Mopar Muscle Association UK

Found some pics of my VG coupe. (Actually mum did, then showed me how to resize them). I cant believe how good it looks in the pics because I can tell you it desperately needs fresh paint and a real good tidy up. These shots were taken when I first got it. Since then I've repaired the right hand quarter where the hole was for the gas filler (LPG) and dug out half an inch of filler!! All fixed now with hardly any filler going back in. Most of it wasnt needed, just a crap repair. Rest of the body is awesome, no rust ANYWHERE and pretty straight. Just a real naf coat of jam over it.
Also re trimmed the interior. Car is sort of presentable now and cruises along OK. Plans are for a mild 318 and some Convo Pro's down the track along with a nice coat of paint in the original colour. Not trying to cover the quarter in 8 seconds, just want a neat cruiser. (10 sec pass would be fine!!!)

Also a pic of my old mans Charger. Runs a stout 318, 904 and 4.11 9 inch. Very tidy car that I've got to cut to bits shortly to fit a gear vendor to!! (got a good price buying two at once) Car is on its way to a wedding in this shot. Of course it rained.

Next is a rather unflattering pic of my sisters CM on the back of my mates ute. Car was in the middle of a spruce up including some radical rust repairs in front of the windscreen and removal of a horrid little ariel in the middle of the roof. Its on its way to my mates much cleaner shed to have some paint applied. The car actually looks quite smart now. I'll try to find a more flattering shot of it later.

Also included is a pic of me mums Val and mine at Mid State Mopars in Bendigo, along with a couple of other random shots.
The pics have all gone on in the wrong order but you'll work it out.

What a great collection of Mopars you and your family own! Keep the piccies coming!

Jeesus mate you own a few cars.

i'd happily take any of them....


Geelong ah ha

my brief 2 week visit illustrated that your weather is much like the British summer

hot one minute then rain and chilly wind grey cloud the next.

mind i don't think you get the ice and salted roads and your sea is warmer....


Wifes great aunt (grandads sister) and family live Ocean grove way

they own


http://www.uticolor.com.au/background.htm

vinyl plastic and dashpad repair

have a mootch

Keith Smith is my wifes great uncle by marridage
his son Lindsay runs the operation now...its all franchised out so covers the country

so if you have ever had any dashboard work done or interior plastic refinished on any car chances are even if the work wasn't done by a UTIcolor franchise the materials probably came from them.


If you get a radio front they may be able to help.

One of their franchises is the dashboard-doctor in Melbourne

they did an RT dash pad for me last year ($295 or approx £140 at the time...well reasonable) which is currently in a container with a mates whole household of stuff coming back to the UK (plans of opening a Melbourne pub fell through with the exchange rate changes so he is lugging his family back and opening one in bristol).

Dave

Great pics Glen, Chrysler shows look great there, will have to get to one one day.

Good job that VG has 2 doors or you'd have the "it's an ugly Bananarama!, must have bought it with yer eyes closed, and it's got 4 doors" boys posting! Sweet shots!

Piccies always look better when there's sunshine and blue sky...

Dave999 wrote:Jeesus mate you own a few cars.

i'd happily take any of them....


Geelong ah ha

my brief 2 week visit illustrated that your weather is much like the British summer

hot one minute then rain and chilly wind grey cloud the next.

mind i don't think you get the ice and salted roads and your sea is warmer....


Wifes great aunt (grandads sister) and family live Ocean grove way

they own


http://www.uticolor.com.au/background.htm

vinyl plastic and dashpad repair

have a mootch

Keith Smith is my wifes great uncle by marridage
his son Lindsay runs the operation now...its all franchised out so covers the country

so if you have ever had any dashboard work done or interior plastic refinished on any car chances are even if the work wasn't done by a UTIcolor franchise the materials probably came from them.


If you get a radio front they may be able to help.

One of their franchises is the dashboard-doctor in Melbourne

they did an RT dash pad for me last year ($295 or approx £140 at the time...well reasonable) which is currently in a container with a mates whole household of stuff coming back to the UK (plans of opening a Melbourne pub fell through with the exchange rate changes so he is lugging his family back and opening one in bristol).

Dave

You'd be 100% on the weather, and you'd be 100% on the dash doctor thing too. Not long had a pad re done for the VG coupe - small world! Tell your relatives to visit the boys at the Pitstop service station in Ocean Grove. The boys there are valiant nuts! One of the brothers is the president of the Bay City Chrysler club - good lads.

