I bought the GTX off a used car lot in about 83,84,85, somewhere in there. Was black, worn out 440 with a six pack on it and a 4 speed. Solid car and actually pretty nice. Rebuilt that 440 and put an automatic in it. It was done for my soon to be wife, because I had the Road Runner convert pictured above. The interior was perfect and a few years later we put the yellow paint on it with the candy stripes. It was an ISCA Southern division champion on the show car circuit and was voted "Most popular Car" at the Mopar Nats in 1988. It was strictly a show poodle and driven rarely. When Lesa and myself got a divorce, I got the car, because even though she claimed it was hers, me and my dad had done all the work and spent all the money, so I WAS getting the car. About two days after the divorce was final, it was in the shop and I put a cage in it, because I was going to put the motor from the 63 Dodge in it. A little later I took the tunnel ram off, put a Dominator on, it got a nitrous plate, ladder bars, mini tubs and a coilover front end. Was strictly a toy. I was the track manager at Huntsville Dragway and would take the GTX over on race nights every now and then and just make passes during down time. We had a LOT of pretty fast small tire cars in the area and soon got up a little "series" locally with about 4 tracks. We pretty much had somewhere to race about every weekend. We were running on treaded tires at the time and the GTX was the first car in our series to go in the 5s on treaded tires. That was probably around 92 or so. That winter, after being first in the 5s, I put a set of INDY heads on the 446 shortblock that was in the car. This was also the time that HOT ROD started the "Fastest Street Car Shootout" deal. I hurt the motor a couple weeks before that first race and couldn't take my car. So we took David Lemmond's Chevy II on some tiny 10" slicks we begged off somebody and with me tuning the car, he got a "Top Ten" jacket at that first shootout. After we got back from that HOT ROD race, the rules in our series changed and allowed slicks. I and a couple other local cars immediately started going 5.70s. Hot Rod added the small tire Super Street class the next year and I took the GTX and got myself a Top Ten Super Street jacket. The next year at the HOT ROD race, I hurt a piston and in the rush to get the motor back together before next round, I put a rod cap on backwards and the next round it kicked a rod out at around 1000ft. That's when I built the B-1 motor and HOT ROD started their own series and I was the 1996 Super Street World Champion in the HOT ROD series that was run 1/8 mile. Basically from 95 to 2000 I ran the car in Super Street at the HOT ROD races, NMCA, NSCA, local races and took in a few KOS races. Finished in the top ten in points in every series, every year I raced. During this time though, our local series had dwindled to nothing, because myself and a couple others who took it seriously and were also running the other series, were just murdering the locals, so they quit coming. The GTX was nearly unbeatable in our local stuff. Around 2001 I was going to get really serious with the car, as Super Street had basically morphed into Outlaw 10.5 and I was out of car and motor. I hacked the floor pans out of it and built a 25.1 chassis under it, to run Outlaw 10.5. At the time, the rules were still weight per cubic inch and I gathered the parts to put together a 415" B-1 TS headed motor. I picked that size, because that's how light I thought I could get the car. Custom Donovan 9.2 deck block, drilled to take the Wayne County pattern 4.840 TS heads. 3.450 stroke billet crank and everything else. I ordered the block blank in the lifter valley and sent the block to LSM and let them put the lifter bores in it to straighten the pushrod angles and they also ground a one off 60mm, rifle drilled, billet cam for it. Rules required a cast intake, so we took two Dart Big Chief intakes, cut them up and MADE an intake for the TS heads and shot blasted it. Before I finished the motor, Outlaw 10.5 dropped the weight per cube rule and everyone went to big motors. I had so much tied up in the TS motor project and for sure nobody wanted that oddball [censored], that I was done. I couldn't afford to just set all that stuff aside and build a 600 inch motor. The TS motor was never finished and the car hasn't been down the track since

And before anyone asks........YES, it is a REAL GTX and YES, it had perfect, rust free southern floor pans and I hacked them out.........LOL!!!! The candy paint went away after an incident at Huntsville, where it carried the front end about 3 ft high for about 200 feet and when I finally let it down, it had drifted right, it bounced the front end and tagged the wall, flattening the whole right side of the car. New door, fender and quarter, plus went ahead and put a quarter on left rear and painted it Viper yellow, which it still is

People have also asked why I didn't put some of those other motors back in the cars, the GTX and 63. Easy answer is because I don't have any of them. I sold the old M/P stuff when I built the INDY motor. When the INDY motor sent the rod out, I sold what was left to build the B-1. I then sold all the B-1 stuff to build the TS motor. Nobody wants any of the TS stuff, because it's small, all custom one off and basically useless. Since that Donovan block is solid, I had visions of knocking the sleeves out, putting a 1" deck spacer on it, new sleeves and making a 10.2 deck block and building a 632 from it with the TS heads. But it's not a raised cam and alum rods would hit the 60mm cam. Not sure how much stroke I can run with that big cam core and alum rods, but that still may be an option, or just pony up for a new block and be done...........But the latest thing, is Joe from Street Outlaws wants the TS motor to put twin turbos on and put in the Dart. It would be a bad azz small cube turbo motor. He wants to swap an all alum, 632 Big Chief Chevy motor he has for the TS motor. So the next motor the GTX sees will likely be a Chevy. I did have the foresight that when I built the new chassis, that the rails are narrow enough in the rear for big tires, even though it was going to be a 10.5 car. So its probably going to get the stock type suspension off the front, install struts, get big tires, a Chevy motor and be a big tire grudge car, no prep car........whatever. Just need to do SOMETHING with it.

I DO still have the warmed over 440 six pack motor that was in the GTX when it was a show car, so have thought about dropping that in the 63 and just make it a Pro-Street "driver" type deal. Be fun, but I KNOW me and I would think it was a turd and couldn't leave it alone...........LOL!!!

So the more likely home for the 6 pack motor will likely be either the white Challenger or the Lil Red truck, which are both in the process of being freshened up. The Challenger is just a 318 car and the 360 in the truck swallowed a piston and hurt the block. Could sleeve it, but it would be cool with the 6 pack motor

I really haven't done anything with any of my cars in a long time, because well, LIFE gets in the way. In the last 12 years, I have built a new house, got divorced(again), started a business from nothing, had quadruple bypass heart surgey, both parents passed, stay busy with work and tuning other peoples cars and other assorted things. Just now getting where I CAN do something

Last edited by Monte_Smith; 08/18/16 04:15 AM.