Old race cars are too cool…they have the right look, the right stance, the right equipment…usually…and you can’t beat the bodies that they used, especially since they were real cars, not silhouette racers like they are today. If you’ve got a workable chassis and know what wheelbase lines up with what car, putting something back together becomes rather straightforward, especially if you leave the body off until the chassis is sorted out. More often than not, when we run something that has anything to do with NASCAR, eventually there will be a post about how the cars of today suck and how the cars of yesteryear were so much better. Well, we tend to agree and today, we get to deliver on that idea.
If the eBay listing is honest and accurate, this 1971 Dodge Charger was built and driven by one Bay Darnell, the patriarch of a racing family that includes current driver Erik Darnell. Bay has a pretty solid career in the Grand National circles that ended some time in the early 1980s, and this Dodge is supposedly his second Hemi car from that time period. We don’t have a full grasp on the history…we will leave that up to historians and speculators. What we have before us, though, is a rough but solid ex-racer Dodge that is ripe for a project.
But what would you do with it? Restoring it back to the Darnell era would be the obvious answer, and that might even be worth the cost of the restoration, but..and this is just us…do you think that might be a bit of a waste? You know that the car would run a little bit, make a few photo passes, might even turn a lap or two, then would sit in a museum and be pretty. We’d be all for a race car/street car hybrid, with certain elements of a street-worthy Charger added on, but with the cage and properly nasty Hemi under the hood, and the massive rolling stock at all four corners. Think of it as a properly-executed version of Roadkill’s “NASCarlo” and you’ve got the right idea: hideaway headlights and side exhaust, baby. Put in a six-speed and go roadtrip that. The Silver State Classic, Power Tour, and canyon roads are calling…what do you think?
eBay Link: 1971 Dodge Charger ex-Grand National stock car
Flare the fenders and get it down. Set it up to handle well and have a killer canyon cruiser. Problem is, I have no idea what to put unded the hood. Maybe a recent Mopar Nascar engine…
Oh, and don’t paint it. The faded Petty colors look awesome. Way better than a wrap.
I think it should be built as close to its heritage as possible. i’d build it to put on the street, with an overdrive & some creature comforts, ’cause they’re no fun sitting in a musesum
I think the only thing that matters is that is built to be driven again, somehow. It doesn’t matter if it is restored to its racing heritage and run around the tracks at nostalgia events, making some kind of street legal nascar, a canyon carving mad max-esque monster. It just needs to be built to be driven. It has sat enough.
Restore it to as raced condition.
Nascar for the street for sure. And a Hazzard-spec 440
You can almost hear the car saying, fix me…save me.
Give it to Finnegan/Frieberger . they can mess up anything.
Unless they replaced all of the sheet metal throughout the years with that of a 72 -74 charger I am pretty sure that is not a 71. Marker lights and quarter window are not correct.