Looks like the 1969 National Plymouth Trouble shooting contest. I believe Mopar used the 69 Road Runner as the contest car (could have been 1968 though).
I graduated high school in 1974. I had a full time job, plus worked on cars as a side job. As a result, I nearly always had a $100 bill in my wallet. By the time the gas prices doubled a few years later, I was already buying Mopars and parting them out. Back then $100 could buy a lot of HP Mopars in some form of distress, and most of them were pretty valuable for selling parts from. I only dealt with Mopars, and the word was out I had cars and parts. The easy to fix cars I fixed and sold, the not so easy to fix cars turned into parts. A lot of HP Mopars passed through my hands, but none were Hemi or 6 pack cars (out of my price range). I was having a lot of fun, and was making some pretty good side money. In the mid 80s the Mopar restoration guys took over the Mopar hobby. The hot rodded HP cars became frowned upon. I turned my attention to older Mopars with the HP drive trains. I've already posted my 70 Road runner here, and I don't have many pictures on this computer of any of my other HP era Mopars, so here are a few of my Mopar powered old Mopars. 35 Dodge 2 door slant back sedan. Mild build 318, 904, 8 3/4 w 3:55 SG. My 54 Dodge 1/2 ton pickup (all 4 pictures were taken the same day, most of the time it looked like the 2nd pic). This truck was the 1st Hemi V8 truck sold in our county, unfortunately, all the OEM Hemi stuff was long gone by the time I got it. The frame was pretty rough too. This one is clipped with an F,M, & J cross torsion bar subframe (it was the hot ticket at the time). It had a 360, 727, 8 3/4 with 3:23 SG. Got to go now, I'll be back with more later.
All of my old Mopars started out as piles of rust that I built into cars and trucks. I don't have the "before" pictures of all of them, but the ones I do have pictures of, I'll post those as well. No nice cars or trucks were hacked up. I'll start with the "before" picture of the 35 Dodge. I do not have the before picture of the 54, the guy that bought the truck wanted all the pictures. The "before" of my 35 Dodge 2 door sedan. Next up, the "before of my 50 Dodge 4x4. The 50 Dodge 4x4 in primer. The blue Dodge in the background donated it snow plow. That same 50 Dodge 4x4 with its first round of paint. That 50 sheet metal is sitting on top of a 1980 Dodge short box 1/2 ton 4x4 chassis. It had a 360 4bbl, 727, full time 4x4 with 3:55 gears, SG in the rear. It was a great work truck for over 12 years, pulled the car trailer great, moved 12" of heavy wet snow with out a care, and hauled way more then should have been put on it a few times. It did get a 2nd blue paint job about 6 years after the 1st one, then one day some lady turned in front of me and it got totaled. I bought it back, but ended up parting it out. Just to prove it was really a snow plow. This 39 Plymouth business coupe came from AZ and was probably the best body I ever had that I built a hot rod out of. I bought the car as a basket case. The guy that got it from AZ to my area couldn't get the Dakota frame and 3.9 V6 to work. I pulled the front sheet metal off of it repositioned the existing Dakota frame, rebuilt the brakes, built new motor mounts, and got it sorted out good enough to make it drivable. Seemed everything I did was a battle. Someone showed up and handed me enough money I let him take it home. The last time I saw the car (a couple years ago) it was blue and looked very nice. This is the only picture I have of this car. I sold my 54 pick up pictured above so I could but this car. After it sold I cleaned up the blue 50 and did several repairs on it before I gave it that 2nd blue paint job. This is the "before" of my 48 Plymouth business coupe. This is the driver side floor board, or more like where it should have been. That mount you see is the front body mount at the firewall. The frame rail would be just past the right side of the picture. That plate with the Philips screw is the lower door hinge in the door post. The floor pan should be over to the door post, then the rocker should have been under the floor. There was no floor, or rocker until you got past the back edge of the door, and the floor that was there ended on both sides of the car at the frame, about 10" inside of the closed door. It looks pretty lost, and the guy that sold it to me thought I was crazy to give him $200 for what was left of the sheet metal, but I had a plan. This Dakota was a donor truck. I bought it because a teenage girl with a new baby didn't know how to drive a manual transmission. He boy friend dumped her after the baby was born and only left her this manual trans truck. She was working, and was getting a tax refund, but it was not quite enough to buy her a car with an automatic trans, she was a couple hundred short. I bought the truck so she could buy the car. This truck only had 112K miles on the V6, 5 speed OD, with a 3:55 limited slip rear. The truck really was pretty clean. It hatched the plan to throw together