Story #12
 
 
The Canadian Puddle Runner
 
 
The summer of 1984 was a great time for cruising the local strip in the small town of New Castle, Indiana. People would travel from the larger cities of Richmond, Muncie, Anderson, even Indianapolis to get in on the action. It would take an hour to get from one end to the other of the 2 mile stretch. As I was sitting in traffic, in the opposite direction came an orange 1969 Road Runner with a black 6 pack hood, 15 x 3 1/2" Centerlines up front, 15 x 10" Centerlines out back. The flat black bumpers and a sinister rake front to rear made it look like it meant business. The rumble of headers and turbo mufflers was the icing on the cake. I was able to catch the guy in a parking lot later that evening and found out it was a rare six pack car. On that day I said that car would one day be mine, whatever it took. I became friends with the owner and would occasionally mention that I was interested in buying buy he wouldn't budge.  
 
Fast forward to 1998, I was nearing a divorce with my (now former) wife when my friend Mike L. called to say that Terry's orange Road Runner was finally for sale. Unfortunately it was the worst timing ever, I had to pass on it. Another buddy of mine (Mike M.) got a call from me to let him know he better get it fast. He has owned it since.  
March 1999 was a fresh beginning to my life.  
 
There was a message on my answering machine from Mike L. saying that my dream car was for sale in Hemmings Motor News, a Vitamin C orange (now blue) A12 Road Runner coupe 4-speed, numbers matching, the bad news is that it's in Calgary Alberta Canada. After looking at photos which the owner sent, I made the deal and had it shipped to Toronto via United Van Lines. They assured me it would be kept inside until we picked it up. Mike L. and I drove 10 hours to Toronto arriving on Saturday morning, there wasn't a soul around. I finally found an open door where a customer window and doorbell were. I asked the attendant where my car was, he said "oh, the blue one, it's out back". "Do you mean inside the back of the building?", he said "no, it's outside".  
 
We drove around back to find it sitting in the middle of the only mud puddle in the whole parking lot! All we could do is just laugh and get it out of there. Bringing it back across the border was fun, the Border Patrol Officer seemed to have a problem with me and the car. We had to fill out an Export form, at that point, most of the Officers were checking it out and were very nice, we just got the grumpy one, they didn't seem to like him either.
 
When buying my Road Runner and thinking about others that were here in Indiana, I started documenting them and now my A12 list has grown to nearly 800 cars from all over the world.  
 
The restoration work was done by myself including bodywork. I didn't paint it like originally planned because I felt it needed a professional job.  
 
There are so many other details to this story that I've left out trying to keep the length of the story manageable. Hope you have enjoyed it.

Story #14
 
 
The Bad A$$ Road Runner
 
 
Actually it’s a long story that almost started as an A13 one.  
 
In the fall of ’68 I got a good paying job in the steel industry and wanted to buy a ’69 383 Dart GTS and started to buy and read every magazine that had anything in it about the GTS when I spotted a small side bar article about Dodge actually going to do a 440 Dart GTS (A13 package) like the Mr. Norm GSS 440. So I start to call every Dodge dealer in my area and no one knew anything about it.  
 
One day I ride my motorcycle down to the local hometown Dodge dealer, walk in and ask the first salesman I see if he has any info on the 440 Dart GTS and he kind of chuckles and says no and then yells to another sales guy down a hallway in the back “Hey, Bob a kid out here is saying they are putting the 440 in the Dart, ya know anything about that?” Bob in the back laughs even louder than the first sales guy and yells back “yeah I hear they’re going to put the hemi in the station wagon for mom too”, and more laughing between the two of them. I walked out of there pretty mad and embarrassed and went home.  
 
My mom and dad were going to have to co-sign the loan and when I told them I was at the Dodge dealer looking at a Dart not mentioning the GTS or the A13. The fact that they had never had a new car and the fact that I had three brothers and three sisters and they were all going to need a ride to somewhere in it, mom just had to ask “why are you getting a COMPACT CAR?” I still think that question is funny even funnier now when you know the size of current COMPACT CARS, you could almost fit one into the trunk of a Dart now LOL.  
 
