Since my survivor 1969 R6 Charger was totaled in December of 2018, I have been wanting another driver quality Charger to drive while my pro touring 1968 Charger is being built. I spent three months on the couch recovering from surgery so I spent a lot of time looking but I didn't get serious until about 6 months ago. I really wanted a B5 or Q5 Charger, but so does everyone else! We all know, most original paint cars seem to be green....IN January I found and bought a really solid R4 Charger out of Texas. It had a cheap repaint but was complete. Not two weeks after buying the R4 Charger, I came across this RR1 Charger just 30 miles from me. It had mostly original paint (with a few spot ins) and some greats options like black vinyl top, white interior, cruise control, rear defrost, power breaks, power steering, AC, 3 speed wiper, etc. It had great patina and the paint was chalky/oxidized but I knew my paint detail guy could do wonders with it. The grill is perfect!! It had been a Kansas car all its life. It spent inside for the last 5 years but was outside quite a while before that.









It spent one more night outside while I cleaned up and reorganized the shop.

Step 3...Call up a buddy who does detailing and ask him to schedule me in. He came over with a bunch of different pads and polishes and did some test patches.

For some reason, the patina on the hood and decklid remind me of the marbling in a ribeye steak....hence the nickname. I knew it would look cool but I didn't realize HOW COOL. I never thought I'd like burgundy so much. I think that the primer shining through the thin burgundy really brightens up the color.







I will get some pictures of it outside in the sunlight.....with better wheels!

More to pics to come...reserved...

That is looking awesome !!! Great options too !!! . . . congrats !!! Damn, wish I had a shop like yours !!! . . . . enjoy !!!

Happy for your recovery and I'm sure the Charger will receive proper attention from you.

Looking forward to following along

It's great to hear you are doing well.

I love the patina, the shop is what really makes me jealous..

Can't wait to see the finished product.

Glad you healed up OK. Great find on the '68.

That's a great color. Is it fairly uncommon?

I think it is fairly uncommon. I've only seen a couple burgundy Chargers before. It's especially different with Burgundy paint, black top and white interior!!


I tried to remove the vinyl top glue with 3M adhesive remover and acetone but the glue was not coming off so out came the DA.

The trunk floor had a big hole in the middle where water had collected. I spent about 6 hours cutting out the majority of the trunk floor and grinding spot welds.

I'm that guy that keeps pulling the string when it comes to his cars....

I started knocking undercoating off the bottom of the car. I wanted to stop at the seam where the rear passenger foot well pans meet the sheetmetal under the rear seat, but the vibration of the needle scaler would knock loose undercoating up to 12" ahead of where I was working so I ended up removing all the undercoating. The needle scaler has a way of finding the soft spots. The cabin floor pan had looked so good prior to removing the undercoating but now showed pin holes in both front floor pan troughs where water in collects. The worst damage was under the passenger seat, which seems very odd. I called 521 Restorations and ordered a full set of cabin floor pans. It's overkill for sure, but I've come to hate floorpan patches when I can remove and replace the whole cabin floor so easily. Tomorrow I start removing the cabin floor pans...

You just never know what you are going to find. Good thing you looked.

A few more pics of the driver's side floorboards...

Well, the day got busy and I only had 1.5 hours to work on the floorpans but the right air chisel makes quick progress of the sheetmetal removal...I still need to go back and remove all the spot welds/sheetmetal strips.

Nice work

It's A LOT of work is what it is, damn my hat is off to you as I could never never do it. As UCUDANT said though very nice work.

My stepfather did kind of the same thing as you with his friends 1968 Chrysler 300, the front floors were rotted as the car is a fast-top and are known for it. That said he cut out part of the floor that was not salvageable and welded in new pieces. Here is some of the work that was done.....

I dig it !! Love the look of the Sheetmetal replacement.. One day would love to learn how to do that....

Are you going to spray a satin or regular clear over the buffed original paint?

Well done...

Thanks! For now, I'm just going to leave it buffed/waxed and see how long it lasts before it fades. It will be out of the sun so it should last a while