a street version of an old dirt track car. The plan was to use this chassis, put a 4 point roll cage on, it find an old Mopar body, attach it to the cage and paint a number on it to represent an old dirt track beater to go to the ice cream store or drive a bit on nice sunny days. If it lasted a year or two that would be great. The 48 Plymouth coupe turned up about a month later. This is the 48 Plymouth coupe heading home. it was also probably the last thing the truck did. it got killed a few months after the coupe got home. Some of the money from the wrecked truck funded the 48 coupe build. The 48 Plymouth after the 1st build. Then there was this distraction, a 1939 Dodge pickup. I don't have any before pictures, but I bought the sheet metal laying on the ground at the Spring Jefferson swap meet. It was all set up to look like a truck. I always like this body style, but the trucks were hard to find, and usually expensive. I paid $500 for the sheet metal. Brought it home on one of those 2 wheel Harbor freight trailers. it sat in my yard (set up just like it was at Jefferson) for probably a year as I tried to figure out what I was going to do with it. Then I stumbled across a rear wheel drive Dakota frame dirt cheap, then I stumbled across a 97 5.0 Magnum out of a Dakota RT with its 46RE trans. I had a 3:23 9 1/4 rear end laying around, and the little truck just came together really fast. Those ugly tan painted slotted wheels are slightly rusted 15 x7 Little red express wheels. The little truck was pretty light, pretty quick, and a whole lot of fun, but I just didn't fit in it very well. I couldn't drive it more then an hour before I had to get out of it. That doesn't work for us, so up for sale it went. The inside of the little orange truck. It needed a 2" deeper cab. The business end of the little orange truck. The guy that bought it was 5" shorter then I am, he fit well and loved it too. He put some torque thrust wheels and headers on it. In about a year and a half, he collected 3 tickets and was on his 3rd set of rear tires. He has sold it to another guy. Roomer is, he is enjoying it as well. That guy fell in love with the Allis Chambers orange paint and the little truck. Before the little orange truck sold, I stumbled across this one on FB Market place. It came with all the sheet metal except the tailgate, it had a State of MM issued title, and an already shortened Dakota 4x4 chassis. This one has a 7"longer cab, from the firewall to the back of the cab then the little orange 39 cab was. The price was really cheap. I just had to but it, even before the orange one sold. It cost me more to get the truck and then the frame home then I paid for the truck. I'm posting this, then I'll be back to finish the story.
So that was going to last a year or two, back in 2012 was still here in 2018. It had been a summer driver since it was licensed back then. The car drove great and had been stone reliable. The V6 5 speed worked great. We started using the car as a vacation car. My wife loved that 6' deep truck when we went on vacation. any one with a wife understands that one. At that point the car was driven 80,000 miles through 27 different states! When the car was built, I never expected it to last ore then a couple years, so several things that could have been easily fixed then, simply were not. After all those years and all those miles, those things needed to be fixed at that point. The winter of 2021 was the time to do it. The little orange truck was done, I had just completely retired from doing other peoples work, my fully equipped welding shop was empty, and I had plenty of free time. Everything the coupe needed got fixed then, and it got a new paint job. This time it was sprayed on real automotive paint, sprayed by a real painter. And while I was at it, I had a real sign painter paint the number on the door. Here its still sporting the blue wheels and does not have the number painted on it yet. The first day out in the sun after the lettering was done. Pictures were taken at my sisters house. Backing up just a little. This is a picture on my retirement! The little orange truck sitting, waiting for spring so I can hit the car shows and sell it. that car show season never happened in 2021. The coupe on the driveway with one of the major repair items it was going to need. The frame work around the rear window was leaking water, not through the rubber seal, but through the sheet metal with rust holes that surrounded the rubber that held in the rear glass. This 39 Fore split rear window replaced the Plymouth window and its surrounding sheet metal. As you can see it was going to fit very well. I think Plymouth should have done this to the rear window instead of what they did. Sitting to the left of the orange truck is the mocked up 49 Dodge pickup I drug home from MO. In the pic it strapped onto the 4x4 frame it came with and the front sheet metal was clamped, bolted and zip tied in place so the truck could ne moved. It would be the next summer before it got its chance in the garage.
The Jalopy Journal