So I change my plan and because the road runner was a mid-size car and it was pretty affordable I go with my dad to the Plymouth dealer that a good friend of his is head of sales and we sit down and order the road runner. If it would have been left up to mom and dad it would have had a bench seat and a slant six or 318 at the most and a three on the tree if that was standard issue (laugh). I of course had done my research and ordered the hardtop, in F5 green, with black buckets and a console and the 3.91 Suregrip “for traction in the snow dad”, the air grabber, power steering (for mom of course) hood stripes, light package and the Torqueflite (that will eventually lead to the first A12 encounter)!  
 
The car was ordered at about the A12 first release (late February / March ’69) and there would have been no chance for me to order a car that mom couldn’t see over the hood scoop and that dad’s insurance would have gone through the roof as I was not being listed as the primary driver of even the 383 rr. The car takes about five or six weeks to show up and I drive it and get into street races with a co-worker about the third time I take it to work and get pulled over by a cop, ticketed for 45 in a 35 when we were really doing over 100 mph on a long bridge. Turns out the reason he gave us a break was because he had a 390 SC Rambler and set me up with a street race with his buddy that has a 383 road runner months after that ticket.  
 
A couple of months go by and I’m really having a great time with my road runner and then the first encounter with an A12; I’m headed somewhere (?) when I get flagged down by a school mate/friend in a Bahamas Yellow A12, 4-speed, bench, post road runner. I had seen the car around and he bought it off of the same dealer I got my car from but I don’t think he ordered it. Out of the blue he makes me a pleading desperate voice offer of a trade of his A12 road runner plus $500 for my road runner. He figured that my car was optioned about $500 more than his A12 and that I might go for the deal with the additional cash.  
 
I’m confused and surprised and don’t know what to say? At first I thought why did he buy the A12 in the first place if he didn’t want it and I guess that it must be a pain in the butt lifting that hood off and now he’s sorry he ordered a factory drag car? All kinds of things were going through my head and I got this feeling that my car was really nice (which it was) and that I was going to end up with much less of a car in the deal and I said no (stupid me huh?, Kick self again and again). Then he tells me the reason, “My wife can’t drive a stick and she told me that I have to get an automatic family car and sell or trade in the car (A12) or else, you’re my last and only chance of having a ’69 road runner”. What a spot I was in but I just couldn’t do it for a number of reasons and the biggest was that my parents had co-signed for the car and all of the other reasons above with insurance, etc. I had to tell him no, but he called me several times in the next few weeks but I just couldn’t do it.  
 
Fast forward to the first year return to Columbus for the Mopar Nat’s and I’m in a restaurant parking lot near Brice Road and talking to a guy that is from my hometown area and an A12 road runner goes by and he tells me “Nice cars those lift off hood cars”, I tell him about my A12 and he tells me about the guy that still has one that “the guy bought it new back in ’69 and almost sold it back then because his wife couldn’t drive a 4-speed”. HE STILL HAS IT, I wonder if he wants to trade me for my ’68 AUTOMATIC hardtop road runner, plus $500 of course.  
 
I sold my ’69 road runner in the late ‘70’s and through the ‘80’s I wanted to get it back or find one like it so in the mid ‘90’s I had a friend that was still into Mopar’s in the Dayton, Ohio area that I ask if he would keep an eye out for a driver ’69 road runner. He chased a few 383 cars around but could never hook up with the owners and then found an A12 runner in Indiana.  
 
He tried for weeks to go look at the car but it never happened so he call and told me he was giving up. A week later he called me and told me a customer of his told him there’s a for sale ad on a bulletin board at an engine builder speed shop and that he would get him the phone number, he thought it might be an A12 road runner. I get the phone number and call and it turns out to be a really nice guy by the name of Scott and he tells me it was an old ad and that he’s changed his mind and he was going to restore the A12. He’s pretty proud of the A12 and very knowledgeable about A12’s and Mopar’s and tells me it’s Y4 Spanish Gold and that there’s only one other gold A12 that is known now but it’s a hardtop and this is a coupe.  
 
I’m bummed because once again a dead end search but I leave him my number if he ever changes his mind. Months go by and I’m in Georgia on business and I check my voicemail and sure enough it’s Scott and he wondering if I’m still interested in the A12 rr? I call him and set it up to drive to the Columbus area the following Sunday to look at the car and bring it home if I can. I call my friend and one of our racer’s brother Gary Pl that knows Mopar’s and I even call and talk to Galen (wow those were the days lol) and they all tell me what to look for. Galen tells me he knows the car and tells me what he thinks its worth. Scott gives me a price below what Galen said was the very low side so I’m feeling good that I might be able to swing the deal.  
 
