1972 Dart Swinger slant six to 340 upgrade

About eight years ago as a teenager I was driving down a road in Mud Lake Idaho when I came across this gem rusting out in a field. At the time I had no concept of value for cars and saved up to buy this swinger from an old farmer for 2,000$. the car barely started, lights didn't work, brakes were shot, there were chunks of metal missing from the car in all directions, steering was all over the place... but I was immediately in love. I named the car Jess.

Throughout the years I had this car as my daily driver. It would break down constantly and it was always a pain to stay ahead of the game with 40 year old parts wearing out. It wasn't until about two years ago when I received a promotion at work that I was able to finally go to work with the extra money coming in.

Luckily I met a local guy named "Tiny" who has been custom building mopars and other hotrods his entire life. Tiny has a photographic memory and could take apart any mopar over the phone bolt by bolt if he needed to. He told me he had a 340 that had roughly 20,000 original miles on it and its been sitting under the hood of a Jaguar since about 1973 when he was going to build some crazy machine but never got around to finishing it.

So him and I set out to create what he likes to call a "Gentleman's Hotrod". something I could drive everyday but when needed I can still humble the little rice rockets from stoplight to stoplight.