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1969 Dodge Daytona

The plan was to tear the car down and get the rust repair started. when she saw this Daytona sitting on the showroom floor. She
I was hoping that they would leave most of the original paint alone immediately pulled in and wanted it, she called her husband and he
(unfortunately the rust might be far deeper than originally noticed, but brought the GMC in for the trade-in. That afternoon they drove off the
I can hope). lot new owners of a 1969 Dodge Daytona.
A car is only original once, after that, it just becomes another The family used the car for years as a regular driver – that was, until
1969 Camaro Z/28 in a sea of other Z/28s. But an original one is at a the first gas crisis. After getting gas in the Daytona, they had gone home
different level! to swap cars to go out to dinner. The next day the father went to take
the car to work and got a few miles down the road when the engine just
quit with a loud noise. What they discovered was someone had
1969 Dodge Daytona siphoned all the gas out and filled the tank with a bit of water, which
In the world of vintage American Muscle Cars, few cars capture the promptly locked up the engine. The car has basically sat ever since at
imagination like a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona. They were made to one location or another.
go fast – made for NASCAR with the famous nose and wing on the car, For a while it was in the garage it was sitting in front of, but they
and they did it right. To be legal for racing in NASCAR in 1969, 500 discovered was full of termites and wood rot, so they pulled it out in
of the cars had to be produced for consumers. 503 were produced in case the roof came down, which it did eventually!
total. To find one nowadays that isn’t in a museum or restored is nearly The Grandfather that bought it new passed away a few years ago,
impossible. To find one sitting in a backyard and owned by the original and the car was so ingrained in the family and with him that they had
owner was just about impossible, but I did it! my articles from Hot Rod Magazine at his funeral, and one of his
Through the years I had heard from friends of mine in the Mopar Grandsons has one of my pictures tattooed on his shoulder blade.
world that there used to be a Daytona sitting outside not too far from It might be an extremely rare Mopar worth tens of thousands of
where we lived. Nobody knew what happened to it, but they remember dollars, but to the family, the car is a family heirloom and priceless.
it sitting at two different locations, and then poof! it was gone. Even the
people who work specifically with Daytonas and keep track of them 1969 Dodge Charger 500
had no idea. It was a real mystery.
Randomly out of the blue a fellow Mopar fan contacted me about You never know what you are going to find out in the wild. I get
some Mopars I had posted about, and how he also knew the cars. leads that sometimes turn up gold, but at other times they’re tin.
We talked back and forth for weeks talking about different cars and Fortunately, I plot everything on a map, so I can hit up a bunch of stuff
yard art we knew about. Then he dropped the bomb on me. He knew during a trip. This adventure worked out so perfectly, and lead to one
where the mystery Daytona was! He told me only under complete of the rarest muscle car finds I’ve ever come across: one of three 1969
secrecy, and when I brought it up on my map program, it was less than Dodge Charger 500’s, Hemi car, with a 4-speed!
an hour away. Traveling through the central part of the U.S. while heading to a
The next weekend I made my way out to the farm where the Mopar car show—a car show devoted to vehicles produced by Chrysler,
Daytona currently resided. Pulling up to the gate at the front of the Dodge, Plymouth, Desoto, etc.—and just a little drive out of the way
farm, I could see the family was outside doing odds and ends. I shouted was this lead I had from a friend. He said there was a guy on a farm
who I was and what I did, and they opened the gate for me. I came with a bunch of cool cars out in his field and in his barns. He wasn’t
around the gravel drive and there it was, sitting on a concrete pad in very specific, but he assured me that it was worth my time.
front of a dilapidated garage. With no information but the address I drove out to the farm, and
Once I was out of the car, the grandfather greeted me, and sat me nobody was home. I could see some cool cars hanging around, but
down to talk. I showed him some of my work and told him the story nothing to set the world on fire. So, I drove into town and had some
of how I found him and how I kept everything private to protect the food, went back, and as I pulled in, he pulled in behind me. We talked
owners. With that, he told me how he got the car. for a bit, and he commented on the nice car I had, a newer blue Dodge
Back in 1969, he had bought just the previous year a GMC pickup Challenger. I showed him what I did, documenting cool cars in neglected
truck for the farm. As he said it “wasn’t their finest vehicle.” One day situations. He made me a deal: take him for a fun ride in the Challenger
his wife was driving past the Dodge Dealership in Madison,Wisconsin and he will show me everything.

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