I get the truck and rent a trailer the next Sunday morning and as I’m leaving the house my wife sees the trailer and she’s standing on the porch holding our then 4-month old baby and she asks; “where are you going with a trailer?” to which I answer “to look at a car”, she replies “if that car is too nice to drive then you better not be spending any money on it because we can’t afford it, and if it doesn’t run you better not bring that junk back here”. The “if it doesn’t run” words haunt me the entire way to Scott’s house. Sure enough when Scott opens the garage door there’s the engine block sitting in the one corner, the heads in the other, quarter panels over there, hood over there, transmission there, seats there, you get the picture. The whole time Scott is telling me about the car and all of the parts he has for it like the hard to find (even then) original air filter base, date correct carbs, NOS air filter, new headliner, etc., and how odd this color and options are, the little voice of my wife’s last words “if it doesn’t run you better not bring that junk back here” is getting louder and louder. Well it ends up that Scott tells me that he is in a predicament that he bought another car to go bracket racing and that he really needed to sell the car and he would consider and offer no matter how ridicules so we work something out and push the A12 onto the trailer.  
 
When my wife saw the A12 being pushed off of the trailer with the help of a neighbor she was fuming and stayed that way. I took a lot of heat from her for months and later that year Scott had gotten caught up with his projects and wanted to buy the car back but I had endured the worst of my wife’s wrath by then and had already found some more parts to complete the car.
 
Then Scott called me again a few months after that and told me that he found another A12 this time another rare color of R6 red but it had been painted gunmetal gray but for sure it was R6 and a 4-speed. He faxed me a copy of the broadcast sheet and sure enough that’s what it was. He started to restore it and then had to sell it back to the guy he bought it from and then it was sold to a very FAST Chef whose son now races the Rare color A12, wink, wink, wink. A little side note when it was first posted that this FAST Chef got this A12 and I pm’d him and asked if it was VIN XXX he was surprised and asked how I knew, I told him about Scott and the broadcast sheet. Don’t worry I have never shown it to anyone.  
 
I took my wife to the last Mopar Nat in Indianapolis and that’s the first time that she had been to a car swap meet and when she saw the prices for “that junk” her eyes lit up with Christopher’s College Fund sitting on black steel wheels and it’s never been the same since then, I shouldn’t have done that.  
 
Now for a little history on the Y4 A12 road runner; Scott told me how he ended up with it through a guy up in Youngstown, Ohio that didn’t want an A12 “CHICKEN” and was looking for an A12 Bee. I got the guy’s phone number but he was impossible to get a hold of but when I finally did he turned out to Bee one of the most awesome Mopar guy you ever could meet. He (let’s call him GT for now) told me how he bought the A12 Chicken from a guy that got it as a graduation present back in March of 1971 and it was bought off of a used car lot in Youngstown name…..and this is the truth and remember this is a ROAD RUNNER…the used car lot was named ACME MOTORS. No lie. The A12 chicken was a heavy street racer and its reputation was well known throughout Northeast Ohio. The hood got blown off and run over when it was left unpinned during a street race, a dealer’s service tech kept it over the weekend one time and took it to the local drag strip without the owner’s knowledge. When GT bought the car he saw photos of the car back in ’71 and it had GTX trim on it and the rear mounted antenna so it’s still a mystery when it got on there or when the antenna was moved. I traced the car back to Baldwinsville, NY (that’s funny too for those who know me LOL) and I talked to friends and family of the kid that got it for graduation all over the Midwest from Kansas City to Dayton to the Youngstown but never to the kid himself.  
 
I went on the original Six Pack website back in the late ‘90’s and posted as A12 because that was the package option and one person posted about they had heard that the A12 fender tags were not painted and used JD’s black A12 road runner as an example.  I replied that my A12’s fender tag was completely unpainted and gave some lame azz reason why I thought they were not painted and kept that folklore and dig going ever since, it been a gas doing too.  
 
