Mopar Action February 2021

PART OF MY JOB here at Mopar Action along with resetting the clocks for Daylight Savings Time and monitoring toilet paper usage is to figure out how to increase our magazine sales by coming up with our signature door-busting issues. This business is about keeping the corporate crew (the guys wearing shirts with buttons) smiling and rolling out the dough for the next issue. It’s really not rocket science. A lot of the big magazines have all kinds of editorial meetings and focus groups and Ouija boards to try and figure out how to stay afloat and sucker in readers at the newsstand. ’Course, that’s not necessary here, as that critical element of the magazine game is handled by a staff of one (me, if you don’t count my cat,…

IT’S FUNNY HOW TIMES CHANGE , but some music remains epochal. County crooner Clint Black once sang about music bringing back a memory in “State of Mind,” and it is true. After recalling the Red Baron song last issue (“Duel in the Sun”) and the with some background on that Lil’ Ol’ Lady from Pasadena in the following pages, I began to think of what were the archetypal Mopar tunes. Now, as you can imagine, this will be totally arbitrary. Indeed, I noted “my generation” in the subtitle above because the songs were the ones that I remember from my youth, which, unlike my aged compatriots here, came about in the 1975-1985 era. This was when good muscle was still available on used car lots and newspaper classified ads. We bought…

WE ALL LOVE MOPARS , but every once in a while, one comes along so possessed that you would think the car was a result of Christine and the Amityville horror house having a one-night stand. The A-Body in this story is no exception and no names have been changed to protect the innocent. Since all the last names in this story end in Crecco…’nuff said. Turn the clock back about 25 years and my cousin John was on the hunt for a Dart, and it had to be a ’68 or ’69. In typical fashion, this hunt leads to several “rock boxes” before finding the ’68 Dart of his dreams. The car passes the “Crecco under/over test.” John and my brother Mike go over mechanicals and yours truly is checking…

THE WHEEL DEAL Mr. Ehrenberg–My son has installed very wide wheels on his 2001 Dodge 1500 pickup. They stick out way past the fenders, he says they look cool. I have told him that the tires will wear out quickly, he doesn’t believe me. How do I explain this to him? We did agree that he would consider selling them if you can prove my point. Marty Collins Ft. Smith, AR Marty–I assume these wheels have a huge negative offset, so the center of the wheel is far outboard from OEM. If they are “evenly” wider, i.e., still near stock offset, the added wear will not be so profound, although, general rule, wider tires will wear more quickly than narrower ones. On the rear, the added wear is minimal, because the truck has…

Address all queries to this address: RICHARD EHRENBERG PO BOX 302 MARLBORO NY 12542 Best bet: Online submission form at moparaction.com GROUND RULES: • If you want to submit your question via e-mail, please use the on-line submission form at www.moparaction. com. If we ask for more info, send back all existing text, or else! • Snail-mail must include a SASE and/or a cash bribe. • All letters, electronic or otherwise, must include a full name and a least your city and state. You can request that it be withheld, however, and, if we had any the night before, we might even honor your request. • “20 questions” letters instantly get shredded and the scraps forwarded to Mopar Muscle. So – ask one clear question please, we’re a sleazy magazine, not an encyclopedia publisher. We won’t tell…

CHARGED UP Mr. Ehrenberg–My grandfather says he had one of the first year Dodge Chargers, a 1966. He says it had a big-block 361. I thought I remember hearing that you did an article on a 1965 Charger. Am I right? Nelson Ward Chattanooga, TN Nelson–Good memory! There was a 1965 production Dodge Charger, it was an option package on the Dart GT. There was also a 1964 Charger show car, one built, now in the hands of private collector Joe Bortz (see MA, Dec, 2007 issue, and pix, top). There’s always been disagreement as to whether the ’65 should “count”, since it was an option package, not a standalone model. To my way of thinking, since the factory built 180 of them (all factory-built at the Los Angeles assembly plant, and sold in that…