1970 Dodge Challenger

R/T

383 Magnum

Automatic

JS23N0B

Clear

Gasoline

1970 Challenger R/TThe Public Relations Car This is a restoration project. You are bidding on a stripped, rolling body with most everything pulled off of it years ago. I have numerous pictures of it being worked on 27 years ago. It has always been stored inside since I bought it and kept it dry. It has been in the really nice metal building that you see it setting in, since 1990 when that building was erected. The car was wet sand blasted in 1988, metal patch panels were installed where needed, as well as a reproduction front drivers side floor pan and a LH fender skin. The roof, cowl, the rest of the original floor, inner fenders, front and rear sub-frame rails and RH quarter panel (has a patch behind wheel opening) and the trunk (were also properly patched where needed) are all very solid. You are going to love the body on this one, as it has fantastic bones that you seldom find. The body was shot with epoxy enamel sealer in 1990 after the metal was restored. The first two pictures show the car still together and were taken before it was taken apart in 1989. Those pictures are to give you an idea of what it would look like finished. Actually if you looked at the Dodge new car brochure for 1970, it has a red Challenger on the front that looks just like this car. HISTORY This unique FE5 Rallye Red Challenger R/T was ordered by Dodge in the winter of 1970 as a Public Relations car for the new car show in the spring of 1970. It was built two units after the first Panther Pink Challenger made by Dodge, which was the well documented 440-6 pack Challenger convertible SHOW CAR that was built for the new car spring show. The pink car was a 4 speed car, with a white interior, hood blackout and was one of two Challengers ever made with a chartreuse longitutidinal R/T stripe. The pink car was featured in Mopar Collector's Guide a few years ago and is well known to E-body collectors. The existence of this restoration project was mentioned in Mopar Collector's Guide in 2006 when another of my sunroof Challenger R/Ts was featured. What this means, is that this red public relations car was ordered for the spring new car show in 1970!!! This build order was verified by Barry Washington, keeper of the 1970 Hamtramck registry, when I sent him the specifics and VIN on this car. The current owner of the pink convertible show car also verified that this red car was in fact built two units after it. He voluntarily contacted me during the auction the first time this car went up but didn't sell. I also had the owner of this car from 1981-86 contact me and I can put you in contact with him. I WILL NOT LIST THE SEQUENTIAL NUMBER OF THE VIN. Sorry! That is to protect the next owner from possible fraud. I have the typical factory documentation to back up what I am claiming here regarding options and who ordered it new-fender tags, nice Broadcast Sheet, original dash & door VIN tag. I have known how to decode the tags and Broadcast Sheets for 30 years. As a matter of fact I got all of those codes from the previous owner of this car when I bought it. He went on to amass a large collection of E-bodies. I had another Challenger decoded by Govier in 1986. I have written several articles for E-body and club newsletters and even published a newsletter for awhile too. You can trust me. This Challenger is one of the most expensive E-bodies ever made with a factory list price of $5572.25! Wow! That was some huge money back in 1970. There were no Cudas made in 1970 or 71 with the M51 power sunroof option. A Cuda convertible was cheaper than a Challenger R/T with a sunroof, since the Cuda had a lower base price than a Challenger R/T. The Cuda with the same equipment as a Challenger would always be cheaper than the R/T for obvious reasons. This loaded Challenger was more expensive than all of the 70-71 Cudas made-period, even Hemi Cudas. The prices below came from the spring 1970 Dodge Salesman price pocket guide, published in the winter of 1970. A/C was a high dollar option that could only be ordered with a 2bbl. or 4bbl. engine. Automatic transmissions and power options were not cheap either and quickly upped the price. The power sunroof option was the next most expensive option after the Hemi engine. Make no mistake that while there isn't a official list or ranking of the most expensive E-bodies made, this example is very near the top of it. We would need to know about every single car sold by Dodge and Plymouth in order to make such a list. The sunroof models were the most expensive models made out of all of Chrysler's car lines. OPTION LIST Base Price JS23 $3266.00 Molding Group A63 $37.20 Light Group A01 $41.15 Seat Belt Group C15 $13.75 Protection Group A05 $43.25 Air Conditioning H51 $357.65 Speed Control N88 $57.95 Leather Bucket Seats $64.75 Console C16 $53.35 Locking Gas Cap J46 $4.40 Tinted Glass G11 $32.75 Headlight Delay L42 $13.00 Rear Window Defog H31 $26.25 Painted Sport Mirror LH $15.15 Painted Sport Mirror RH $10.95 Pedal Dress UP J41 $5.45 Disc Brakes B41 $27.90 Power Brakes B51 $42.95 Power Steering S77 $90.35 Power Windows P31 $105.20 Luggage Rack M91 $32.35 AM/FM radio R35 $213.60 Dual Rear Speakers $25.90 6way Seat Adjuster C62 $33.30 Rim Blow Steer S83 $24.60 Power Sun Roof M51 $461.45 Torqueflite Trans. D34 $227.05 Undercoating/hood pad $16.60 Road Wheels W23 $64.95 F70-14 RWL tires T87 $50.10 Collapsible Spare W34 $12.95 Shipping (approx.)