TERRY McGEAN

The one thing that seems to remain constant is our devotion to these cars.

Shifting Standards

It’s interesting how our standards change over time. What was acceptable years ago might not be okay now; conversely, things we rejected in the past may now be valued. The second arrangement certainly applies to vintage vehicles, and when it comes to cars of the original muscle era, most of us likely have recollections of particular cars we may have cast off way back when that we’d really like to have now.

Discussion of such things came up recently in a conversation about Dodge’s 1968-’70 Charger—a model that has been experiencing signi cant value escalation in recent years. As a result, anything resembling a ’68-’70 Charger seems to be worth a small fortune, and this is where Dodge’s stylish coupes serve as a good example of the steadily shifting standards. The acceptance of lesser 318 and 383 versions is one indicator—many gearheads would have insisted on an R/T not so long ago. The acceptable condition of the car in question has seen a steady slide too. Today, people seem far less particular.

I looked around at some recent Charger sales and was astounded by some of the transaction gures. The fervor to buy even far-less-than-perfect specimens reminded me of some of the Chargers that had crossed my path years ago. As a teen, it was already tough to nd a decent ’68 or ’69 Charger, but one of my friends had managed to obtain one of each. The rst was a ’69 that had been a 383 four-barrel originally, but which was later tted with a 440 Magnum. Given that we were in the Northeast, the car was rusty, but he had it patched up and painted and it looked good… for a while.

Later, while the ’69 was being painted, my friend needed something else to drive and came upon a ’68 Charger with a 318. This one had a really nice original interior, but it was also rusty, with missing sections of lower quarter panel, holes in the rear valence panel, and so on. But it ran and drove great, so he used it daily for a few months.

At the time, both of those cars were seen as stepping stones—placeholders of a sort, providing the experience of having a Charger until a better one could be found. A couple years later, after the ’69’s paint job started coming apart as the body ller revealed itself, my friend sold it off, and I clearly recall us thinking it was “just too far gone to be worth xing the right way.” The ’68 was sold around the same time for similar reasons, all of us thinking there was no point in trying to x that much decay on a 318 car.

Of course, what we considered too rotten in the ’80s would now be considered a great starting point. Both of those cars were structurally sound, and though the oorpans on both cars were getting pin-holed, neither had gotten anywhere close to the full Flintstone effect.

So, while those two Chargers were both sold off as being either beaters or parts cars, they were both examples we’d pay real money to acquire today. The ’68 still haunts me to this day as I think about how easy it would have been to make it a nice car… today’s version of easy, that is.

That sort of situation played out repeatedly for me and my friends during the mid-to-late ’80s. My rst car, for example, was a ’72 Chevelle that had lived a hard life prior to my ownership. I battled for a couple years to bring it back, but my knowledge and skills were limited, so it too went away. I’d buy that car back today in an instant, but I’d have to spend far more, even accounting for in ation. A car in the condition that one was in then is simply more valued today.

Part of the shifting of standards has to do with what people are willing to do to save a car; determining that has something to do with what seems feasible. Back in the ’80s, the idea of cutting out the entire oor—from rocker to rocker and toe board to trunk pan—would have seemed nuts to all but the most seasoned restorers, and those guys would have told you not to bother. Today, that operation is performed regularly in shops across the country. Granted, the procedure is enabled by the availability of brand-new full oor assemblies from the reproduction aftermarket, but even if those panels had been offered years ago, most shops would have advised most owners to go and nd a better car instead.

That’s really the thing—this shifting of the acceptance level of steadily worse cars is driven in large part by the available population of those cars; meanwhile, the passage of time shows us just how far the tin worm can go, evolving that norm too. The one thing that seems to remain constant is our devotion to these same cars.

Though I’d love to have that larger eld of ’60s and ’70s muscle cars back, and for pricing more in line with the ’80s, I think the growing willingness to save heavily deteriorated examples is a good thing. Cars being pulled from junkyards, parts cars turning into restoration candidates, and so on—all of it makes better use of what’s left, and it’s driving a lot of us to gain more skills in the process. Let us know what you may have pulled back from the brink.

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