Growing up around my area in the Pacific Northwest, I found that within a few mile area of my house, that there were a horde of abandoned cars to explore. The first Europe-sourced Mercury Capri I ever met was sitting unused near a horse field. There was a mid-1970s Monte Carlo that rotted in place from the first time I met it in 1991 until I moved away for the first time in 1999. There was the super-dead Volkswagen and the Ford Maverick that was sitting on it’s roof, the remnants of the Chevette, and some old heavy-duty equipment that was long since gone. One of the more interesting finds was a random Dodge in a barn that was covered in blackberry vines, floor to ceiling like a wrap. I was fully trespassing when I cut the vines away and found my way to an old Mopar of some kind. Over time, I’ve lost memory to what kind of ChryCo product it actually was, but a lift of the hood told me what I needed to know: early Hemi. Unfortunately, in a car that had probably been sitting since the mid-1960s at the least, time, moisture and rot all had turned the machine into a two-ton paperweight.

The images of Hemi-powered Mopars is pretty cemented with the muscle car era and drag racing, but the originals, the FirePower, Fire Dome and the Red Ram, weren’t heavy hitters. They were potent, but they were more of the large engine option for effortless power that moved the bulk around quite nicely. These weren’t hot rods, these were boulevard cruisers, the cars that said nothing because they didn’t need to. They just had a badge or two to let any lookers know that this was no toddling bathtub Chrysler, but something quite a bit more exciting. Derek from Vice Grip Garage recently got his mitts on this 1954 Dodge Royal and be honest…you’d cruise this, wouldn’t you?