The Beginning

The introductory article from the Shelby Dodge Automobile Club's  'Up Front' magazine, this is the story of how I found my Shelby Charger, plus a little extra info about FWD Mopars at the Mopar EuroNationals show

Owning a Shelby Dodge in the UK isn't just on the other side of the Atlantic, it's on the other side of the road too!  SDAC member James King tells the story of his Shelby Charger that was found deep in the British countryside.

Above: Shortly after buying it a good clean made things look respectable, shame it was hiding serious problems!

It's a testament to how good Turbo Dodges are that after over two years ownership of my Shelby Charger I'm still keen to keep working on it until its all sorted.  Ok, so why wouldn't I want to? Well, to answer that I guess I'd better start at the beginning ...  In the summer of 2002 things were going ok, I had a '72 Charger with a big block as my project car, and had just about finished a rolling renovation of an '83 Capri (that's the European Ford Capri, not the Fox body Mercury the US got lumbered with) which was a great daily driver.  I fancied the idea of getting a Mopar daily driver instead, and had been looking at the likes of rusty Volares / Aspens / late model Darts which were affordable.  

I hadn't considered getting a front wheel drive at all, they're VERY rare in the UK (and quite sparse in Europe, too), in fact the only one I'd ever seen in the flesh was a Shelby Charger that had been painted gold and was hiding out of the limelight at the 2001 Mopar EuroNationals.  Then one time in late September of 2002, while driving my mother home in the Capri, I noticed a familiar looking back bumper sticking out just behind a rusty old '80s Chevy wagon that was parked at the side of the road.

The following weekend I dragged a consenting friend along to go check out what I thought would, at least, be an interesting car to see.  I was pleasantly surprised to find an '86 Shelby Charger that had been stood for a while, but looked like it was in generally good condition.  The owner bought and sold some less than perfect American cars and this Charger was the best looking one out of a dozen or so sorry-looking vehicles.  Looking around it in detail it had a few minor dings, a pulled-straight chassis leg, a leaky thermostat housing and dead battery, but with a jump it started right up and I took it for a spin round the block.

By the time we returned I had a mile wide grin, and I had a bad case of the galloping must-haves, so the owner and I hammered out a deal that was well more than the car was worth. Later that week I drove it home and parked it up next to the '72, under the suitably impressed gaze of my better half (read: 'oh god, what have you bought now?').  This is when the fun started, as the first thing I looked at was fixing the thermostat housing - removing it showed two problems, 1) there was no thermostat and 2) the bottom stud had been glued into the head, which would need re-tapping.  And that pretty much summed up the state of the whole car as it was then - a bodge up!

For the next 18 months or so I used the SC as my daily driver, though I use the term loosely as it spent more of it's time off the road than on.  In this time it needed a new transmission, driveshafts, shifter linkage, alternator, radiator, shocks, all of the brakes were replaced, serious repair to the front airdam was needed as it had a 2 foot long split that had been covered with filler, extensive welding on the passenger floor was carried out, and various electrical jobs (mostly caused by cheap extras added by a previous owner) cropped up.  In this time I had got almost nothing done to the poor old '72, and my better half was fed up with me borrowing her car all the time, so I mothballed the SC and got an economy car for work.

Above: 2 years, 10000 miles and much hasstle later and it's looking worse on the outside, but going better! (bodywork is on the to-do list)

With the '72 up and running again I was, to be honest, a little bored - on British streets there really isn't room to throw a great big B body Mopar around with gusto, and there's very few places for straight stoplight racing so on the thin, twisty, two-lane backroads the Shelby is by far the more exciting ride thanks to the nimble handling and small size.  So now at the time of writing the old V8 monster is up for sale, the SC is out of mothballs, and I'm investigating an SC that I'm told sits in a junkyard a couple of hundred miles away.  There's still plenty of work to be done, but I'll be happy as long as I can get on the track at the 2005 EuroNationals.

So far it's only running a K&N filter, 2½" stainless exhaust, and a late model N/A roller cam and rockers, but with a stage 1 logic module, some decent springs, struts (already got GR-2 shocks out back), 4 point cage, and some more weight saving it should make a respectable car both at the strip and through the twisties!  This is only the end of the beginning.

Turbo Dodges at the Mopar Euro Nationals are unusual, but not unheard of.  In the spirit of the event any that turn up are almost obliged to have a go in the RWYB event, which led to some red faces amongst classic Mopar owners in 2001 when a French Talon turned up and promptly popped off a series of mid-10 second passes.

Unfortunately the Shelbys haven't shown quite such dramatic results, in 2004 the '84 Daytona pictured here turned up to compete in the 'Street Racer Saturday' series and was running consistent 16 second straight up passes, not bad for a bone stock daily driver, but also not exactly blowing anyone's skirt up.  The Minivan pictured belongs to Christophe, who runs minivans.online.fr and while enthusiastic, it's not yet been treated to turbo power … hopefully once the SC is ready I'll be taking on the F and Fox bodies with runs in the low 15s, to fly the Shelby flag!