I make no bones about it: I’m an automotive fan-boy in certain regards. SEMA is an outlet for the guy who used to sit at the computer for hours on forums, if for one reason only: I’m allowed to get close to cars that otherwise I’d never see in person. Ever. For the last couple of years now, I’ve made a list of cars that I know will be at the show just so that I can take a few minutes out of what will otherwise be a busy day and go check them out. Oddly enough, for the second time, it was a purple car that I was hunting down…last year, it was the Steve Stanford-designed “Thunderstruck” Thunderbird, a concept that combined the nose of a 1967 T-bird with the coupe body of a 1970 model.  This year, though, it was a slightly more predictable find: a 1975 Dodge Dart Sport.

Wait a minute. A Dart Sport…like the politically-correct, “not a Demon” Duster clone? Yep. I’m not exactly a Mopar A-body fan myself, but I can appreciate them when they are built right. Every time I post a fawning blog item about the “Bloky” Valiant, you can see what I mean. And this Dart Sport is another, although I’m banking on good odds that I might be the only one that thinks so. I love the slightly-rough, useable nature of the car. I like the open grille, the SEV Marhal driving lights up front, the wide, purposeful rubber all around, and the NOS Direct Connection ducktail spoiler out back. I’m not minding the Japanese-style fender mounted rear view mirrors, and to be fair, the jury is still out on the externally-mounted oil cooler and the Plum Crazy-meets-Japanese Racer wrap job. Maybe they’ll grow on me. Who knows.

This Dart Sport is the “Project Yankee” car from Speedhunters, and is Mike Garrett’s personal project. I don’t know Mike. I’ve never met the guy or talked with him, but I dig his tastes (and the fact that he is willing to follow his tastes instead of the trends). I was led to believe that he’d be nearby, but each and every time I managed to find a few minutes to go over to the FCA booth where it was being shown, I was informed that either (A) nobody had seen him all day, or (B) that nobody knew if he’d come back to his car. Shame, but not surprised. Would you want to stand next to one car all day when you have hundreds of cars to go look at? I wouldn’t.

It takes some major cojones to look at a Dart and decide that you want to base your build on what the Japanese tend to do with American cars. It works, in my eye. The mechanics of the car are all there and can be appreciated: 5.7 Hemi swap, six-speed manual, 8.75 diff with 3.73 gears and axles supplied by Yukon Gear and Axle out back, and a Hotchkis Total Vehicle System suspension kit up front. It’s no Pro Touring monster, but it’s more than capable of handling it’s own. The look is somewhat like the old Direct Connect kit cars combined with a bit of road racer…as if some lunatic took a Dart to LeMans, sort of. There might be details we’d personally change, but overall…this rules.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get shots of the car without the VIP only seatbelt system that surrounded the car, but that’s ok. It’s a car built by a car guy who is going to drive the hell out of it once he’s got everything where he wants it. And hopefully we see footage of it soon. Meanwhile, if you want the backstory on Project Yankee, you can CLICK HERE to go to Speedhunters and check it out for yourself!