I have always been a Mopar fan, since before I was old enough to drive. My dad had several of the older small block Hemi Mopars back in the late  50’s and early 60’s, while I was growing up in Red Oak. My first new car I ordered was in March of 1968 and received it in June of 1968 from Shorey Motor in Clarinda. It was a Red/Black, 1968 Dodge Charger R/T, 440, 4 speed. I drove it for 3 years before trading it in for a used 1970 Plymouth Fury III from Bartine Motor. It was a hard thing to do, but at that time I was starting a family and gas prices were going up.
From 1971 until 1994  I had forgotten about the Red Charger and then one day I decided to see if it was still around. I called the BH Courthouse and they still had it registered to a guy in Traer. I called him right away but he told me he had just parted it out last month and it was gone, Heart breaker!!
The next year my son in LA found a nice white 1968 Charger, 383, auto, but the motor had been changed to a 440, but it was a solid car. I played with it for a while and decided it wasn’t really what I wanted. I needed that 4 Speed feeling again!! In April of 2001, I told my son in LA that he should go to the Northridge Mopar Spring Fling and check out the Mopars. He called me back the day of the show and told me he found a nice 1968 Dodge Charger that was Black, 383 ci, 4V, 4 SPEED. He stated it was pretty nice on the outside but it needed a lot of work, as every thing else was original and tired. I asked him if I should come out and look at it, but he said it was to too late, as he had already bought it for me. He shipped it back to me in May of 2001 after doing front/rear wheel bearing replacement.
I have since replaced all of the interior with new or repro parts, replaced all the rubber parts, replace wiring, detailed the eng. bay, replaced eng. parts, new clutch, rebuild transmission, replaced all of the suspension components front/rear and the fuel tank. I still have some dash work to do but they say you never finish a car. I also found out when working on it that this was a complete original drive train. This makes it a little more palatable for all the money I have put into it. I love driving it and it has been fun working on it. I have put over 19000 miles on it since I got it and I haven’t broke down once yet, knock on wood.
Back to the part of this story about what happened to my original Red/Black Charger. One day at work I was telling a co-worker about my Black Charger and he told me that a office worker across the room, has five Chargers. I told him to introduce me, so I could talk about Chargers. After a long conversation about Chargers and help with finding parts for this Black Charger it was looking better. One day Carmen mentioned that they used to have a Red/Black 1968 Charger R/T at one time, but had traded it for a 1969 Charger. I showed them some old pictures of my original car, provided the VIN number and to find out, it was my original Red Charger they had for a few years. It is a small world!!