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Paul Pomerleau, from Wales, WI, tells this story of his Dodge Chargers:
My destiny with Dodge Chargers started when I bought my first car with my Dad. We were on the used car lot looking around when he said, “Hey, how about that one?” It was a light gold 1972 Charger SE, with a 318 engine, rallye wheels, full black vinyl top, an automatic on the column with front bench seat, and gold interior Brougham package. So I bought it, packed everything I owned into the Charger, and moved from Chicago to Wisconsin for my first job. I drove it everywhere, including sales calls for my job and road trips to northern Wisconsin with my brothers Mark & Larry and friends Later, I on dates with my girlfriend Mary, who later became my wife. One night driving Mary home a guy front-ended the Charger, basically destroying it. I ended up getting around $300 bucks for it at the junkyard. My first car was gone.
Twenty two years later, I was on a family vacation watching muscle cars cruising at La Jolla Beach near San Diego, when a beautiful blue 1969 Charger went by. I mentioned to my sons Tom & Matt (then ages 17 and 15) that my first car was a Charger. They immediately said that I should get another one, but I shrugged it off saying “What am I gonna do with a Charger?” Well, when we got home my search began for another 1972 Charger SE. It took six moths of looking on the Internet and in the papers, but finally I found one that looked promising on Doger-Charger.com.
It was numbers matching, clean and incredibly straight with only some surface rust on the interior and trunk floor pans. There was a 440 4-bbl HP engine with console slap stick automatic tranny. The dash cover was cracked (of course), but there were new Legendary headliner, package tray and seat covers.. The options on the car were incredible: electronic ignition, front and rear sway bars, front disc brakes, power windows and rear window defogger, a/c with tinted glass all around. My son Matt and I flew to Harrisburg, PA to see it. The body was in primer from a previous owner and the roof showed some rust bubbles under the original black vinyl roof. All in all, it looked solid and just needed a lot of elbow grease to clean it up. Though it ran a little rough, I had to have it. Fortunately, the owner was a trucker and trailered it from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin.
The first year of the restoration, I worked to get the Charger mechanically sound and roadworthy. We replaced the leaking dual exhaust pipes, replaced the gas tank which was loaded with rust, had the Holley 4160 rebuilt, rebuilt the brakes and then replaced all the rubber: belts, hoses, and rubber bushings on the front and rear ends. I put in a new battery and replaced the spark plugs wires and cleaned all the electrical connections. New tires and shocks were installed, and the front end was aligned. The interior was gutted and the rust was removed from the floor pans and painted with POR 15. The dash was cleaned up, and worn electrical parts were replaced. Finally, the engine compartment was cleaned, painted and detailed along with the engine block.
During the long Wisconsin winter, all the interior panels and console were cleaned, primed and painted the original gold color and the vinyl seats were cleaned and conditioned. My brother-in-law, Steve, took the Charger to his shop and painted the body with 5 coats of acrylic black and 3 layers of clear coat. When we got the car back in late spring, interior sound deadener, jute underlay and new carpeting were installed. A new vinyl top was installed and all the exterior trim was put on the body. Bags and bags of parts that were taken off the car the previous year were installed. New weather stripping and window fuzzies completed the stock restoration.
So there it is! Almost 25 years later, after my first restoration, IÂ’m once again driving a Charger SE around the Wisconsin country side.
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