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My wife and I had for some time been looking for an American 60s-70s car, a hobby car to treat well and work on during winter and drive occasionally on nice summer days. It had to fit our family with 5 persons.
For some reason we were stuck on that it had to be a Mopar (Chevys, Fords.. what’s special with those anyway? Plymouth, Charger, or Challenger preferable no later than 1971 model.
In Spring 2022 we did find a Charger Super Bee 1971 in Luleå, Sweden. The car seemed to be in descent shape and within our budget so once we agreed with the seller we went for a 2 day mini vacation to Luleå with trailer and brought the car with us back home (1200 km tot.drive). The car had been in Sweden since 1978.
The body and paint are in good condition, no rust. Repainted to factory colour in 2008. Chrome is ok for a car meant to be driven (no show car), same with the interior: It works.
The car is not number matching; however, color, transmission, engine and rear is the setup as when it left factory (now a 1968 engine instead of 1970/71). The seat and side panels are now white. Interior will at some stage be updated back to black, but not any soon or urgent as the current is still ok and intact.
In winter 2022-23 I worked on replacing weather strips, cat whiskers, steering coupler restoration, making the instrument panel lights work and other misc. electrical (eg. relays for head lights, H4s). Some repair on the driver side seat frame and driver side quarter window mechanism repaired. Some touch up color coating on the vinyl and plastic interior.
Next in plan is to update the electrical system. Ammeter was already by-passed and fixed but +50-year-old wiring start to be brittle and I have had to spend some time tracing up earth faults, bad connectors... Better to upgrade all and then not need to worry about it anymore.
The engine has, for some reason, the old TRW domed pistons, so compression is too high for pump gas (around 12:1) and timing is retarded a lot to avoid detonation. Fixing the pistons and engine is in plan 2023-2025. Nothing too dramatic will be done as it is a street car only and we want to keep it somewhat factory "look alike" in the engine compartment (keep the low block 383, possibly make the air grabber complete with baseplate, non-factory visible only the bolt ons like headers, carburator).
Plan is to keep the car, take good care of it and little by little put effort to have both the looks and functionality in good order.
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