Anything surprise you on your car?

[tparker]

This is probably more relevant to us that are less than experts. Was there anything you discovered about your car that you thought was normal but turns out not?

I bought a WSS back in roughly 1990. And I assumed it was stock but found several "upgrades". The vinyl top was more of a suede looking thing. I loved the looks of it and was annoyed it wasn't stock. Was this a thing in the 70's or 80's or a weird custom job? I had an antennae that had a spring towards the base. Also figured it was stock, never thought about that. I kinda liked it, but the original looks much cleaner. Also found out, on this site, that the ralley wheels never came in black. Someone painted mine black. I really dig that look. I'm considering a set of 17" or whatever size aluminum ralley wheels with black powder coating. Well see. The latest thing? Just found out the center caps are the pentagon style from '72 I think, not the round ones. Ugh, I really like those. I won't switch back. LOL

[ec_co]

I thought these Plymouth side stripes were a dealer add on ... turns out they were made by a 3rd party company that did several brands/models. I liked them enough though that I had them reproduced. I have a few extras

[dodj]

This is probably more relevant to us that are less than experts. Was there anything you discovered about your car that you thought was normal but turns out not?

Back in 85 or so when I first got my Challenger....I thought air shocks were standard equipment......

[RUNCHARGER]

25 years ago, I had just went through finding an E-body Dana 60 and a Shaker for my Challenger. High dollar parts that were hard to find. Sooo I bought this Hemi GTX, an automatic version and I thought to myself "glad it's an automatic so at least I don't have to buy a Dana 60 for it" well then I decoded the sheet and found out what a "Super Performance Axle Package" was. I was on the hunt again. I think all my Mopars have had some sort of weird option package, it really makes them cool,
When I bought my FM3 Challenger in 1978 all the experts said the longitudinal stripes came in black or white, Well my car came with Magenta stripes. In 8 years they had faded to white and it looked like the FM3 had bled through but you could tell where they wrapped into the doors that they were cut from pink vinyl not white.

[Cuda_mark]

25 years ago, I had just went through finding an E-body Dana 60 and a Shaker for my Challenger. High dollar parts that were hard to find. Sooo I bought this Hemi GTX, an automatic version and I thought to myself "glad it's an automatic so at least I don't have to buy a Dana 60 for it" well then I decoded the sheet and found out what a "Super Performance Axle Package" was. I was on the hunt again. I think all my Mopars have had some sort of weird option package, it really makes them cool,
When I bought my FM3 Challenger in 1978 all the experts said the longitudinal stripes came in black or white, Well my car came with Magenta stripes. In 8 years they had faded to white and it looked like the FM3 had bled through but you could tell where they wrapped into the doors that they were cut from pink vinyl not white.

The FM3 with the Magenta stripes are one of the coolest color combos.

[RUNCHARGER]

I agree: I bought the car because the body was really nice. I didn't give any thought to the colour. Within the first year I owned it I took it to my painter as the FM3 was thoroughly faded and needed a refresh. I wqa not sure what colour I wanted to change it to. I pulled into my painters driveway and he was totally thrilled and knew the name of the colour and was all for keeping it original. I credit him with me deciding not to change it.

[DeathProofCuda]

After reviewing my Broadcast Sheet and fender tag, fellow member @6bblgt pointed out that my BS23N0B Cuda was not coded to receive the M31 belt mouldings (upper door trim) that were supposed to have been standard on all Cuda models.  Apparently some of the earlier built Cudas built in September and early October 1969 did not receive them.

[HP2]

Picked up my Challenger in the early '00s and basically stole it for what I paid for a running, driving car. I knew it had a repaint because the car was dark blue and the engine bay was green. Knew it needed body work because there were some wavy panels. Given the price, I didn't do too close an inspection so I could load it and go before the seller changed his mind, but knew body work was in my future.

Working on it in the ensuing years, I discovered the lower quarters were about a quarter inch of fiberglass and filler. It has since started delaminating. I've got new quarters for it that will get installed. Also found a fair amount of rot in the bottom of the passenger side fender.  Every panel on this car has been hit and bent in some way. I am getting a lot of hammer and dolly exercise as I work through each section.

As I've started stripping paint, I've discovered it did not have a single repaint but actually has had several repaints in its life. It was originally Avocado Gold green metallic. I imagine some collision damage and sun fading lead to a complete primer and paint job in a similar shade of green but it was laid over a black primer. Sometime after that was another prime and paint job to medium, B5 blue color. After that was the majority of the shoddy body work and another prime and paint job to the dark blue metallic. Including the factory color, that's eight layers of primer and paint or about 100 pounds of finish! This stuff is laid on so thick that it can be stripped off by layer and I can change color on the panels as I strip them down.

