Re: Original owner just called me! (Part Deux)
Ok, it’s 6:30 pm Saturday and I just got off the phone with Richie Wickberg Jr. (the son). He gave me some quick info on the car and we set up a reunion for tomorrow for the car and their family.
He corroborated all the various stories I have collected over the years, from the bar fight and the bottle breaking on the back window, to the crash and pushing his algebra teacher’s Mustang into a telephone pole, even down to the exit location on I-287 where the engine exploded (right alongside the Caterpillar dealership) and how the car went down the highway with flames coming out the bottom looking like a World War II fighter as it got shot down. He said after the engine block was blown apart, the car was towed to the local lot and a mechanic buddy helped him take the engine out and they junked the entire engine from carbs to oil pan.
He asked what hood it had on it when I bought it and I told him it was a blue stock hood. He said he used to run two different hoods, either a 5 inch snorkel scoop or Six Pack style hood. He ran with the dual quad Rat Roaster intake on the motor. He ran 4.56 gears in the Dana and had the trans set up with every other synchro tooth removed so it would shift faster like a crashbox.
He used to drag race the car a lot at the strip. He laughed saying that most of the 12,000 miles on the car were done at full throttle while racing.
He said the best time the car ever ran was an 11.70.
He sold the Charger to Steve Martin (the guy who later assembled the replacement engine drunk and put the pistons in backwards) in 1975 in order to buy a Corvette.
He laughed when I told him about what his Dad said about the burnouts in the driveway. He said that he used to drive the car to J.P Stevens High School in Edison for years before he had his license without his parents knowing it. Every morning his Dad would leave for work early, then his Mom would leave about 10 minutes later. He’d wait five minutes for them to get a head start and then he’d take the car and drive to school with it, terrorizing everyone along the way.
More updates as they come in!
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