Here's a picture my friend found he took from the early 80's street machine nationals in Springfield Il. It looks like a 70 Challenger it has an RT hood but the hood has 340 TA six pack painted on it. I see it also has the carpet on the dash. Hard to say what this car started life as and shows what was happening to these cars back then.

I don't care for it now or then and the only way I would have stopped to look at it was if there were cute girls or free beer with it. Lol

Looks like a ton of labor in that paint

Cool car.... great for the time period. What always got me in the 80s was the huge number of street rods sporting the mighty 426 Hemi. At the mixed shows there were more 426 hemi powered street rods then cars.

Here's another 1 with a late cuda in the background. Anything you could think of was going on. There were no guardrails on customizing.

And alot of drug use. Lol

lacquer fumes and bondo dust, plus excess alcohol used for cleanup, causes strange things to be thought of in one's brain.

Who cares about that ugly thing with the wing parked in the corner, kids like the cool cars.

Car Craft Street Machine Nationals in 1981 Sacramento Cal. I'd love to find it

That Challenger kind of reminds me of Unlawfl's car

I took this photo at Car Craft Indy circa 1980
The Fairgrounds was a dust bowl

1985 Car Craft S.M.N.

1987

The Challenger in the OP pic belonged to Mike Phelan back then.
Like it or not it was obviously it was a custom car.
What drove the purists crazy was that it was a factory V-Code 6 pack car with a 6/71 blown 340 in it.
In the early 90's it had a wiring fire in the dash which ended it's life as a custom car.

All the purist whiners should be happy now as it was restored to stock appearing.
Last I knew the car went to California bout 4 years ago.

Some pics from a 1985 Custom Auto Show.

Edit:
The added pic is what the Challenger looks like now.

1978 SMN in Indy. Political comment on Mr Carter and the even/odd gas rationing.

I love the old 70's and 80's custom paint jobs. Panel painting, lace, pinstripes, fades, scallops, spider webbing, gold and silver leaf, etc. It's a shame so many have been restored back to original.

I agree, the now vintage custom paint jobs were sooo cool back then.
People personalized their cars (even musclecars) back then.

Now everyone thinks that they can only be EXACTLY how it came off the assembly line down to the boring hub cabs.
That fact is really kinda sad.

I have tons of pics from the Indy, DuQuoin, and Springfield Nats. I lived in Lafayette, Indiana at the time so I was able to go to all of them. Wild time for sure...

I like some of those older paint jobs. Not really into the body mods though.

Ran across this on Youtube a few weeks ago.

https://youtu.be/w0WrfjuK6QM

Nice vid, that first one (GTX) wow.... maybe after Elton Johns bathroom? Still cool though.

My buddy Rudy Munis, sold his AAR to the Brothers collection, yes it was that nice! He has a clone of the Phantasm Cuda too...

THis is a photo of a page of pictures in an album of mine from the SMN in Indy. I went 78, 79 & 80.