[JH27N0B]

When I bought my T/A in the late 70s, it was still in its original paint and had a Grand Spaulding Dodge sticker on the spoiler.  At the time, I didn't think anything about it.  I'm in the Chicago area and I'd see lots of those blue oval stickers on cars deck lids then.
Just another dealer advertisement as I really wasn't aware of that being a special dealer due to specializing in performance when I was a ignorant teen.
In the 90s I started seeing some articles about how Mr Norms was the most important Dodge performance dealer for the muscle era, and thought it was cool my car came from there.
Then around that time, Larry Weiner started selling Mr Norms dealer items after partnering with Norm to sell all the stuff he still had stashed away in one of his buildings after the dealership got closed down.
I was looking through the dealer stickers he was selling at a swap meet and said don't you have any that say Chicago-Buffalo Grove?  That's what my Challenger had, not one that just said Chicago?
I was pretty bummed when he told me that the suburban Buffalo Grove location wasn't opened until around '75.  So that Grand Spaulding sticker my car had didn't prove it was originally sold at Grand Spaulding after all.
But then he gave me hope that it still might have been sold there new. He said that a lot of original sales folders still were present in that building where all the swag was stored.  They'd been strewn around by vandals, but they were sorting them out and if my car was sold there, good chance the file was still there and he'd find it.
I got him my VIN info, and around a year later he called me and said he'd found my cars folder!
So I found my car apparently got sold by Mr Norms twice, new, and then later it must have been sold used in the mid '70s and the new sticker with both store locations listed put on it then.

[Lunchbox]

When I picked up my car we thought that the engine may be seized up. After getting the engine out and starting to do the tear down found the drivers side was full of wheat kernels and the passenger side was full of mice poop.

[DeathProofCuda]

When I picked up my car we thought that the engine may be seized up. After getting the engine out and starting to do the tear down found the drivers side was full of wheat kernels and the passenger side was full of mice poop.

The perfect example of not $h!tting where you eat 

[7E-Bodies]

When I bought my 70 Challenger RT (JS23U0B), I noticed the windshield had a sticker that I'd never heard of, that being SIAC (Special Interest Auto Club). After reaching out to Barry Washington at the "1970 Hamtramck Registry", lo and behold he had a file on my car with 4 documents from that car club. After proving ownership, he happily mailed them to me. Another forum member had a stash of unused stickers to replace mine and I now have them as well. Cool to find some history. This rated right up there with finding a second build sheet in the backrest of the driver's seat.

[JH27N0B]

Interesting hearing mention of the SIAC club.  I saw something about it forming in a magazine in the late 70s and signed up.  The club really took off, early on there was just a couple page xeroxed newsletter but after a few years it grew to them publishing a small magazine.  I may have every issue since I'd joined so early on. 
I don't know anything about the internal politics or management issues, but sometime in the mid 80s the club imploded. Sad as the club had got really big with chapters across the US. Jeff Johnson was a bigwig in the club and probably in editing the magazine, so he continued on for a while publishing the magazine under the name Classic Chrysler Quarterly I think it was called.  But after 4 or 5 years that magazine ended too.
I had a '71 cuda 340 for a few years when I was in college, and a few years back Barry sent me forms I'd filled out to, on the cuda.  Sadly I didn't know much about fender tags then, so never copied the tag info when I owned the car.  The forms had the cars VIN so I know the VIN now, but I wish I had FT info on that car as it was loaded.
I doubt the car still exists.  It only had 29,000 miles when I bought it from the original owner, and was bone stock.  But he'd used it as a commuter car year round and the winter salt had trashed its bones very badly even by 83 when I got it.
It could be restored now with a catalog worth of AMD parts, but not in 80s unless someone rebodied it.

[Lunchbox]

The SIAC stuff is pretty neat. There is a seller on eBay selling a bunch of the publications from the 80's.


1981-1985 T/A-AAR SIAC All American Racer Magazines YOUR CHOICE Challenger Cuda

[RUNCHARGER]

I still have correspondence and newsletters from SIAC as well. Also CCOA stuff. I left the stickers on the windshield of my FM3 R/T but they're probably not there anymore. There was a writeup on my car in both newsletters as well. Kind of a cool bit of history from that timeframe.