Mopar Dufuses in the 80s

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I kind of like to think my car has some craftsmanship in it. There's so many things that were done for ease of installation and not for Aesthetics.
 
moparmat2000 said:
Anybody remember Mopar Dufuses in the 80s. You know back when these cars were cheap to buy. I mean there were guys rebuilding and restoring them, but then there were also the typical Mopar Dufus. Since these cars were fairly cheap to buy a lot of em got butchered up by the typical Mopar Dufus.

There was a guy in my neighborhood that had a white 70 duster with a slant six. He ran it around with cragar S/S wheels and super skinny tires front and rear, a cherry bomb muffler, sun super tach, hijackers, and extended shackles. He may have even put a harwood rivet on pro stock scoop too near the end. The car was an embarassment in its own right, but he never missed a chance to get his *** beat in a race either. It was like the 80s version of what ricers do now by making their cars look fast even though they are slow.

Any Mopar Dufus stories from any of you?
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I'm a mopar doofus and I love it!!
 
man, I've got several stories. Here's one: I was walking by this shady-looking, really old motel in Lake City area of Seattle, when I noticed this 66 Dart 2dr post car sitting there looking abandoned. The manager noticed me looking at it, said it was abandoned and wanted it out of there. So, I started looking more closely at it. First off, it looked like someone had swapped a c-body 8-3/4 into it and had severely radiused the rear wheel openings to fit the tires. Popping the hood, it had a 383 in it, with the cast exhaust manifolds mounted upside down, and end for end so that the outlets pointed forward, and the head pipes ran in front of and underneath the k-member. There was no kick down linkage for the 727, and in order to clear the firewall/tunnel he had the engine sitting at this steep angle. The huge, yellow Accel coil was wired backwards, too. I took pictures of it because it was so strange, but they never came out. I turned a friend onto it, and he was an auto shop teacher, and I guess they used it to work on at school.
 
I think J par missed the intent of my original post. It was about the posers with slantys in these cars trying to make them appear fast when they werent. The discription of the jacked up duster was just what this guy did, along with the cherry bomb muffler, skinny tired cragars at all 4 corners , yes it had skinnys at the back too. Back then my buddy Rodney was redoing a 72 challenger 340 and had cragar SSTs on it. bigs n littles but everything backspaced so it tucked in nicely in the fenderwells, i had a 68 charger 383 w aluminum anson sprints bigs n littles again tucked into the fenderwells. No stinkbug stance on either of our cars. Duster dude was always trying to race us, i would just roll my eyes and shake my head at him because he wasnt worth getting a ticket. Rod and i used to laugh every time we saw the duster buzz by with his *** end in the air and the cherry bombed six.

Its like today. Theres some seriously fast import cars, then theres the wannabe fakers. Fart can tip, wheels and a **** ton of decals for racing parts they dont even have. All my racing parts decals go on the tool box, not on my car.
 
1974. The only thing close to having a poser car (my day called a "No GO Showboat") was a guy that had a 66 Coronet poly 318 2 bbl single exhaust. He ordered 426 HEMI emblems for the fenders. Installed them and with in a week the car was stolen and burnt. They musta' been pissed finding that it wasn't a Hemi so they torched it.
 
Rainy Day Auto said:
Last time I wrote about dufuses painting their grilles black with cheap **** paint and not even masking anything off, before the paint **** bomb went off......I got so many members telling me that I am the mean one.

Careful, lots of sensitive people here who get offended easy. Make sure you don't hurt anyone's feelings, even with drug dealer back primer cars, with blacked out grilles.
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You mean like this (See pic below)?? People are still doing it today. This one was done by Counts Customs on one of the Counting Cars shows.

I don't get it either, it's not the look I would go for, even if it's done right. At the risk of sounding like one of the sensitive people Rainy was talking about, we keep telling people on here that it is their car and they should do it how they want, then dog them when they do?!? :) There was a guy in the town I lived in when I was younger that had a white Aspen with a slant six. He added a hood scoop, dual headers, glass packs,and a set of Crager SS wheels. I never saw it out on the streets, but he built what he had into how he wanted it, and at the time, I actually thought it looked pretty good.

Don't get me wrong,... I've run the air shocks, N50 tires, wrong backspacing wheels, small steering wheel and fuzzy seat covers (I remember the barefoot pedals, but never had them). It's what we had back then, it was cheap, and it was what was popular. Would I do it now? Nope, but it still brings back memories that make me smile!

Counting Cars.jpg
 
Back in the late 60's visiting with my cousins in Farmer City for the weekend, bored. Cousin Steve suggested we hop on the ole Schwinns and pedal our butts up to the square for look-see. The cars would seamlessly drive around and around the square and disappear briefly and back again. There was a red car that was making this odd noise as he cruised around the town square, tinkle noise, like loose change in a dryer. I notice the faster he drove the less noise it made. Asked Steve what the noise was about he said, pebbles in hubcaps...I guess it was to draw attention to himself....dufus.
 
