After selling my restored 70RR hardtop (in 1978, I set out to find a 70RR convertible project. Most everything seemed to be either fully restored or rust city. Finally found a 383, auto, blue bench seat driver that came with a fresh air hood, but no switch/harness. The seller had advertised the car as a “matching nos”, but neither the engine or trans matched the VIN (story for another day). Decided from the beginning to restore this car as I would have ordered one. I grew up driving a 68RR and have restored a couple 70B body hardtops, so I’m familiar with the 68-70B bodies. My daughter owns a 70 Sport Satellite which sits in my barn (waiting for resto). B7 has always been my favorite color so the exterior color choice was easy. It was originally B3 (light blue) exterior. Decided to add a 440-6, AM/FM, P/W, PDB, console/buckets (white interior), and the full fresh air system. My goal is to restore it as it would have come off the assembly line with these options/colors.

The RR just before it was delivered. Not a very good picture and taken on its "good" side. Paint looks ok in pic, but badly faded, rips in top, etc etc:


Issues. The car had been painted at least 3 times. It was hit in the left door area at some point. The door, jamb, and quarter were replaced, rather crudely, with hardtop metal and the left wheelhouse was butchered in the process. Over several years, collected what I believed were the primary sheet metal necessary to fix the car, including an NOS left quarter (perhaps the last one on earth?), NOS rear shelf, mint left wheelhouse (70 Sat hardtop), extra wheelhouse cap, and AMD full trunk floor. There were a few other odds/ends like the left door jamb didn't have the cutout for the door wedge (which I got from a boneyard 70 Coronet conv). In addition, there was substantial rust/bondo at both qtr-rear shelf joints.




Disassembled the car to better assess the bodywork needed. Except for the trunk floor, and qtr panel/rear shelf joint, there was not much rust, a few pinholes in the cabin floor. Fenders and doors seemed fairly solid, quarter panels not so much (more on this later).

Here’s a pic of the NOS left qtr. Before it was installed, I contacted AMD to determine if they wanted to use it to develop a reproduction convertible quarter panel mold. They politely declined, stating they didn’t forecast sufficient business in this area to warrant the investment.

Wow thats killer, very cool.

In addition to the quarter panel, over the years I collected some hard to find NOS parts for this car. Some of this stuff is reproduced now, most of it isn't.

Every gauge on the rallye instrument panel is an NOS piece, with the exception of the speedo which was rebuilt. All the switches are mint condition pieces.


Here's an NOS left and right outside mirror.




A VERY hard to find inside rear view stem/base, unique to the B body convertible:


For the fresh air system I managed to find an NOS 440-6 base and hood mounted vacuum actuator:



I was pretty lucky to run across a guy in the early nineties that was selling a complete NOS front end trim kit for a 70RR/GTX, including the eyebrows, hood lip stainless molding, and lower grille stainless molding.


NOS hood turn signals, NOS convertible top switch, NOS courtesy light assemblies, and an NOS beep beep.






A couple other hard to find NOS, rear tail light lenses, rear bumper pads.

OK, back to the car.

I’ve been welding for about 25yrs, with some bodywork experience, and a DIY-if-at-all-possible kinda guy. However, after considerable deliberation decided most of the work needed to make the car right was beyond my ability. So my strategy was to do what I could then find a mopar body guy to do the tough stuff.

The car came with an orig 22” radiator. Decided to convert to a 26” and do this work myself before finding a shop for the remaining bodywork. Obtained the radiator side panels from a 70 Coronet donor. Fitting the panels before final welding:


Verifying final fit with 26” radiator:

Body work. I collected estimates for bodywork & paint (I’m reassembling the car) from various restorers, some local, some mopar, others multi-makes. In most cases, the estimates varied between mid-high 5 figures, in one case low 6 figures. Interestingly, as I worked my way from California eastward, the estimates generally came down but of course involved increased transport costs. I began following a thread on this forum involving restoration of a 70 B7 Cuda by American Muscle Car Revolution (AMCR), intrigued by their fixed price concept and their work with B7 paint. Contacted Tim Dodson, the front man for the shop, who recently passed away (RIP Tim). He described the research they did on the 70 B7 color for the Cuda. I described the condition as above, with pictures, and we negotiated a fixed labor cost for the bodywork – to restore the body to original factory condition and paint with B7 Jamaica Blue, OEM looking primer underneath with overspray, and wheelwell undercoat. Also, to include installation of frame connectors.

Boxed up all the parts that needed to go with the car, put the RR on my trailer and trailered it to Georgia with my Chevy 2500HD Dmax. This part of the story is detailed on a thread in the restoration forum, as Tim posted pictures of the work in progress and I added an evaluation of the work done near the end. I’ll repeat some of it here for continuity and because it’s a major portion of the restoration.


Passing through New Mexico, enroute to Georgia.



Arrived at AMCR on 8 April 2011, actually Mike Snyder’s place north of Atlanta, Tim’s partner and bodywork/paint guy. Mike is a long time (30yrs plus) mopar body guy. He has a large shop, with paint booth. Unloaded, inventoried the parts, and chatted with Mike the whole day about what needed to be done. The next segment of pictures will detail the body work done by Mike/AMCR.

Lt qtr removed:


Previous bodyman apparently had stock in bondo company:


Trunk floor and rear shelf removed:


Rebuilding left wheelhouse:


Adding convertible patch to left door jamb:

Hood (not pretty):


Right qtr (not pretty either):

Mike said he could work the hood and right qtr, but the amount of bondo needed would be risky and recommended AMD replacements. After working with the AMD hood, Mike stated it actually fit better than the original. Following pictures are in general chronological order.

Doors and fenders in pretty good shape, no rust and minimal bondo.


Right qtr replacement:


Left qtr blocking:


Rebuilt left wheelhouse installed:

Primer/block sanding/seam seal phase.

Next phase: PPG Chromatic Sealer. AMCR used this particular seal coat color as their research indicated this is what the factory did with B7 topcoats in 1970.

Looking good! I didn't know they were still in business

B7 basecoat/clearcoat. Mike used PPG Shop-Line basecoat as that was apparently the only PPG product line where the B7 formula is available. He used PPG Glamour clear.

Bodywork and paint completed, getting RR ready for transport (mid Nov 2011). Didn’t want to bring the RR home with my open trailer, so I arranged for a closed transport. Got pretty lucky with this, found a one car trailer guy who transports high dollar auction cars who could pick mine up on his way to the west coast to pick up a Ferrari.





Loaded in transport:

That looks phenomenal . What a color .

Three days after departing Georgia RR safely arrived home (22Nov), shown here unloading:




Using my Kubota to move the RR back to my barn where I’ll put it back together.


Arrived in barn and sitting next to daughters Sport Satellite:

WOW! Looks really good!

Extra sets of eye browns for sale?

Nice! Now the fun part, assembly. Just go slow.

now i want a rag top