When I look at the pics on here it dont look like a bad collection my silly family has got together. I dont know if you experienced it in the UK but prices for classic aussie cars went through the roof here, especially Chargers and coupes etc, and when they went up it dragged the price of the sedans with it. We got all our stuff back when you couldnt give em away. I'm too frightened to sell anything now because I know I couldnt afford to replace any of them in the future. ( thats my excuse anyway).

well with us its everything car wise except valiants

4-6k max regardless if in good nick unless spotless or very interesting with the right audience. (and thats really what ya need)
free - 1K if knackered, and most have seen a few too many wet days

on the US mopar side the prices in the US have caused anything interesting here to go up quite dramatically and we can no longer depend on a good exchange rate with the US although things have faltered a bit this year. the good cars from here often get sold to Europe or scandinavia
A 7 litre engine uses a bit of fuel, at £1.14 - £1.17 a litre its a major cost just to get to a show thats 2+ dollars a litre, and nobody but forklifts taxies and 4x4s does LPG

on the UK side ford capris Mk1 ford escorts early audis VW golfs and GM astras are on the up
interest in the older Datsuns and Mazda rotaries is high as well (mainly due to the lack of them, very few left)

current craze for the guys who like an older car is to take a modern injected 2 liter
remove much of the injection stuff and stick on some webers

lot of good looking Mk1 and Mk 2 escorts running around with 16 valve engines from ford or GM vauxhall in there, and track days and circuit racing are popular with that crowd rather than Drag racing

i got my charger in 2002 paid AUD 11,000 for it not really knowing what i'd got. brought it home with the rest of the gear in 2003

its now worth a bit more but you end up making it worth less whenever you change anything so i have boxes of bits that although a bit worn are part of the original car and can go back on. auto box and v8 not on the cards

UK only ever had 2 RTs

both were base model
1 was the only RT with an Auto gearbox. now owned by an australian from round your way (round your state at least).Although i believe it to still be here in the UK at the mo.

the other rusted away and was wrecked for spares.

so mine will be the only one here as far as i know. but it is pointless me selling it

1) Where would i get another if i had a change of heart??
2) who'd buy it?? it would need to go for £2K less than its worth to make it worthwhile taking back to Oz

in a smash my insurance would pay out enough to get me a decent 770 or XL no way could i get an RT again, even in bits.

its an older resto so its a bit raggy round the edges and it was slung together so the panel gaps are all over the place
but it works and is complete. i'm not taking anything else to bits. i have a garage full of dismantled motor scooter...i never get them back together ...so a car would be five times worse.

Valiants suffer and excel in the classic car league by being unknown and misunderstood therefore still affordable if you can find one. (i think We have 2 people on here looking for valiant projects at the mo)

but that also means they are more likely to get wrecked for their engines and transmissions or smashed up on the banger racing track.

its hard to explian to an australian that australian cars look uniquly australian. a look that few here will identify with because its not on the telly (Joe Mangles ute in neighbours??) they are not in pop videos or in the films we see (mad max doesn't count) and most in the 30-50 age group will identify with cars they liked when they were young via films or ya brothers best mate had one).

but its not all bad

when you do find a spares car (or a stsh of parts) those spares are never that expenisve

i got a set of driving lights thrown in with a bunch of stuff. that would have paid for the petrol and van hire if i'd sold em.

Dave

I reckon you guys deserve a medal for the effort you put into keeping your mopars on the road over there. Especially the aussie stuff. It seems that every authority or ecomentalist nut job wants you gone, and that fuel price is crazy.
Like you say its hard to identify with the aussie stuff over there because they get no exposure. I'm just glad you do.
Just for a bit of history, it would seem I was destined to end up with an Oz mopar. My Grandad had a Garage in Tilbury where my Mum and Dad both worked at different times. They had to go down to the docks to get the Vals running back when they were new (VE VF period) out from Oz.

I was born in England and moved to Australia when I was 13. The first Aussie Charger I saw was at Billing in around '89 or '90. ( red VJ, immaculate with centreline wheels. Got a pic of it still!)
I instantly liked it and my Dad said when we moved to Oz I could have one. Unfortunately I had to wait a few years and pay for it myself, but he was right - I could have one!!! Anyway I got one, back when you couldnt give em away so I only paid $600 and believe me, I was ripped off!!!

Its a bit of a shame that they dont fetch proper money over there, but like you said, it means they're affordable, and your 1 of 1 R/T is rarer than just about any other desirable yank Mopar over there - factory Hemi 4 speed convertibles included!!! (Maybe!!)

i recon over half the cars you saw at billing will be no more...

but you were probably rubbing shoulders with Minity auscharger perhaps mattH aussiepete and valiant770 mould770 RT/auto who are on here now
without knowing it.

That would be the aussie charger club.

1990 i was into VWs didn't know what a valiant was until i saw the charger 30 year anniversary edition of NZ classic car when back packing into Aus by going the wrong way round.

a definite case of see what ya like and say YUP. i'll have some of that


dave

Interesting stuff Glenn,great set of cars the family have had,would have been at billing that year,the imaculate red vh was probably john hibb,s,He took the award that year i think,unfortunatly it is no more,much the same as a lot of them,keep sending the pics etc,good reading .

Silver charger is sweet
Terry

I've been turning the house upside down to find the pic of that red Charger at Billing back in the early 90's. No luck yet, but dad must have the original somewhere. It was a beautiful car, and is responsible for my life being the way it now is!! Very sad if it really is no more.
Getting the hang of the pic resizing now so I'll put on a couple more of the old boys Charger and a better one of my sisters Val.

MMmm webers

and the intended motivation tool

sponsorship for the club nice move

and i bet he gets a lot of interest for his shop with that grand selection on the forecourt.

Probably this one Glen,

Mine was exactly like that. Only with Keystone Klassics.