About our cars

Our Darts:

Dad’s Dart – 1970 Dart Custom

 I can still remember going with my Dad to Smith Motors in Whitemarsh, Maryland on my birthday in 1970 and looking around for a replacement for my family’s 1965 Dart 270.  I got down on my knees and begged my father to buy the Plum Crazy 1970 Swinger 340 on the showroom floor with the twin chrome exhaust tips and the twin hood scoops.  Dad finally bought a demo 1970 Dart Custom with a 318, automatic, a/c, and lots of extra trim.  It cost $3200.00.

In 1972 I got my license and Dad insisted that if I wanted to drive, I had to take an auto mechanics course at the local community college.  I took over maintenance of the Dart doing tune-ups, oil changes, lubes and cosmetics.  Dad decided to get yet another Dart, and I bought this one from him.  Over the next few years I installed headers, a manifold and four barrel on the 318 and replaced the original 7 ¼ rear end with an 8 ¾ when I tore out the spiders.  I ran a $20 set of rally wheels with 70 series belted fiberglass tires.  I also dated a young lady and married her in 1976.

In 1976 I got the chance to buy a 340 – ’68 block, T/A heads, 10.5:1 pistons.  It was my dream motor and I bought it from a machinist going out of business.  He built the motor as a part of the deal.  I ran the car as a well cared for driver for the next 7 years.  In 1983 I added the factory cold air hood and had the car painted.  By 1986 the engine needed a rebuild, and the paint looked bad.  I swore that I wouldn’t rebuild the car again until I had a place to store it.  In 1986 I built a shop and stored it all away.  In 1999, 13 years later, I finally got back to it and here is the result.  Paint and most of the restoration was completed in 1999-2000.  Various mechanical upgrades have followed, because I just can’t seem to leave well enough alone.  Since 2003 I worked to make an Edelbrock STR-12 crossram and AFBs a streetable set up, upgraded the suspension and installed front disc brakes.  The car does well at shows as evidenced by a wall of plaques and shelves of trophies. I cruise to most shows with All Around Mopars based on the Kitsap Peninsula of WA.  My first passes on the ¼ mile were at Cecil County Drag-a-way and 75-80 in Monrovia MD, and the car occasionally still takes a few runs at Bremerton Raceway.

Dad died in 1992, and he would be proud of the old car.  He always taught me that if it was worth doing, it was worth doing right.  The young woman that I courted in Dad’s Dart and I have been married over 45 years.  Success in this venture depends on her willingness to support my Mopar madness.  I finally got the car that caught my eye in 1970 and then some!  I can’t tell you the number of stories this car had spawned. 

The Build:

340 cid  LA Engine

1968 block - .040 over

10.5:1 TRW forged pistons

Ported T/A heads with adjustable canted valve gear

Edelbrock STR 12 Crossram intake

Dual Edelbrock 500cfm Performer (AFB) carbs

MSD 6AL ignition with MSD billet distributor

Accurate Limited 2.25 inch exhaust

A727 Torqueflite – Cheetah Valve Body

TCI converter  -  B&M pan & Starshifter

8 ¾ inch Suregrip rear end

Relocated 6 leaf springs – ESPO & Mopar Performance

US Car Tools Frame Stiffening additions

Front suspension from Energy Suspension and PST

SSBC disc brakes/factory 10 inch drums  -  Right Stuff stainless lines

Custom Rallyes from Specialty Wheels 14x6/14x7

Original interior by Legendary

Restorations items from a variety of reproduction sources

All fresh chrome (including bumpers), stainless trim

1970 Fresh Air hood with factory scoops and V21 paint scheme

Factory bumble bee stripe

The Parts Car – 1970 Dart Swinger

In 1989, looking for parts to restore my 1970 Dodge Dart, I came across this ad in Hemmings Motor News:                                                                                                                   1970 Dodge Dart Swinger – 2dr ht 318 V-8, auto, ac, ps  white/black 27,000 miles $2500 firm

I called the owner in Tennessee to ask about the car and he told a tale of moving to a rural farming community in East Tennessee from New York.  He was into restoring old Dodge pick-up trucks and found lots of great projects for sale cheap.  On a whim he posted an ad in the local farm paper asking to buy used Dodge and Plymouth cars, 1963 to 1972, 2 doors only.  He had some luck and had bought several cars, including this Dart.  He was contacted by the owner’s neighbor, she was elderly and had moved to a nursing home and asked him to sell her car for her.  The New Yorker bought the car for $2000 and was hoping to flip it for a quick $500 score.

My wife, Tina, and I decided to buy the car, drive it until it was used up and use it as a source of parts to restore our other Dart when the time came. We drove to Tennessee, 400 miles from our Southwest Virginia home, plunked down $2500 and drove the car home.  It made it to within 20 miles of home before a brake spring broke and I had to do repairs by the side of the road.

On the way home we stopped by a Tennessee DOT office and paid to get the car’s records. Pieced together with info from the seller, this is what I know:

The Dart was purchased new in June of 1970 by Austin Peay State University in Clarkesville TN from Bob Bennett Dodge.  Four months later it was purchased by Eva M. Manning of Clarkesville from the same dealership.  I have never been able to figure out what the University did with it or if they ever even picked it up.  The car was sold as a new car to Eva, who traded in her 1965 Ford Fairlane 500, and paid $3692.15 for the car with taxes – not much of a deal since Austin Peay SU only paid $3072 for it 4 months earlier!  Eva was in her 60s when she bought the car.  Her neighbor didn’t think she ever drove it out of the county where it was bought.  She had one of those tiny one car frame garages that the car barely fit in and religiously kept the car there and had it serviced at the dealer where it was bought.  We bought it in August of 1989 at 19 years old with 27,000 original miles on the clock.  The car had all the original paperwork and service records with it. The car was and is rust free and had only two minor dents, one in the front fender and one in the rocker panel, when we bought it.