* $100.00 TOTAL $5572.25 *I don't know the exact amount that would have been charged for shipping this car. Since it was meant to be used by Chrysler for promotional purposes, who knows if they even made a window sticker for it or assigned a amount for shipping on such a sticker? There was a new car show held in Detroit and New York City that spring, so it could have been used at either show or maybe both. This car comes with a lot of rare and valuable spare parts that you are going to need to restore it and they are the most difficult parts to locate. It is not numbers matching, though the rear end and trans may be original. Keep reading because even if you can't swing the price, it is still a very interesting car. It requires someone with either the skills to restore it themselves or the money to do so. This heavily optioned car had just about every option...the expensive M51 power sunroof/vinyl top and then power everything including windows, steering and disc brakes. It came with a six-way adjustable seat, Rim Blow steering wheel, cruise control (holy cow bat man!), AM/FM stereo radio, five speaker system and rear defogger, leather front buckets and SE style door panels, A/C, console, light package, tinted glass and Space Saver Spare. Outside it had a Flip Top Gas Cap, Road Wheels, wide rocker panel moldings and a luggage rack-both rare options. It also had dual painted sport mirrors, bumper guards and the obligatory side door moldings that most Public Relations cars had. The car was originally equipped with a 383-4bbl. Magnum motor, Torqueflite transmission and 3:23 Sure Grip rear end and front and rear sway bars, shod with F70-14 RWL tires on Road Wheels. Original colors are shown in the first two pictures. Impressive? Hell yes it is! This is a piece of Chrysler history, not just one of 2,000 V-code six pack Challengers or some 318 cloned Hemi car. It is a true one of one and will be a very exciting car when properly restored. Magazine feature? You can just about bet on it! This is the only one like it and it is historically significant to boot! The car comes with its original factory documents including a Broadcast Sheet, both fender tags (it's a 2 tag car), the door VIN tag which is still on the door, as well as the original dash pad with the VIN tag on it. The dash VIN tag is in nice shape. too I bought this car in November 1987 from a collector and vintage car speculator in Colorado. It had lived there for some time and came with a Colorado title and tags. I assume Chrysler auctioned this car off after the new car show was over in the Spring of 1970. Hard to say where it went after that, but it was living in Colorado for awhile as evidenced by its condition and the fact that the owner from 1981-86 lived near Colorado Springs and bought it from a used car dealer there. I began to restore the body in 1988 and got pretty far with it. The car was taken apart, but the doors were left on it. I wet sandblasted most of the body, using 40 bags of silica sand in the process. I have pictures of it being blasted in my backyard in Delray Beach, Florida, but they are not in this auction. The key here is that I wet sandblasted it, so the metal did not warp during the process. The water cooled the metal while the sand stripped it. Few Challengers had their bodies stripped in that time period. At the same time (late 80s) that I was working on the red public relations car, I had another Challenger R/T sunroof car being restored at a shop in Minnesota. That same shop actually restored the panther pink Challenger show car I mentioned above, some 14 years later. This other sunroof Challenger was acid dipped. That car was rebuilt on a body jig and had about half of its sheet metal was replaced. Rotissery restorations were yet to be created in the late 1980s. I was way ahead of the times in terms of restoration techniques used on old Mopars. Remember Mark Worman (of Graveyard Cars) who was anxious about sandblasting the '71 Hemi Orange Cuda V-code wreck in the first season of that show? I guess I was light years ahead of him on that restoration technic. I laughed when I saw his angst about dipping the Cuda! After stripping the body of the red car, I found some rust damage, but overall the car wasn't bad. Some patch work was done on the trunk floor (shown) and RH quarter panel. I replaced the skin of the LH quarter and patched the trunk floor extensions. The original sail panels are still in place. I also replaced the drivers floor pan (just the drivers portion). The front part of the car was and still is in fantastic shape without the typical rust. It has a beautiful cowl and roof. Very nice solid car. I have pictures of what it looked like as I stripped and repaired it. Inspecting the rear end of the car the other day when I took some of the pictures, it is still in amazing shape! The rails are solid, the old patch work is like it was done last month. You could even leave the trunk floor as it currently is because it is solid as a rock. In the patch work of the LH side of the trunk floor, we imitated the original water drain channels in the custom made patch. The right side of the trunk only had one small patch in it. The trunk will hold whatever you want to put on it! You seldom find bodies like this any more on unrestored Mopars. I have seen the cancerous E-bodies offered up at the Mopar Nationals in recent years and this one is flipping fantastic! Back in 1989, after stripping it, I used a mild acid to clean up the flash rust left by the water in the blasting process. The water used in the blasting process caused flash