I didn't really know much of anything about cars, but I did know that I could teach myself to do just about anything I wanted to do. I'm not bashful about trying new things.

Traditionally, my mothers side of the family has always liked Fords, while my fathers side of the family leans towards Chevrolets, but just regular vehicles, and I never really hung out much with anyone that worked on them, they just drove them. In high school my cousin had a 1969 Mercury Cougar. We had a lot of fun with that! Boys will be Boys. Then one night he flipped it end over end! After going without a car for a while, he replaced it with a 1966 Mustang. Still a classic car, but a 289 instead of a 351. By the time I finished school, I figured cars were alright, and thought that if I could pick any vehicles in the world that I wanted, I'd have a muscle car, a truck, and any vehicle from the 1930's. (love those curvy bodies) Like I said, I didn't know much at all about vehicles, but after moving to Florida, I'd been to the Don Garlits museum of Drag Racing, and after seeing that, I figured a 426 Hemi was the engine to have! I hadn't yet realized that it only came in Mopars. So I was thinking maybe I'd like a muscle car like a 70 Chevelle, perhaps white with black stripes, and a Hemi under the hood.

In December of 1998 after moving to Florida, my Great Grandmother passed away. I went back north for the funeral and while I was there, since I'd saved a little money, I looked around for my first car. I found a 1948 Chevy truck with straight six, and a 1970 Challenger with a V8. I guessed I could drop a 350 into the Chevy truck. Neither of the vehicles ran, but I figured that was alright since I could walk to work, I'd have time to fix it up like I want. Tough choice on which one to get, but it turned out that the 48 truck had an enclosed drive shaft which would require a full trailer instead of a car dolly to get back home to Florida. I didn't have the money for a full trailer, so I brought the Challenger home. $500.

It looked a little rough. Someone had tried to make it look like a T/A. Screwed a metal scoop onto the flat hood with thick bondo around the edges, MAS racing fiberglass universal cuda/challenger trans am spoiler screwed on the decklid, woven boat fiberglass added to the rockers and lower quarters as some kind of rust preventative, and a backyard sublime paint job with flat black painted on T/A stripes, and flat black hood, tailpanel, grill. Real poor prep work and masking on the paint, even had a little sublime on the end of the dashpad. Also put in a mopar electric ignition conversion, headers with glass pack mufflers, rear air shocks, and removed the AC compressor and lines. Missing the passenger bucket seat, drivers door panel, and egg crate from the grill, mismatched wheels, no battery, and the wiring had been chopped on a lot. It came with a wiring diagram, Year One catalog stuffed with receipts and an old speeding ticket. The car had been owned by a guy named Brian. Brian had the drivers front floor pan and trunk floor replaced by a shop, but couldn't pay the shop. The shop stopped work. The panels were welded in, but left unpainted bare metal. The shop took the car from Brian with a mechanics lien and sold it at auction. A local guy named Bob bought it. Bob likes cars a lot, especially mopars. He buys them up whenever he finds a good deal and stores them at friends houses, etc. anywhere he can find a space. He's like a car pack rat, he's got cars hidden all over the place. Unfortunately he never seems to have the money to fix any of them up because he's always buying another car. Bob stored this Challenger at Pedro's shop. After 5 years Pedro was planning on moving to a new shop and kept telling Bob to come get the car or he was going to sell it or leave it for the new owners. Bob never came. Pedro took some parts off of it for his sisters Charger, sold me the car for $500 and promised me he'd get me a title through a mechanics lien. Being a first time car buyer, I didn't know any better, so the car came with me to Florida.