New to this Site

[Cudakiller70]

  That's brutal being stuck in Hawaii  Neat story on you and the car!

[the_cuda_guy]

@anlauto

The short answer is yes.  Many of the members of cuda-challeneger.com chipped in and presented me with a 73 Barracuda at the 2007 Chryslers at Carlisle show.

The long answer is also yes.   Brace yourself for a long story:

First a back story about who I am.  I joined the Marines out of high school and served from 1997-2001.  Upon getting out of the Marines in 2001 I was unemployed and after the events of September 11th employment was thin.  Sometime in 2002 I found a website cuda-challenger.com as I was always searching for a cuda to fix up.  I used to play in a 73 Barracuda as a kid at the junk yard near my grandmas house in Cookeville TN.  I got on cuda-challenger.com and began learning more about cudas and Challengers than I ever imagined I would.  As time went by and employment never showed, I got back into the military, this time the Army summer of 2002.  In March 2003 I was sent fight the war in Iraq.  I came home Feb 2004 and about 15 months later was sent back to Iraq again in 2005.  When I came home in 2004 I took some of my deployment money down to that junk yard and the owner wanted way to much for that 73 barracuda I used to play in.  Barret Jackson had just gotten super popular and everyone thought their rotting 318 cars could bring 20-30k.  By the time another cuda presented itself to buy it was time to go back to Iraq.  All this time I kept up with my friends at c-c.com talking to them about their cars and what I planned on doing to mine once I got one.  The closest I got to buying a cuda was buying Goodies yellow cuda before he got it.  It was on ebay and my wife and I had already began making arrangements to fly me to go look at it.  Someone hit the buy it now button and the rest is history.     

As I understand it "The Cuda Guy Project" seeds were planted in late 2004 early 2005 when my Dad was at an event and was linked up with the "4C" Dave Whit, and they began to talking and my Dad had mentioned that he wanted to find me a starter cuda to give me when I got back home from Iraq in 2006.  Now at this point I don't know if the members were already looking into getting me a cuda but from that point it took a life of its own.  There was fund raising almost like cuda-challenger go fund me, and parts donating managed by cuda-challenger mods 4C, April, Neil, "Rev and Red" Laura and Chris Davis and some other key players from the website.  After a year or so and once there was enough money and parts collected Moparal found and negotiated a decent price on a mostly solid cuda, the car was bought and put into my Dads name.  fishin4cuda Tony Miller offered to give the car a once over at his shop in Ohio and then it could be presented.  As help came in and parts arrived the once over soon turned into a full resto.  Tony shut his shop down for six weeks prior to Carlisle to make sure the car was completed on time.  There was a lot of parts and money donated by cuda-cheallenger.com members and family along the way and there is no way to thank them all individually.  Aside from the birth of my children and landing home from Iraq after my first year there from 2003-2004 being presented that cuda has been the most humbling experience of my life.  I am forever grateful to all involved.

If this site or cuda-challenger ever does anything like what the cuda-challenger members did for me, they can count on my fullest support.

Here is a link to the view of the presentation, very long video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzFbeT4PjZM

News coverage of the event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq7UohHlvjw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8XSDwZ770I


"The Cuda Guy Project" was covered by Mopar Muscle and Mopar Collectors Guide.



Here are some older pics with some more recent pics:

[the_cuda_guy]

Don! Great to see your smiling face again. Did you ever get the switch bezel installed? You need to hang around a little more often now that you found this great new site. Grant

Not yet, we haven't switched it back to the standard dash yet.  I am hoping to get it done next time I am back on the mainland and Alan is available.

I will be back in the swing of things come October of 2017 when I relocate.  Then you guys are gonna be like "who the hell invited this guy here...?"  LOL!!!


Don

[anlauto]

@the_cuda_guy That's a great story and certainly a great group of guys over there at CC.com. 

All that happened before I joined CC, but I remember reading about it in MCG.... Thanks for sharing it here.

[750-h2]

Best story I have heard in a long time!  Congrats to everyone involved!

[Spikedog08]

It was a great story!  There was a lot of people involved . . . parts and money was donated by many!  Getting everything together and organized was tricky . . . we had to create an area on cc.com that all members could see except Don which was a choir in itself . . . then organizing all the needed parts and getting it all to Ohio!  I did the dash restoration here in Michigan and then drove it to ohio, the motor was on lease and would need to be returned once another was found.  Then to get it to Carlisle and get Don in the right spot for the surprise was a challenge but worked out perfect!  There was a military vehicle in front of the stage and someone kept him busy inside that while we prepared the car!  It went great!

Another thing we struggled with was "what color to paint it?"  Then someone posted that butterscotch was Dons favorite cuda color and that is how that was decided.  Special thanks to Shelbydogg for the video of the presentation!  He did a great job with that.  All the info and threads are still on cc.com in the classics area under the child boards!  Needless to say, he was pretty excited!   

I took the liberty to contact Mopar Muscle prior to the presentation and they were excited to be a part of it!  I think Mopar Collectors guide slipped in later . . .