Tazet's 69 Dodge Charger.

[tazet]

Went to visit John today to give him some pennies and to see if the car was back from the blasters. It wasn't so just a guick visit with nothing to report on the car. In Johns office is a Pinball machine and the theme is Pinball Wizard. Talk about coincidance.

[BikerGran]

I LOVE Pinball machines!

I'm addicted to all the noises!


 

[VALLEYSBOY]

nice to see its comin along Taz, bloody lucky with the big block donation cracker

[Manky Monkey]

Taz & I nipped over to the restoration company in Cranleigh again yesterday, (about 20 miles from home). The car's still at the shotblasters at the moment -there was no rush to get it back until the next batch of panels arrived from the States & it freed up space in the workshop for other customer's cars.
Our next big box arrived from New Jersey this week though. I'd actually forgotten what we'd ordered so it was like Christmas, unwrapping all the bubble wrapped panels.
We've replaced virtually the entire body now, either with brand new repro panels from Jack's Autos in NJ, or with second hand parts sourced from various Mopar owners over here, plus an entire bulkhead panel taken from a scrapped Charger in Belgium. We started out having never dealt with foreign companies before, but are old hands at it now -this week's batch is our 4th order from the States, with probably one more to go.
Amazingly, none of the panel companies in America are interested in shipping abroad -as far as they're concerned, the World ends at the shores of the Atlantic. Presumably they get enough custom within their own country to make a profit, but they're missing out on a huge foreign market. Jack's Autos are a small, husband & wife company specialising in muscle car parts. They're the only people we've found who were willing to ship stuff to Britain & have been fantastic. Really nice, helpful people. We've almost become pen pals with them now, exchanging holiday photos etc. So they're ordering the panels from the American suppliers, then boxing them up & air-freighting them over to us. The parts are top notch quality, very heavyweight steel with nice crisp detailing -not like some of the paper thin, cr*ppy rubbish you get over here.
So. this week's big box of bits contained:
the entire trunk floor -this is often sold as 2 parts that have to be welded together, but the resto guys were pleasantly suprised to find ours is molded in one huge panel.
The 2 trunk floor extension panels that join it to the rear quarter panels.
The rear valance, (the panel under the rear bumper).
The sail panel, (between the back edge of the trunk lid & the bottom of the rear window).
Both rear wheel tubs.
And a replacement for the front driver's side inner fender. Ours was just about useable but had been badly scrunched then hacked about by a previous owner, trying to bodge up the damage caused by the front end shunt. 

[Manky Monkey]

Taz now has enough new panels awaiting fitting to warrant her own corner of the store room above the workshops.

[Manky Monkey]

JC Restorations specialise in classic Yank cars, with Chargers being John, the owner's, particular passion. They work on modern sports cars as well though & anything else anyone can afford them to do. We strolled into the workshop this week to find the bodywork guy working on an aeroplane!

[Manky Monkey]

Among the classics is this Plymouth. One of only 2 surviving from the Steven King film, Christine, about a car posessed by an evil spirit. Half a million dollars worth of cars were destroyed during the filming. This one belongs to someone in the music business & is a no expense spared, full concourse restoration. When it arrived it was covered in an inch & a half of filler, with the chrome tail fin trims held in place with 3 inch nails! Repro panels aren't available for this model so John's team are rebuilding every piece by hand -& you thought our car was bad!
In the background is a hee-uge '59 Cadillac sedan, one of 3 in the workshops at the moment.

[Manky Monkey]

Huggy Bear -now there was a cool dood.
Remember Starsky & Hutch's Ford Torino? When the TV cop show was on the screen back in the 70s, Ford built a limited run of a 100 replicas. The car on the left is one of them. The one on the right is a donor, being stripped for parts.

[Manky Monkey]

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[Manky Monkey]

Nice old truck with Wild West type canvas top belongs to one of the staff.

[Manky Monkey]

Will Taz's Charger ever look this good? Probably not, but it's not what we're aiming for & ours will have cost only a fraction of this owner's budget. The chassis & bodywork will certainly be beyond question though. Good as new.

[Manky Monkey]

Another of the '59 Caddys & the chassis from another.

[Manky Monkey]

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[Manky Monkey]

This belongs to Andy, the guy who's doing the work on Taz's car. He's cruised all over Europe in it. Hidden under the classic bodywork is a 2 litre Porsche motor.

[Manky Monkey]

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