I bet you thought you'd never hear about this again.
WRONG!!
This car's been quite the project, and I've received updates weekly. Kev's being an AMD employee seemed to be a godsend on this car. For a long time, it was and to some extent that remains. When he started hanging exterior metal, though, he wasn't as happy as he thought he should be. Mind you, reproduction sheetmetal is a wonderful thing--to which he readily admits and agrees--but clamping here and screwing there for test-fitting revealed the AMD panels were going to take a lot of work. Pie cuts, reliefs, and reshaping were all on the menu. He can do those things, but felt this car warranted better. If you need a recap as to why, spool back up to the top and start reading it over. Also, look at the photos again for a refresher. You'll need it.
He then started down the merry trail to finding NOS sheetmetal. For a '68 Charger. To me it seemed financial suicide but to him it was just necessary. He found a lot of what he needed. During his 2021 visit, he spent a lot of time on the phone making arrangements to buy $7,800 worth of NOS Charger stuff from one guy, much of it for a '69. The required changes to that sheetmetal was deemed easier than making the AMD stuff fit to his standards. He also discovered, or had it reaffirmed, that not all NOS is actually old stock. Some of it was factory-floor rejected. One quarter panel was not stamped correctly at the door jamb. The tail panel wasn't punched for the "arrowhead" emblem, though it was for the Charger emblem. He could work with it, though.
Last year, fate stepped in again and he found a fella that dragged a '69 R/T out of a barn not far from Kev's hometown of Ironwood, MI (not far from here; 1,200 miles from him now). That car came with a slew of truly-NOS sheetmetal. It all had Chrysler Parts Depot shipping labels to Kev's "hometown" Dodge dealer--no factory cast-offs in the pile. And, there was more of it there. A mad dash to Wisconsin and $9,700 later, and it was his.
Not including other pieces of NOS metal he'd found, he was now nearing $18K invested with a lot of duplicate parts. It sounds like a recipe for divorce, and it may have been had he not ditched the last wife years ago. Kev really doesn't have that kind of coin to carelessly toss around, but this car is that important to him. Ultimately, he sold all the AMD stuff he didn't need, along with any of the first load of NOS he deemed unnecessary, and did rather well. All the AMD stuff was on backorder at the time so people were paying more than retail to get it. I don't recall the exact number, but he's got less than five grand into the whole sheet-bang--less than those parts would cost from AMD.
All of that was necessary to outline the level of obsession he's got with the car. I found him an NOS Tic-Toc-Tach, and he didn't bat an eye at $850--in fact, he said it was a good price. He's found the nicest set of original door panels I've ever seen for a 2nd-generation Charger, in the correct green no less. The emblems and marker lights? They're all NOS along with several pieces of chrome trim (so far).
"Great, Doc...he's got all these parts. It probably looks like a Charger exploded across his property." Well, no, actually. Kev was to spend yesterday and today taking the car back apart after final test-fitting and pinning everything to go right back where it was. This week, he has a mobile laser blasting service coming to completely de-rust anything suspect. Once that's done, he'll start final prep for permanent reassembly. Once that's done, he can put it on the hoist so laserman can come back and do the complete underside. "The price is worth it for the undercoating alone," Kev told me. I can't disagree with that statement.
So we come to the photos. Yes, it's a mostly-assembled 1968 Charger with a whole lot of '70 Coronet sedan DNA and '69 Charger sheetmetal. Yes, those are the same 1969 doors from the original recovery photos, now converted to 1968 specifications. That's not what's important. What matters most is that Kevin did all of this himself, right where the car currently sits. No frame jig, no smoke and mirrors. One dude working alone in his garage. The laser guy is literally the first outside help he's had. Now go back to those original photos like I suggested and fully re-absorb his starting point.
@restoman , what do you think? I am
definitely impressed... but much like the encouragement I got whilst working on my garbage, I told him all along he was capable of this. More importantly, he saved about $15,000 by not going the original route (an AMD certified installation center) and can truly say he built it himself.
