Mopar Muscle Association UK

Fascinating stuff Martin.

Is the Hemi GTX convertible the one that was displayed at Goodwood some years back?

Hi Adam
Yes, same car, it was sent to Canada to be sold. Quite a well known car as it was in the Otis Chandler collection and was featured in his book. Amazingly I managed to get in touch with the guy who bought the GTX new and he still had the original bill of sale, owners handbook and certicard which are now back with the car. I will do a write up on each of these cars as it’s been quite a journey !

Having spent a further hour or so in conversation with the shop owner we needed to find out about the 70 Barracuda Convertible project and the Hemi Cuda, as so far they were nowhere to be seen. It turned out the Barracuda was hiding in the woods behind his workshop completely stripped out and uncovered and had obviously been there for a couple of years. This really was a shocker as you can see from the photos. So what about the 71 Cuda restomod which had been an ongoing project over the previous 3 years or so. Well it obviously needed to come out of there and be finished by someone capable, but that would have to come later as James and I were due to fly back to England. Finally the 70 Hemi Cuda, well that’s a long story in itself which is only just coming to an end seven years on, I will be covering that in detail.

That convertible top has survived well for being outside but why would you do that and park it in such a place to get all that leaf litter in there.

Whats this ?

'68 Charger by the looks of it.

I thought it was from the lip and the repeater - but I saw a coronet mentioned and didnt know offhand what the flank of those was like.
I'd have thought a 68 charger lying around would be worth dragging out of the woods...

What a great story!

The Otis Chandler collection was amazing. His book on the collection 'American Muscle' is, in my opinion, by far the best muscle car book ever printed. I went to see his collection when passing Oxnard in California on a holiday about 20 years or so ago. After two days of knocking the door of the huge warehouse his collection was in, it was finally answered by a lady who said I could look at the collection but most of the cars were sold and he was into trains and bikes...I didnt bother....gutted.

The photos in the book of the car mentioned here are stunning. In fact, they all are.

Great thread.... thanks for sharing

Cheers Steve

this is fascinating

it's like a Mopar thriller

looking forward to the next installment

thanks for sharing

Thanks for the positive comments everyone, next instalment coming soon.

morgan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 04, 20 1:33 pm I thought it was from the lip and the repeater - but I saw a coronet mentioned and didnt know offhand what the flank of those was like.
I'd have thought a 68 charger lying around would be worth dragging out of the woods...

Yeah, but they're quite common.

This is brilliant. It’s like old school tv having to wait for the next episode. It is going to take some time to write up all the stories Martin, looking forward to it. I’ve got too many questions already.

Once we were back in England and armed with plenty of photographs I arranged a meeting with the owner. He was fairly horrified at what we found and more than a little angry to say the least. We needed to decide on the best course of action and that meant finding someone trustworthy in Canada to help out with the cars. One name that came up a couple of times while we were over there was Mauro Brocca, in fact Wally Horodnyk the owner of TFX had a beautiful A12 Roadrunner that Mauro had restored so we had already seen the standard of his work. Mauro is based in Oakville Ontario which is only about forty miles or so from Caledon where the remaining cars were. I also spoke to Dave Carson in Canada who runs the A12 registry and he highly recommended Mauro’s work and integrity, so now alI I needed to do was speak to Mauro myself and see if he could help.
As it turned out, not surprisingly, Mauro knew of the restoration shop and the owner and was willing to get involved. So first things first, Mauro needed to go to Caledon and assess what needed to be done on the restomod to complete it and also retrieve the Barracuda which was now known as the wreck in the woods. I phoned and explained the situation to the shop owner who by this stage was just happy if he could stay out of court and not get sued so it was all systems go. After a few trips with his pickup and a large trailer both the restomod and the Barracuda were at Mauro’s workshop along with as many parts as he could find belonging to either car. We now had five cars in storage and two cars with Mauro although the story doesn’t end there because there was still the missing Hemi Cuda to consider.

Ahh... so is the 'resto-mod cuda' the one you've had out a few times over here Martin?

That’s the one Rob, I will do a write up on it further down the line but suffice to say that Mauro did a good job of putting it back together. There were a few teething problems initially once it was in the UK and being used but all easily sorted.