when did you fall in love with a-bodies

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back in the 80s I about 10 years old and was always riding with my sister and her husband in 70 lime green 340 4 speed duster it had big cam headers ect Thats all it took for me
 
1980 I was 16 - got my first car. It was my great grandfather's 70 dart had a /6 and hand controls (missing his right leg) - spent the next year building a 340 clone from 2 wrecks: 70 340 Dart and 71 340 Challenger... don't have any of them now -wish I did - the wrecks were really no that bad... so many cars and many years later I held out for the real 70 340 Dart I have now...
 
17 years ago, I saw an a-body barracuda painted up like a Sox & Martin car rusting away in a field. It had more parts in the trunk than it did under the hood, but I thought it was perfect for a 16-year-old driver like myself! I didn't have the money though, so I made it a point to stop and look at the car whenever my dad (a Ford guy at the time) was with me! He didn't bite, and eventually the car was sold and disappeared.

While I never did get the car, those trips with my dad converted him into a Mopar guy: he ended up buying a Challenger, which he still drives today.

I finally got my own barracuda last year.
 
The first car I purchased was a 1966 Barracuda and it was in 1968. It was a Formula S with a 4 speed. It was white with red interior. I drove it to college until a got my draft notice. So I joined the Navy and quit college. I had a friend whose parents had a condo at Lake Tahoe so we drove it there and partied for a couple of weeks. When I got back home I got a ticket for "exhibition of speed" while cruising the main street of our town. It was my first ticket and all I did was chirp the tires a little bit. When I went to court for the ticket the judge gave me a $300 fine and impounded my car for 90 days and I had to pay the impounds fees also. I told him was I was going into the Navy in a couple of weeks and the judge just continued to rant and rave about how guys come back from Viet Nam and tear up the streets and get into trouble. I tried to explain I had not even gone to boot camp yet. He didn't care he just continued to rant about the guys coming back from Viet Nam.

WHAT A JERK....
 
It was 1970. I was hangin out at a friends house on Grand Island NY (between Buffalo and Niagara Ny. Anyways My friend kept going on about this evil black car nobody would mess with. Went to the barn dance they had on Saturday night lookin for a well you know a friend with benefits when here comes this black car with a rumble I hadn't heard before. A 68 SS Hemi Dart, It had plates on it but legal, well I'll leave that to you. Was standing next to my friends sister Kathy Too much like a sister to be more than like a sister. Turns out Darrel the guy with the Dart had a crush on Kathy. Well he wanted me to introduce her to him. And I wanted a ride in that evil arsed Dart. The deal was struck he met Kathy and I got a RIIIIIDE in the Dart front wheels up white knuckle no holds barred had to go change my trousers Ride. Same could be said for him and Kathy come to find out later. The rest is History.
 
I was born into a Mopar family, My parnets brought me home at birth in a 69 Swinger 340/4spd in March of 74.

I started grade K thinking all families had a car with racing stripes! I thought kids were weird when all thier parents drove were plain station wagon's and four-door cars!
 
The A-body that done it for me was my older brother's 69 M-code factory 440 notchback Barracuda he bought in 1973. What a ride! That car ruled the local streets in the 70's and early 80's. Of course being the youngest sibling, I wanted a Barracuda just like big brothers. Fast forward to 1981. I started looking for my first car. My brother found a 67 notchback Barracuda 273 auto that I almost bought, but at the time, his wife was driving a 69 Dart GTS that was in better shape than the 67 Barracuda, and she wanted a different car, so I bought her GTS for $600. A mutual friend of ours ended up buying the 67 and a few months later he totaled it. I sold the 69 GTS in 2001.
 
Back in the late 80's when I was in high-school, my Dad pulled a '72 Duster out of the weeds and proceeded to completely rebuild it, from replacing sheet metal to having the interior redone. After all that, he dropped a 440 from a 69 New Yorker and that thing smoked!!! Shortly after, I bought my 1st car, a 71 Charger. This thing was an absolute rust bucket!!! The 2-bbl 318 ran OK, but it wasn's strong enough to really impress anyone (although the glass packs right off the headers made it sound pretty tough!) I turned down a side street and hit a bump pretty hard and the upper a-frame busted. When my Dad tried to replace it he realized that there was nothing to bolt it too, it had completely rusted out. Also, nothing to weld to, so it ended up in the local scrap yard. ANYWAY, I guess his love for his Duster kinda rubbed off on me. Last year, I bought a 70 Duster (198 /6 3- speed on the tree) and even though its supposed to be for my son, he really doesn't have much of a passion to do anything with it. Maybe, just maybe...it'll end up with me! (I know, I know...BAD DAD!) Anyway, thats where my love for Mopars came from!
 
In 1970 when my dad brought home a 1970 Dart 340. Black with red stripe, black interior, bucket seats, console. It had the flat black hood treatment with the scoops. This car belonged to Chrysler Corp. My dad was an excutive for Chrysler so they let him bring it home for a while. The most unique thing about this car is it had true ram air. There was a housing that sealed the air cleaner to the scoops, and it had a lever inside the car to open up the ram air. I have always wondered what happened to that car.

Bill.
 
Back in 1970 I bought my first A body. A new 1970 Duster 340 4-speed, 3.55 8.75 Suregrip, B-5 blue with B-5 blue bench seat interior. No power steering or brakes, just pure go.
 
I was thirteen and looking for some kind of muscle car, and initially i wanted a chevelle or camaro. While on a family vacation i found my first copy of mopar muscle on the newstand, and in that issue there was a petty blue 71 duster. I fell in love with the lines and thought they looked bad ***. So when we returned home there just so happened to be a 73 gold duster on the way to a friend's house. It was black, had air shocks, duals and fat tires out back. I begged my dad to let me buy it, he showed me mercy and helped me purchase it, and soon after i had him payed off. It is now ready for the fourth version of the original 318, and a freshly rebuilt 727 with a dynamic 9.5" converter. I'm nineteen now and will never sell this car no matter what!!!
 
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