When I was a kid in NYC in the 60's, nice cars didn't really exist in Manhattan. There were two cool cars in my neighborhood though, one was a 1968 or 1969 Charger with the big gas cap that a 6 or 7 year old (me) found fascinating, & a late 60's Mustang Fastback. I couldn't tell you if they were performance cars or not but they looked fast just parked there. Since most of my family are from NYC & were still living there, very few had cars or any interest in them. If they did they were cheap beater cars that got you from point A to point B. (most of the time anyway...lol)
In the school library there were car magazines that had the coolest stuff in them. I specifically remember a stock car magazine that had a wing car on the cover. Holy crap that was cool! I had no idea what it was but it was the greatest car I had ever seen in all 8 years of my life. It was even way cooler than Chitty Chitty Bang Bang & that car actually flew with it's wings.
A few years later my parents moved us to a NJ suburb with houses, not skyscrapers. Now people in the neighborhood had cars & most weren't beaters. Once I was riding my bike on the other side of town & spotted a bright yellow car with black letters on the side that said, "PLYMOUTH". It had a wing on the back & a pointy nose on the front.
Wow, it was just like the car I had seen on the cover of that magazine! What was a race car doing in someone's driveway?
Fast forward to the late 70's when I was in high school & car crazy. Now I knew what a Superbird & a Daytona were & had to have one. They weren't cheap back then so the money from my paper route & later a part time job weren't getting me in the seat of either. I got a hand me down car from my parents, a 1972 Datsun 510 station wagon. Not a chic magnet but it sure beat walking or riding a bicycle. I still wanted a wing car but combing through the classified ads assured me that wasn't going to happen as a broke college student. I looked anyway & eventually found a cool car I could afford, a 1969 Cadillac Hearse. This wasn't a chic magnet either but it was more fun than a Datsun.
A year later I sold it & bought my first Mopar, a 1969 Dodge Charger SE. It was nice looking, red, black vinyl top, tan leather interior, 383-4V car & pretty damn fast. I loved driving it but it had been abused by previous owners so I spent more time fixing & learning to fix it than driving it. Add that I only worked part time so I had very little money to fix it so it sat a lot. Mother Nature isn't a car's friend so the paint looked bad, the bondo fell out & rust was getting bad after the 3 years I owned it. I tried to find another Charger so I could use mine as a parts car but no luck.
After 5 or 6 months I opened up my options & started to look at other B-Body cars. I even placed an ad in The Want Ad Press Looking for a Charger.
1969 Hemi Road Runner with no motor & no rust for $3000. It still had the red, white & blue paint job that the previous owners had painted it, some guys named Ronnie Sox & Buddy Martin. Who would spend $3000 on a car with no motor??
1970 Dodge Charger, 440 & 17,000 miles for $2200. Can't this guy read? I said I wanted a 1969, not a 1970.
1970 Superbird, partially restored, all the dirty work was done for $1900. (whatever dirty work means?) It was sold by the time I got past the busy signal.
1970 GTX, automatic, buckets, excellent body, nice interior, needs new 440, asking $450. ..............Bought it!!
It was nice, but had red fur on the dash & GM bucket seats that were spray painted black....LOL The motor apparently grenaded on the way home when the seller bought it from the previous owner. He ended up with a 1971 Cuda that he liked better so he was unloading the GTX. I had it flat bedded home but the tow truck driver was a moron. He put the car on the flat bed backwards but never closed the driver's side door all the way. The first block he drove down the door opened up & caught a tree. It crumpled the door, buckled the fender, bent the hinge post & probably damaged even more.
For the first time ever, I had a "NICE" car that wasn't a rust bucket. Wait. No, that's not going to happen because the good car fairy sees to it that I will still never own a nice car & makes sure of it by sprinkling fairy dust on a tow truck driver that we now see on the youtube videos of imbeciles. For the next several decades I never have enough money to snag a nice car that's ready to drive. There were a few screaming deals, like a white Superbird for $15,000 in CT but I had just bought a house with my wife so that wasn't going to happen. A 1970 Dodge Challenger convertible with a new top, new interior for $1200. A 1970 Barracuda convertible for $3000 that had a crappy white paint job over the original yellow.
I do have decent cars but none are road worthy & all are projects. Mostly my own fault because of changing my mind on what I wanted to do, like build a Dodge Charger Convertible that was way beyond my skills. Another is a Daytona replica that I have gathered the parts for, for the last 20 years including a rust free Charger shell. Another car, a 1971 Scamp that I started to modify & got side tracked with a partial restoration that still isn't finished. A lime grean, 1970 Road Runner that I actually bought from a NJ member here on Moparts that I haven't seen on the site in years. Steve Santai (spelling??) Another project that I can't get to but was a better deal than all the junk I had looked at.
I'm done yearning for a nice, old, car & just want a reliable one I can drive. I'm redoing most of my house right now & my wife was let go at her job due to budget cuts so money is tight once again. New roof, windows, doors, deck, etc. I am seriously considering getting rid of EVERYTHING & buying a late model Challenger RT or a 300 SRT. At the age of 60 I don't have the desire that's needed to tear a car apart & rebuild it. My son loves the old cars but isn't into the work they need. Guess I will see what happens this year.