One thing out of all of this A12 stuff that was the best thing to ever happen was I got to talk to and help D.ick Maxwell and it happened just by chance. As some of you know I work for a motorcycle manufacture that makes racing bikes mostly dirt racing bikes and the organization that handles the sanctioning is the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) base in the Columbus, Ohio area so most of the AMA staff know of the Mopar Nat’s, Brice Road. I got a call from a long time friend and AMA official and as we were talking I mention I was down there for the Mopar Nat’s and then he tells me how he was just talking to D.ick Maxwell who called to see if he still had the Lil’ Red Express info as he had bought the LRE from D.ick when D.ick had worked for the AMA after he retired from Chrysler. D.ick was an avid motorcyclist (as was John Wehrly and other Chrysler R&D guys). He asked if I would call D.ick and give him some leads to info on the LRE as he was doing an article for a magazine about it. I did and when D.ick asked if there was anything he could do for me I told him that I was looking for info on my A12 and he got really excited and started to tell me about how they were not done completely on the assembly line and this was the first time I heard the term Fleet Engineering and Product Planning when D.ick told me their role. He told me about the garden hose and the A12 on rollers to prove to “upper management” that the open hood scoop would not be a problem in the rain with the corner drains the screwed in. We talked many times after that as he tried to find info for me and find people in Chrysler Archives and people that were working on the W. P. Chrysler Museum. I never knew until 2005 at the Carlisle A12 Reunion when Tom Hoover said “The A12 was D.ick Maxwell’s project” and why what D.ick said seemed so dear to him and he said it with a sparkle in his voice; “Mike I can say it now but I couldn’t say it back then, this (A12) was the last bad ass street car we could build”.  
 

Story 16
 
 
Car 300 on the Lift Off Registry
 
 
One of my first miserable car memories was the six of us driving 18 hours to Florida in a dodge Omni 4 door hatchback- with no air. It was FK5. Dark burnt orange metallic. I call it brown… I don’t know where the orange comes from; maybe from the color of an orange after it rots, minus the blue green algae.  But, that’s where it began, and this is how it ends; with the story of how I found one of the rarest Mopars of them all. A 1969 ½ A12 roadrunner.
 
My dad has always been a Mopar fan. For as long as I can remember.  I remember him taking every last dollar out of his savings, and buying Chrysler stock when it was $5 a share. He just knew Iacocca would bring them back from the brink of bankruptcy, and he was right. And so began my love of anything Mopar.
 
My job takes me into rural western Kentucky, and I usually spend my lunch hour driving around back roads looking for old cars, but so far, that “barn’ find had eluded me. This day started like any other day, full of hope and possibilities, but it was overcast with a slight drizzle; just enough so that it made finding the right intermittent wiper speed was frustrating. Like a sign from above, the rain stopped just as I pulled into the local gas station.  After buying my usual lunch fare, which consisted of a coke and some Jack Links beef jerky, I asked the girl at the counter if she knew of anyone around there that had any old cars.  She said she didn’t, but nodded towards two old farmers sitting in a booth near the deli counter, implying that they might.  
 
“Anyone around here you know of have any old cars?” I asked nonchalantly.  
“Ol’ Jim Denning had some, but he’s dead. Passed away last month,” one replied.
“Naw, it was more than a month.”  
“ ’Bout the time the last big rain came through”, the other one said. The next five minutes was spent arguing about exactly when Mr. Denning had died, something I didn’t have time for or care about, for that matter. As I stood listening, hoping to hear what kind of cars he had, I noticed dried tobacco spittle cracking in the corners of their mouths as they talked. Finally, one turned to me and said, “nuts, this old bastard don’t know anything.  Half the time he can’t find his way home.”  
   “Well, I know you’re so deaf, when a cow farts, you think it’s the dinner bell, and lifts its tail lookin’ for dinner,”  the other retorted!
“Do you have an address?” I asked, laughing under my breath.  “Yeah, go out Rt. 97. That’s Greenleaf if you’re comin’ from town. Turn right on 1240, and the house is on the left just past the driveway with the wagon wheels.”  
 
I decided it would be better if I got the address from the phone book, and punched it into my GPS.  Another wild goose chase, I thought to myself as I turned up the gravel driveway. The house had plain white vinyl siding, and a green metal roof. The grass in the front yard was overgrown.  My suspicions were confirmed as I noticed the cab of an old Chevy pickup in the weeds next to a dilapidated barn. Next to it was an old Nova, and a 71 Camaro rusted almost beyond recognition.  I got out and walked up to the door, and knocked. After a few seconds, an older lady opened the door. I was in the neighborhood, I explained, and liked old cars.  I asked if they had any for sale…She told me her husband had passed away 3 months ago, but the cars in the yard were her brothers. As I turned to go down the stairs, she said, “The only car my husband had was an old race car. Do you want to see it?” “No,” I said, “I’m not really into race cars.” She sounded lonely, and was most likely making conversation, I thought to myself.  
 