Rainy Day Auto said:
You were doing a great job trying to justify it.
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Justify how! I'll prove it!
as a matter of fact I never liked that Barefoot pedal I thought it was corny but now I'm starting to realize it should match my car perfectly.
And get this facts straight I'm an addict, it's not my Mo to try anything, I go all the way.
 
My brother bought a 71 Demon back in the early 80's that someone had pop rivetted a Mopar pro stock style hood on. It was a six cyl 3 speed manual and everyone wanted to race him. It was his daily driver and got decent gas mileage so he just drove it as is. Good looking car as I remember.
 
moparmat2000 said:
I think J par missed the intent of my original post. It was about the posers with slantys in these cars trying to make them appear fast when they werent. The discription of the jacked up duster was just what this guy did, along with the cherry bomb muffler, skinny tired cragars at all 4 corners , yes it had skinnys at the back too. Back then my buddy Rodney was redoing a 72 challenger 340 and had cragar SSTs on it. bigs n littles but everything backspaced so it tucked in nicely in the fenderwells, i had a 68 charger 383 w aluminum anson sprints bigs n littles again tucked into the fenderwells. No stinkbug stance on either of our cars. Duster dude was always trying to race us, i would just roll my eyes and shake my head at him because he wasnt worth getting a ticket. Rod and i used to laugh every time we saw the duster buzz by with his *** end in the air and the cherry bombed six.

Its like today. Theres some seriously fast import cars, then theres the wannabe fakers. Fart can tip, wheels and a **** ton of decals for racing parts they dont even have. All my racing parts decals go on the tool box, not on my car.
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Hey I totally get what you were saying. The totally jacked up poster car. I guess we would call him a poser more than a doofus. I mean someone who has a fast looking car that isn't. And you know how for a bodies only is if this subject doesn't get twisted into five different directions we're on the wrong forum. It wasn't really you actually it was everybody else turning onto all the stuff that I've done to my car. I thought it was a screaming laugh last night when I read everything everybody hated and I had it all on my car. I think it's a riot and for anybody I'm trying to justify what I've done. I've done everything to my car myself and extremely proudly of it. Would I trade it for the stock slant 6 air condition 73 Duster that it started as? F NO! Somebody needs to justify to me spending tens of thousands of dollars to make a car look like the $2, 400 car that came off the showroom floor.
 
We all like what we like. Most do what we can afford. Remember the 80's was the disco age. Lots of stuff we laugh at today.
 
I'm stuck in this era of looks..... I mean, this charger..... there is nothing that anyone could do to improve the looks of the car, or tires, or stance!!! We'll, I guess some yellow traction bars would top it off ….
:thumbsup:

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You know what pisses me off is that can only find these cheesy small wannabe doofus fake poser fuzzy dice. Does anybody make real full size fuzzy dice?
 
traction bars...... enhancing looks the way no pinion snubber can...…. :D
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Not Mopar but...

Circa 1985, one of my friends bought and wrecked a factory 4 speed 70 nova red with black bucket interior.
He paid too much from a retail classic car shop, but it was a solid car with a mildly built 350.

After the wreck he impulse bought (from the same retail dealer, again paying WAY too much), another red nova but this time gold int (was originally a gold car) auto on the column and 307 with a LOT of bondo in the quarters.

Day 2 of ownership he shows me this pair (not a set of 4) of 12" wide aluminum slots he just bought for it.

"No way" I said, those will rip your wheel arches off.

So he installs tires that are too narrow (IDK a 235 maybe) and the sidewall is really stretched, but because they are soo wide, even with the air shocks all the way up they are only an inch from the wheel well lips.

BTW these are the ONLY mods to the car.

The next week, I go to his house and there sits the car with the stock wheels and hubcaps back on it, but on both sides there is a huge, maybe 14" x 3" chunk of 2" thick bondo ripped from the middle of the wheel arches.
 
...then there was the kid circa 1980-83 that rebuilt the 289 in his light blue 66 mustang notch every winter.

...and every spring he would take it out for a test drive...

...and like clockwork it wouldn't run just right and he would HAMMER the throttle, flooring it repeatedly many, many times until it finally blew up.

Then he'd push it back in the garage and we'd see him again next spring.
 
YY1 said:
...then there was the kid circa 1980-83 that rebuilt the 289 in his light blue 66 mustang notch every winter.

...and every spring he would take it out for a test drive...

...and like clockwork it wouldn't run just right and he would HAMMER the throttle, flooring it repeatedly many, many times until it finally blew up.

Then he'd push it back in the garage and we'd see him again next spring.
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My kind of guy, if it can't take a beating then I don't want no part of it. Hopefully he finally got to Mopar and didn't have to rebuild it everytime he floored it..
 
Who knew an igloo playmate was the perfect size to wedge under a door while you are removing the hinges?
 
I always wanted one of these in my back window. Mons-turn! Hey, a upper level light!
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Probably going to put traction bars in my kids 69 barracuda but that's only cuz it's got an 8.8 going under it
 
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