1970 Dodge Charger R/T from Sweden by Emma Gustafsson

Matching numbers, 440 sixpack, 4-speed with Dana 60
imported from Pennsylvania December 2010, was restored and finished 2014.

This is a great readers ride submission for a number of reasons.
Sweden has a long history of importing American muscle cars, so it’s great to have an in-depth story about one of these unique vehicle from this part of the world. Not only that, this shows how from an early age, Emma became hooked on the muscle car scene, to eventually become a mechanic herself.
Over to Emma to explain the story…….

‘In 2008 the Charger was for sale in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, US, but wasn’t for sale.
My dad later found it on eBay in 2010 and it was actually sold to somebody else. A few weeks later my dad thought he could just call the seller and see what had happened to the car and the owner apparently got into a fight with the guy who wanted to buy the car, so he asked my dad if he wanted to buy it.
He had 5 min to decide if he wanted it and without asking my Mom’s permission, he told the man he would buy it.
In December the car arrived in Gothenburg, Sweden. It arrived ready to drive, working properly, but with bad paint and small rust holes you could see from the outside. I was 11 at that point.

In 2011 he started stripping the car down, more and more and more. At the end of 2011, there was nothing but the body left and it took a year for us to strip it down, then in 2013, he had the car painted after he welded the disaster we found in the trunk and floor.

This is when I started coming in the picture, as I didn’t know how to weld back then, but now I had the chance to work on the car.
I got my first mission to dissemble the Dana 60 and put it back together with some new things, painted the blades for it while my dad was restoring the original 440 +6 engine that came with the car from the factory.

We’ve done everything with the car in or around our 45 square meter garage, except painting the top of the car. Every part that had been painted was painted in there.

The owner of a local paint shop made it possible for us to build a cart for the engine so we could lower the car down over the engine, as we didn’t have much space in our little garage compared to his.

After 3 1/2 year (2014) the car was done. The car was finally restored to its original condition. My dad has a book in his night table and it’s probably got 200 pages containing all the original screws on a ’70 Charger and what things the screws were treated with and where they should be in on the car.

We went everywhere that year in the car and ended up in 2 magazines in Sweden, Gasoline and POWER magazine.
We won third price in the world’s largest muscle car meet ( Västerås Power meet).

I’m now 17 and studying to be a car mechanic in a school only focused on people who want to work with cars and trucks.
My dad never went to a school to learn his skills, he was self taught to be a mechanic, a painter and someone who worked with the body of the car.
Right now I have just bought myself my first car, a 1972 Dodge Demon that is being restored in our new garage that is over 100 square meters.
A dream come true. We now have 4 cars, 3 we are restoring and 2 of the cars being ours.’

by Emma Gustafsson

For all muscle car parts – http://fastmusclecar.com/muscle-car-parts/

 

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