This is my Challenger story and if you like cars, you gotta like the story. While shopping for a house in 1982 I came across this Plum Crazy Challenger rusting around the back of an older bungalow. For $1200.00 the car was mine and out came the 318 to make room for my police package 440. I drove the car for about a year, but limited financial resources forced me to park it under a tarp for a while until I could save up some disposable income, the car was rough. Ten years later, I had finally saved up some cash so I built a garage on our house and pulled off the tarp. The car was toast, needing frames, floors, doors, everything. I put the car in the paper to sell it but the only guy who came to see it was the guy I bought it from 11 years previously, no offers. I pushed the car into the garage and set to work. All new sheet metal, I tore down the 440 and installed mopar performance pistons, street hemi cam, forged crank, etc, and rebuilt the trans. The rear end got a posi and 2.76 gears and I upgraded the brakes/steering with the police car package. I was not even sure the car would ever drive down the road straight again but hey I was having fun, right. So six years, and thirteen pounds of welding rod later the car is finished and I go to a local show, it just was not my scene so what to do? I filled the car up with gas (18 gallons) and called my buddy who works for Chrysler parts. Wanna drive to Vegas? No problem was the answere, so on Friday night after work we head west from Toronto. By 1:00am we were in Michigan and the TTI 2.5 headers/exhaust were taking thier toll as we were both deaf. By noon the next day were in Illinois and the vibration made our hands go numb. Saturday night saw us cross the Colorado border and at 7:00am disaster struck. The power steering belt gave up the ghost just outside Crooke Colorado. (you gotta see this place on a map) Anyway, we walked for a mile or so before some good natured gent in a pickup truck offered us a ride, (in the back of course) and dropped us at the only shop in town. The only shop I've ever seen that sells chewing tobacco?? Anyway, he had a belt and gave us a ride back to the highway to make repairs. A loaded shotgun was sitting on the seat of his truck for the duration of the ride. We continued south/west visited Cisco Utah where they filmed the bulldozer scene in Vanishing point, visited Moab State park and arrived at Circus Circus Hotel in Las Vegas on monday morning 2200 miles one way. We cruised the strip, drank too much, ate too much and left on Thursday to check out the Hoover damn and the North rim of the Grand Canyon. During our stop at the dam a tour bus full of Japanese tourists arrives and while they are standing on one of the wonders of the world, several of them took pictures of my car. We arrived back in Toronto the following Sunday a little bleary eyed but fully addicted. Since then I have made the trip three more times taking route 66 and Kansas and I'll be departing this summer to do it again. I'll try to load some better pictures when I get some time.

All,

Sorry its been a while but I've got an incredible story to add.  Back on January 17 my roadtrip co-driver called me to advise that the band the Kings were playing a benifit concert near our house.  (The did the song Switching to Glide if you remeber).  Anyway this was one of the songs we re-discovered on our Challenger Roadtrip to Vegas above.  We showed up a little late and got seated at a table for 10 with people we did not know.  I had printed a picture of the Challenger to show my co-driver the louver I bought for the car and after he looked at it he dropped it on the table.  At about 11:00pm after several beverages one of the girls sees the picture and asks if she can show friend who is sitting next to me.  He takes one look and asks if I know the movie Vanishing Point.  I tell him the story of driving to Cisco, the town where they filmed the final scene of the movie and I ask if he remembers the scene at the end.  Everyone at the table starts laughing because the gentleman is non other than Bob Segarini, the guy who wrote and performed the song in the original Vanishing Point when he hits the bulldozer.  He also sent me a copy of the original demo tape to prove it!  What are the odds on making that connection in a small club in Whitby Ontario?

Check out Bob Segarini's autograph on my passenger visor.  Google his name if you think I be full of it!