Tina and I drove the car as extra transportation for ten years and kept it in the shop we built a few years earlier.  At that point we made the decision to repaint the car the original color before it started to show its age and start rusting.  I took it to Roger’s Body shop in Pearisburg VA.  Roger, who had a couple of show cars himself, looked over the Dart and declared that he would take the job, but only if it was done right.  He explained to me that I needed to take it home, remove the interior, take everything off the outside of the body, and all he wanted to see under the hood was an engine in a bag.  I agreed and he came and took the car away a couple months later.  When the car was done he delivered it to my garage, and told me of several sources of parts to reassemble the car so that it would look like new.  When finished the car looked pretty sweet so I took it over to show Roger and he approved.  He then gave me instructions to be back at the shop with the car on Friday at 6pm.  I asked why and was told that my job was not to ask questions, my job was to be there on Friday at 6!  Tina and I showed up and followed Roger to Fast Freddy’s Drive In, in Salem VA, where the lot was crammed with 300 muscle cars and hot rods.

 After my first car show, I was hooked. Tina and I drove all over Virginia to show the car, continuing to improve it as we went.  Just two years later we moved to Washington State and I drove the Swinger cross country from coast to coast with nothing worse than a broken headlight, despite driving through blinding snow on the continental divide!  We have shown the car all over Washington and Oregon since 2001, mostly at Mopar events and have a wall of plaques and trophies to show for the effort.  It’s hard to believe that we have had the car since 1989 – over 30 years!

The Build:

The Swinger is very original including the original vinyl top, original interior, repainted in the original color one time, the original mechanical systems have all been rebuilt. 

The original engine was rebuilt at 75,000 miles – standard bore and crank, original rods, pistons and heads.  We used an Edelbrock Performer level kit (cam, lifters, springs, timing gears & chain).  The engine uses a 600cfm Edelbrock Performer (AFB) carb and an Edelbrock Performer intake manifold. Factory 340 air cleaner.

Mopar Performance electronic distributor with FBBO ECU box with rev limiter.

Exhaust is 1968-70 340 manifolds and an Accurate Limited 2.25 inch dual exhaust.

The original Torqueflite 904 has been rebuilt with a Cheetah valve body (A&A).

The original 8 ¾ rear end was rebuilt with a clutch style Sure-Grip and 3.23 gears.

Factory 10 inch drums all around.

The wheels are factory 5.5 x 14 inch rallyes with BFG T/A radials 205-70/245-60.

1970 Dart GT

In 2002 Mike was on the ferry from Vashon to Southworth and spotted a rare 1970 Dart GT that was obviously someone’s daily driver.  He waited for the owner and gave him his card and asked him to call if he wanted to sell it.  So began his friendship with Scott Starr and his association with the All Around Mopars car club.  Scott sold him the car a couple years later and after driving it around for a couple years it went into hibernation in the back corner of Mike’s garage.  Whenever anybody asked, he told them it was his retirement project.  When he retired in 2018, they decided to unite the two dreams and restore the car specifically as a long-distance road trip car.  It took 2 and a half years to tear the car down to an empty shell and rebuild literally every system in the car inside a completely restored shell.

The Build:

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The body was completely disassembled to a rolling shell and all the paint stripped inside and out including under the hood, in the trunk and the whole under side of the floor pan. The interior, trunk and engine compartment were sprayed with epoxy primer and then single stage Plum Crazy paint from 66 AutoColor.  The exterior of the floor pan was painted Chassis Black.  The car went to Innovative Auto Body in Belfair, WA for the body work and exterior paint in factory Plum Crazy paint, but in base coat/clear coat.

Then came reassembly using all restored or new parts including:

Installation of a new upgraded 318cid V-8 (.030 over) with all top of the line heavy duty components. Crane cam, vintage Edelbrock LD-4B intake, Edelbrock 650cfm AVS2

US Car Tool frame stiffening components include subframe connectors and torque boxes

New factory style dual exhaust system using 1968-70 Factory 340 exhaust manifolds and completely new tank and fuel lines.

Installation of a new A500 Torqueflite four speed overdrive automatic transmission - 42RH (most significant modification).

Installation of an 8 ¾ Sure Grip rear differential, housing, axles, 6 leaf springs (moved in ¾ inch on each side) and HD rear drum brakes.

All new and upgraded components for steering and suspension, including factory Firm Feel power steering box and pump, upgraded upper and lower control arms, tie rod assemblies, anti-sway bar, strut rods, Bilstein shocks, and  new factory Kelsey Hayes power disc brakes complete with all new stainless steel brake lines and power disc master cylinder and booster.

Installation of restored factory center console with floor shift modified for the A500

All new factory wiring throughout from M&H.

New chrome bumpers, factory script emblems, door handles, side mirrors, fender and hood moldings

Restored factory rear window defogger system, upgraded factory AM/FM radio with auxiliary input

Restored factory instrument panel with restored dash bezels and  gauges along with a full complement of under dash gauges and a tach.

The entire interior shell is insulated with Dynamat products to modern sound suppression levels

Installed a new custom bucket seat interior using the Dart Custom  ‘high trim’ factory design, but with light metallic silver seat inserts and piping and matching new silver door and rear side panels from Legendary.  All this over charcoal gray carpet.

Installed new modern heating and air conditioning system from Classic Air, and the cruise control.

Even though I have 2 other 1970 Darts that I have completely rebuilt over the last 50 years, this is the first time I ever did everything all at once – not a decision I would make again.