Terry Martin (second from right) took his kids out of school to buy this old Hemi car; friend Dave Quilhot (far right) bought the 426S wedge ‘65 Dodge.’
The next owner, Mike Evans, wanted to go drag racing, but he blew it up almost immediately. It was bad enough he couldn’t fix it, and he sold it a friend, who was really serious about drag racing. Well, that guy, named Bruce Allen (not the Pro Stock drag racer), ordered fresh 12.5 pistons after calling Don Garlits on the phone for a recommendation, swapped in a lumpy cam, and began cleaning clocks at places like Muncie Dragway. It beat everything. He would unhook the front shocks because you can see how the car pushed holes right through the inner fender wells when it launched. Well, sure enough, he blew it up, too, and this time it was trashed. Rods, the oil pan rail, all busted. That was when John Freds had bought it for his father-in-law to drive.
I told John that I was sorry the old motor was gone.
 Washing off the dirt, this is how the paint looked soon after. Terry opted for a full retoration since the car had spent so much time in the dirt floor or the barn. He is working on it for a debut sometime in the next 12 months. |
‘That junky thing? It’s still here, laying someplace here in the barn.’ The breather and carbs were gone, but the engine was still there, too.
John had actually been planning on junking the cars; the chickens were living in the ‘66 car and it hadn’t moved in years. We talked a couple of times, and he was going to sell me them for $500.00 each. That would have made a great end to the story.
Well, he was at the gas station one day and mentioned to a guy working there, ‘you know, that fellow sure wants to get those two cars out of my place.’
‘What kind of cars are they?’
‘Oh, a couple of old Dodges; one of ‘em used have a Hemi in it.’
‘REALLY?’ So then the gas station guy shot his mouth off, and somebody broke into the barn, shot a bunch of photos, and then posted them on the internet and tried to get the cars sold. This guy had not even talked to John; he was trying to sell the cars first. I found out, and knew what was up, so I gathered up what money I could, and a friend of mine named David Quilhot agreed to put some more together as he wanted the ’65 milking wedge. We went over to John and basically told him this was all the money we had and we wanted to get this done. I also reminded him that if I hadn’t begun this whole thing, he would have gotten next to nothing for them towing them to the junk yard.
 Dave Quilhot and the farmer, John Freds, happily complete the deal; on the two cars John had planned on simply getting towed to the junk yard. |
Luckily, his wife was there. John is a big man; I wouldn’t argue with him, but his wife told him he should take the money right there, and he did. I took my kids, Molly and Meghan, out of school and David took his son Matthew, and we made a great big day of it, pulling the cars out of the barn and taking pictures of them.
The Hemi car has only 41,000 miles on it. Other than the quarter panels there was not an once of rust or fiberglass anywhere. Never wrecked either! There is an 85-year-old man named George Place in Ohio we met fixing funny car engine parts, and he actually hand forges iron to get the block casting back in shape, so I do have a numbers matching motor as well. The car is about 95% all there, and I am working on the restoration right now. The body is stripped and on the rotisserie. I’ve talked to all the previous owners, including the widow of the police officer, Nadine Aufdenkampe to get the story. It will be a great car when I’m done.
And it will have a great story that will go along with it. Terry then began to tell me about a guy they had met who had a lot of Hemi parts and cars. This guy owns a bunch of older race pieces and among them is apparently the notorious record-setting A331 Ray Nichol Engineering mill that I talked about back in the November issue of MoparMAX. Guess we’ll save that one for another day…
Stunkard can be found here at MoparMax once a month, or all the time over at www.quartermilestones.com.