“We moved down here 30 years ago from up north,” she continued.
“Uh huh, well, nice talking with you,” I said as I turned,  trying not to be rude, but ready to leave.
“My husband retired from Chrysler in Detroit. He liked to fish, and always wanted to live down here near the land between the lakes.”
 
I stopped dead in my tracks and slowly turned around. If I had turned as fast as my heart was beating, I would have scared her. I asked what he did, hoping that my excitement was concealed. Something in the promotions department, she said, but she wasn’t really sure. “He always told me their race cars were secret, and I couldn’t keep secrets!” She laughed. Maybe I need to see this race car, I thought to myself, as I asked what kind of race car it was, curiosity getting the better of me.  
 
“I don’t know. He never really drove it.  It only has 93 miles on it.”  
I swallowed hard and hoped she didn’t notice it as I struggled for air. We walked past the barn to a metal shed that had been hidden from view and she slid open the door. There was the unmistakable rear of a ’69 roadrunner, but it had been painted purple.
 
I asked when it had been re-painted.
“Oh, never. That’s the way it came from the factory,” she replied.  I knew she was mistaken, since plum crazy didn’t debut until ’70, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She continued. “That color was my husband’s idea. It was a new color and wasn’t supposed to come out until the 1970. My husband told me it was a promotional car, so they painted it that color just for him.” As I looked at the fender tag, it was coded C7, but no A12 designation. The second fender tag said “Special” and underneath “Chrysler Promotions Car”. In disbelief, I looked back at the first tag and noticed E87, followed by D21… At this point, I was beginning to believe I had stumbled on to something rare, so I looked at the VIN. “RM21M9A….. This car was untouched and the odometer showed exactly 93 miles. Could this be, I thought to myself? I hadn’t noticed, but Ms. Denning had returned with an old briefcase. Over the next two hours, I poured through the contents, reading memo’s issued relating to this special promotions car. A 440 six pack roadrunner, painted a “new” color for 1970,  Plum Crazy, on a new “special” package to be coded as A12. Black and white photos, with her husband standing next to the car. According to Ms. Denning, this car never made it out of the factory when her husband purchased it, as the first prototype for a “drag car”, as she put it. There was a Chrysler internal bill of sale, build sheet, memos, production order form, and too many other documents to list.  
 
Her interruption brought me back. “He never drove it ‘cause he said it was the only one they built like this!” In the meantime, I noticed the black liftoff hood was metal, and hinged on, with hood pins in the front. “If you’re interested, I’ll sell it for $2000. That’s what he paid for it, and I don’t want to lose money since it has low miles. I’ve started it up every month, but it’s real loud.” Her voice trailed off…. “I just hate that it sits here and never got raced. And it reminds me too much of Jim.”  
 
I returned from the ATM in town with $1000 in cash and got a bill of sale, as well as all the paper work, and left to get my trailer 3 hours away.  
 
Finally, I looked up as I heard my daughter come around the corner.  14, 13, 12, and just in time, I clicked on the submit button, then the “confirm bid.” Waiting… then finally, “Congratulations, You Are The Winner!” I had just bought an A12 Roadrunner on EBay.
   “Daddy, what are you doing,” my 4 year old daughter asked? “Buying a Roadrunner,” I replied.
   “Is it purple?”
   “No.”
   “Does it go Beep Beep?”
  “Yes,” I replied.
   “I like that Beep Beep bird!” she said as I clicked “Request Total From Seller.”
   “I know,” I replied, smiling.
 
That barn find still remained elusive. Maybe tomorrow, I thought to myself, as I picked up my daughter, hugged her, and set her back down. She ran off, yelling “beep beep, beep beep.” Maybe, just maybe, the one I didn’t find will be the one she does!
 
And this is how I ended up with Car 300 as I waited to hit the SUBMIT button on the Ebay Auction...the barn find will have to wait for another day.

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Dave