My 74 Dart (The Bondo Bucket)

Its a strange journey life puts us through sometimes. By this time its late Nov 2016 - 3 plus years since i sold the Dart. Im going about my life - just finishing up Thanksgiving Holiday stuff and decided to see what was new on craigslist. I did my usual Mopar search and I came across a 72 Scamp project car that looked pretty decent. It was plum crazy and needed a fair bit of work, but had a non-running v8 in it and a set of rallye wheels on it. Price was a little more than i had but maybe the guy would work me a deal right? Lets see where this thing is i said. The map showed Miami Fl. What? Why are you listing this on the Atlanta craigslist? Turned out to be a scam ( go figure) .

Moving on to the next list of postings i came across another interesting post. Ad stated dodge dart for sale. Opened the ad and what did i see ? Yep that looks alot like my old dart !!! Contacted the seller and waited for a message back. Finally got back to me and sent me some more photos. It was my old car in much worse shape. It had been sitting outside for awhile. Turns outs the seller was the teenager the P.O. sold the car to. He had done a few things to the Dart but wound up having engine trouble with it. Now the cylinder head was taken off and the car was just sitting. He wanted a new ride but his parents said the Dart had to go first.

I talked to my wife about it and she couldn't believe i found the car again. My very supportive wife gave me the go ahead under one condition. I couldn't ever get rid of or mention selling the car again. Thanks babe I Love You !!! . I made arrangements to see the car and stopped by U-haul and grapped a tow-dolly. The next day me, a friend of mine and my oldest son made the 1 hour trip to see the Dart. We arrived and the Dart was sitting in between the house and a pontoon boat. We met the seller and his dad and checked out the car. It was hard keeping my cool while checking it out. I asked was the price firm and the seller asked what i had in mind. I said are you a mopar man? How about $ 440 bucks ? He was asking $500 so he though the price was cool. Turns out he had already bought a suburban and needed the Dart gone.

So 440 bucks later the Dart was loaded and we were on our way! It was a pretty smooth trip home. I cleared a spot in the garage and we pushed her in. December 10 2016 my old girl was back home. I had an early Christmas present this year. Like i said it was in much worse shape but i didn't care. I have plenty of time to make her right again. It stills seems strange to see it in the garage to this day.

2017 came along and my wife and i( along with our sons) had decided to become foster parents and we began the long journey to make that happen. This took up a fair bit of time and it didn't leave much for the Dart. In the summer we got our first foster daughter and that was pretty life -changing. More to come ...