rust (as seen in the one picture of the front end, where it looks a rusty brown color). At any rate the self-etching acid acted as both a rust cleaner and a primer and turned the panels a chalky gray color and in some cases black like on the K-frame. There is still some of this primer left on the top of the trunk floor that I meant to remove, but left on as I ran out of primer 27 years ago. After wire brushing the acid primer off most of the car, I sealed up the stripped surfaces with epoxy enamel primer sealer and it has prevented rust ever since. The floor in the passenger compartment is super, although I had to replace an area at the drivers feet. It seems the sunroof drain tube was not properly routed to the outside and it drained directly on the floor! At any rate it rusted. They had just came out with the front floor patch panels and I bought one and installed it. It is now primered green. I will point out that while I did some of the work on the car myself, I can't take credit for a lot of it. I had an experienced body man do the metal work and he was familiar with wet sand blasting cars. We went on to own and operate a body shop together for a short period. His patch brazing work is good and all of it is holding as if it were welded in with a mig. I can send more pictures of the body to serious bidders. At any rate what you will find is a very solid foundation to work with. It is beautiful underneath too! It comes with many of its original parts. Many of these parts are the ones this car was born with. You will have to restore or detail many of them, but they are correct for this car. Included with the car are these major parts and pieces and sub-assemblies: Dash frame, pad, heater controls and instruments (instruments were all working when I got it and the faces are still very nice) Pad is cracked. Dash is complete except missing the speaker coversFront leather bucket seats and back seats and a six way seat adjusterSteering column with cruise control turn signal stalk and Rim Blow steering wheel (wheel is cracked in one spot)Heater box70 style black console (damaged at back)Metal trim that goes around edges of the headliner and windows.New carpet setSE style black front door panels in decent condition, rear black door panels also in decent conditioncars original front fenders (really nice with a couple small patches in them)Trunk lid and luggage rack-lid has beautiful seams without rot.car's original painted sport mirrors front and rear OEM splash pansnice rear bumper and bumper brackets for front and rearSunroof parts-motor (didn't work, but could be rebuilt), cable system, sunroof panel, stainless steel track4 OEM Magnum Road wheels used 14"OEM wide rocker panel moldingspower window motors and tracks Hood hinges, latches, support to attach and secure the hood toGas tank neck Drip rail molding set for side windowsOriginal radiator that could be rebuilt A/C condenserOriginal parking brake setup/proportioning valveCruise control mechanicals/speedo cable for engine compartment8 3/4" rear end with a 3:23 posi gear (or so I believe it is the car's original rear end)Mileage is about 96K according to the odometer Note, the car is missing some parts, but you should be able to locate those parts either as reproduction parts or as used OEM or NOS parts. I may be able to help you with some of the missing parts if you are interested. I can provide a non-matching numbers 383 2bbl. motor that came with the car. It is not installed in the engine compartment. I have a 727 transmission that also was in the car when I bought it. Both are good cores for rebuilding. They are not in the car at present. Your call if you even want them. Please don't expect me to reinstall the drive train for you, as I am too old to crawl around under a low slung car without a lift. The car rolls around, but the steering is not hooked up and you have to turn the front wheels by hand to change direction. The original fenders are really nice pieces. Never dented or wrecked. Each had a slit of rust on the lower corners like a lot of them and have been patched. They are in good restorable condition. The original fenders were made from a heavier gauge of sheet metal than the modern repops are. If you don't like dents when you lean on them while servicing the motor, then the original fenders are the way to go! I will hang both fenders on the car for transportation purposes, like in the one picture. The interior door panels are in good condition. In the picture they are wet, as I had just washed off the dust that was on them from being in storage. You will need to replace the original carpet on the front SE panels. They came from a car without power windows. You will need to trim the holes for the power window switch bezels. The seats are in good condition, although the leather on the drivers seat is wasted. The padding is OK and the frames are not rusty. These buckets would easily go for $1000 at a swap meet. The back seats and passenger seat are in really nice condition considering their age. The track is sitting on the passenger seat. The luggage rack is shown with the seats in one picture. It is in restorable condition for sure. I may have four legs that I can include with the luggage rack. Also shown with the seats is the sunroof panel. In another picture, shown with the steering column is the car's original headliner. That is for your sunroof installer to use as a pattern. There is the rear headliner bow included in the old headliner. I think all the other parts you will need for the