on the car with rallys, and had put AAR stripes back on it.  It looked great!
The white top disappeared off Scott's T/A as he told me after we'd finally met, that he "hated it".  Monogram models borrowed his car in the early 80s to use as a reference to make their 1:24 T/A model.  They put his IL license plate on the time, SAS 392, on the decal sheet.
I had some body work done on my car to fix rust, and had a repaint done.  A guy flagged me down one day while I was driving my car, and sold me a set of window louvers that I added.
I replaced my Cragars with what I believed to be correct 15x7 rallys and enjoyed my car while I could in between college and my part time job.

[JH27N0B]

I bought a house in a suburb only about a mile from where I recall I bought my T/A from, after graduating college and getting my career in gear.
I got tied up with life and my car started to become a barn find languishing in the garage of my house, last licensed in 1988.  I checked out a couple car shows over the years but my interest in cars was put on the back burner for a few years.  Around '93 or '94 I checked out a Mopar show and saw a Challenger convertible there that had a dash card identifying it as belonging to Scott who owned that other red T/A.  I introduced myself, and he told me he still had his T/A and was planning to restore it.  He had become a Glenview fireman and after I reminded him of Jim's AAR, told me a story that there was a small fire started at Jims parents house, after the parents passed away and the house was vacant, set by some squatters living there.  But the AAR was still sitting in the garage at the house! I'd seen Jim's name listed in the police report in the local paper a time or two for alcohol or drug related offenses, and Scott told me a fellow firefighter of his got in trouble for something, and ran into Jim in jail, so Jim's life seemed to have gone down the wrong path.

[JH27N0B]

Scott finally got his car finished around 10 years ago.  I started a restoration of mine in the late 90s that ended up getting stuck in restoration shop jail, but I finally moved it to another shop aroud 12 years ago, and got it back together and running in late 2016. So the 2 Glenview T/As still belonged to the same owners that had them in the late 70s, and were restored!
The AAR seemed to have disappeared though.
But a few years ago, I saw some stories about a family that had located the dad's AAR and were having it restored.  A couple years ago, the restored AAR showed up at the cruise in my town, driven there by the dad.  His name is Mike, and I mentioned the AAR in my town owned by Jim, and Mike told me that his AAR is that car!  His sons bought it from Jim!  He'd owned the car in the early 70s and sold it around '76, and now owned it again!
So the 3 cars still are in the same area, and all restored! Mike with the AAR actually lives in the town I live in now. And those 2 cars are in the same town now too.

[JH27N0B]

The AAR was restored to be mildly modified like it was when Mike owned it in the mid 70's.  It has a 4 speed, but the tag shows it was born with an automatic. It has headers and appears to have aftermarket heads too.
I see it had a black interior when Jim had it decades ago, but it's white now and that appears to be what it was coded for.
At any rate, I think it's cool that these 3 cars from the same town in the 70s, not only survived, but still are owned by people who owned them in the 70s!

[JH27N0B]

Here are stories on each of these cars
AAR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAimqLSNIeE
Scotts T/A
https://www.motortrend.com/features/denied-test-drive-bought-1970-dodge-challenger-ta-anyway-40-years-ago/
My T/A
https://www.dodgegarage.com/news/article/lifestyle/2018/12/long-term-relationships-the-one-that-didnt-get-away-chapter-1.html

[Cuda_mark]

I think the white top on the TA looks awesome!

[JH27N0B]

I think the white top on the TA looks awesome!

I am bummed that Scott took it off and never put it back on.  He just hates the way it looks! He told me he kept the trim so if some owner in the future wants to put a white top back on it, he easily can.  Another guy in the area bought a red T/A a few years ago that has a white top, those are the only 2 FE5 T/As I've ever seen with white tops.

[70pumpkin]

Great story - enjoyed the read.  Thanks for sharing.

[RUNCHARGER]

Cool story! There were 2 confirmed Trans Ams in my town. An F8 auto AAR that later had a tunnel ram installed and the owner cut the original hood and installed a clear, tall scoop. And my friend Chris bought the perfect (to me) T/A about 1973 from out of town. It was FE5, rallye gauges, 4 speed and trim rings on 450's. Thats one is still there but it had hack bodyjob by a Mustang shop last I heard. Not common cars back then. I just about increased the number to three when I had the chance to buy an FM3 T/A but I didn't because I had my FM3 R/T and didn't feel like owning 2 pink cars. Alsoo it was a column auto with white interior which didn't help either.

[cudamadd]

Enjoyed the story of the AAR .And love any mopar and I guest muscle car story 

[71vert340]

Very cool. I enjoyed the reading and it's great those e-bodies are alive and well.
Terry W.