It’s Like Christmas

I’ve recently discovered that I LOVE to order parts for my Challenger. It’s more than just having fun ordering parts, it’s the careful selection of the parts I need, the giddy anticipation of having the UPS driver arrive and the early childhood fun of ripping open packages. It’s just so much fun and has been a long time coming.

I bought my Challenger in about 1991. I was attending community college and was looking for a new (to me) car. I ended up finding it on the trade-in lot of a local Hyundai dealership and in retrospect, probably paid a little too much at the time ($2500). However, I’m extremely fortunate to have the car now because I wouldn’t be able to afford it if I didn’t.

This car was my daily driver throughout the rest of community college, two years of university, the courtship of my eventual wife and about two years of our marriage. At that point, I was driving about 50 miles a day round trip and decided that I’d either need to put a bunch of money into it to be road worth and sound, or park it for an indeterminent amount of time until I could get back to it for a restore.

Fast forward about four years. We’re now in our second home and have our first son who is almost 2yrs old. We figured that we could start on a restoration and I needed to have the car painted.  I took the car totally apart except for the suspension and off to the shop. Last month, the car was painted and I finally brought it home.  My first son was almost 12.  Okay, it took a bit longer than anticipated.

In any case, now it’s here and because of the recent publication of my book, I’ve been able to buy a few parts for it.  Mostly the parts aren’t the fun pieces like carpet or door panels or other large items. I’ve ordered a lot of detail items like weather stripping, sound deadener and insulation. Even though they might not be the most glamorous, the fine detail is where it’s at to implement a fine job.

Over the last couple of weeks, the UPS driver has been here many time. The vendors ship what they can based on inventory. It’s been a great few weeks and now I have a LOT of work to do in restoring the parts that aren’t to go with the new ones as well as putting on the parts that are. Unfortunately, I have too many things on my todo list as well as the weather being too cold and wet for now.  I think I might start on the steering column.

Here’s what it looks like now. Yes, my garage is too small and I’m praying for no earthquakes.