sunroof are included. The doors are in good shape without rust and have excellent lips. The original painted sport mirrors go with and need new glass. The left has its remote cable still attached and is working. The sunroof panel is in good shape. I have the back window and side glass for the car. The windshield broke. Maybe you would want new reproduction glass. Your call if you want the original glass. The trunk lid is the car's original (shown in the pictures). It has a really nice lip and is the correct style for a luggage rack car. Note that correct lrunk ids have the raised bumps. The front and rear splash pans are OEM pieces, with the front one being original to the car. The rear blue pan came off of a wrecked R/T-SE U code B5 blue Challenger that I took several parts off of. Just in case you were wondering. They both need some minor work if you want to go with original pieces. I don't have the car's original rear window power window setup, but I do have one from a 84 Lebaron that looks like it may work. It comes with the motor, switches and wire harness. If I were you, I would consider putting in a modern aftermarket power window setup and use the OEM switches. They do make them for a variety of cars. These are to give you a good idea of what I have available. Bear in mind that the parts can be loaded inside the car for transport, but there is only so much space to do store them. I can hang the fenders on the car temporarily and even mount the motor in the engine compartment. The front suspension is only loosely attached to the car as the shocks were disconnected form the towers. The steering column is not in the car either. You have to manually turn the wheels to make it turn. It does roll around OK. OK, what we have here is a 1 of 1, historically significant, one of the most expensive E-bodies ever made, nice color combination and some very cool original options. All of these parts are worth an easy $10K alone. The body is fantastic and we all know you can't buy a good rolling body for under $15K by itself that was just anybody's old car. I am not available in the evenings Monday-Friday, but am on the weekends. Email me first if you are really hot for this car and I might send you my phone number. The car is located near Peoria, IL. I-74 runs through Peoria and I am 35 miles west of there. I know this car isn't meant for everyone. I want it to go to someone who has the means and desire to restore it right. I have been saving it and preserving it for a long time. I bought my first Challenger in 1975 and have owned one continuously ever since, so I know them well and what they are worth. This car was also mentioned in a feature article about my other Challenger in Mopar Collector's Guide in 2006, so it has already had some publicity! It is a known quantity. No one has seen it in the last 25 years. So, yes, there are some barn finds out there still-but not many. Thanks for looking at this auction! Hope you enjoyed it. TERMS: Buyer must arrange for pick up and transportation of the car and its parts within a reasonable period of time. I can continue to store this car for up to 30 days without issue or additional charge. However, I expect full payment sooner than that. I like cash BTW and that is how I want to be paid, but will consider a wire transfer to a designated U.S. bank account. Note no return of car or cancelation of purchase due to a missing part you thought came with the car or the condition of any given part or the body. The car is sold as-is. I described a multitude of parts to the best of my ability. You are bidding and buying with the understanding this car was made almost a half century ago and its parts are the same age and that it is sold as a restoration project, not a complete car. Down payment of $500 is expected within 24 hours (non-refundable deposit) to Paypal. Balance is due within 7 days or later if other arrangements are made with seller. I expect you to send me a message within 24 hours for sure. DO NOT bid if you don't have the money or intend to follow through with the purchase-thank you! On Jul-18-15 at 22:08:58 PDT, seller added the following information: Forgot to add that the radiator support is the car's original and so the sequential number should be on the bottom side as is customary. Same is true for the identifying numbers on trunk lip. They should be there. The car goes with its two original fender tags (super nice), the dash VIN tag (real nice shape), the original door VIN tag is still on the drivers door and in good shape and one super nice Broadcast sheet with all the order codes indicated, VIN clearly visible and Y28 designation in the sales box in the upper right corner. Very legit car! There are a few more parts that I forgot to mention in original auction text, such as the plastic moldings that are mounted between the dash and headliner around the windshield. I have the parts loaded inside the car now. I will replace the old Cragar SS mag you see on the back drivers side and put on one of the Road Wheels that go with the car. Passenger side leaf spring was disconnected when we sand blasted the car, so it sits lopsided. I shipped it this way from SE Florida to central Illinois, which is a 1200 mile trip. Made it fine with no issues. I think it is best if you come and pick it up yourself if you have a truck and trailer to do it with. That way you can take back the engine and transmission without putting it back in the car. I do have a engine hoist to lift engine and trans onto a truck bed if you want them.