Some would say why, Pete said why not. He saw something in this pile, or should we say car.

Once pulled from its frozen home, the body and chassis were completely striped of unusable parts and rusted out body panels, which didn’t leave much.

Everything was then taken down to bare metal.

The car was even turned upside down so that nothing got missed.

And with a winter out of the way, a welded up primed and sanded body was ready to be put back together. This is where things changed...and did they ever.

The restoration path took a turn when Pete thoughts changed. “why not put a modern day Hemi in this thing”. His first choice was to fit a truck 5.7 into the project because they are cost effective and easy to come by. This change would necessitate, a reconfigured oil pan, fabricated motor and trans mounts, a new wiring harness with additional programming on the computer.

His next idea, use a car version 5.7 Hemi. Out came the measuring tape and off to a local dealership to do some measuring. This lead to the purchase of a wrecked in the right places 2006 Magnum. The plan, use the motor, transmission and complete wiring harness.

The plan evolved again. While taking the Magnum apart Pete discovered that the Magnums K-frame was close to the same width as the Challenger frame. I think you can see where this is going; no need for a new oil pan, no need to make new motor and trans mounts, and rack and pinion steering to boot. There you go, problem solved, out came the torch, off were the shock mounts, control arm brackets, no turning back now.

The Macpherson strut towers were moved over, boxed and tied into the firewall for extra rigidity.

The Challengers gas tank was reused with the retrofit of the Magnums fuel pump and filter.

Is that a Magnum dash? Ok, now you can see where this project really went wild.

You just have to come back in two weeks and see how this turns out, it will be worth it.