Quote:
Originally Posted by mrays
This Sassy Grass Green 71 Cuda 440 Six Pack was sold new at City Motors in Grand Falls NF to Edward Carter. This is the infamous "Barrel Cuda". It sat in a field in Canada for many years before eventually ending up sitting atop some 55 gallon drums. Amazingly it still had its original transmission and rearend in it. It was very rusty before it was purchased by Alan Gallant and brought back to life. It was restored per the fender tags and was featured in the February '10 issue of Mopar Collector's Guide. The billboards, Elastomeric bumpers, Rallyes and white letter tires were added later and where not on this car from the factory. This car sold for $130K.
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It was Ed Cater. No "r". He and his friend Dave Strong walked into the dealership and ordered two near identical 'Cudas that day - Dave's car had no black vinyl top and had a black deluxe interior, it met its demise at the hands of a drunken young man around 1976. This car here resided 15 minutes from where I grew up as a child in Newfoundland. I have a long association with the car. True story: I was about 20 years old when the owner and I finally met in person at the car after a few long distance phone calls (that started in my teens after having first laid eyes on the car at 12 years old) because he left Newfoundland and let the car rot in his family's backyard and would never, ever sell it. We are standing there looking at the rotting mess and I say "you know those fender tags are gonna fall off the next time this car is moved" because they had rotted right around the screws. He proceeds to pull one off easily and twist the other one off by hand and gives them to me. "I'm just gonna get another body and put this drivetrain in it anyway, you can have em"
I did give him some money for the console, the original dual point Mopar distributor, and the pistol grip shifter which had all been replaced with Day 2 items. He also didnt care about those pieces but the car itself was going nowhere, "over his dead body" he said. Well, that's what finally happened. But I got snookered out of the car. It's my biggest "one that got away" story. But boy was it a freaking mess.
The fender tags I gave to Alan for free when he tracked me down, the other parts I think I sold to him for $500. Alan was gracious enough to let me row through the gears in it upon its completion in 2007.
Oh and Ed Cater still lives in the town where he ordered the car new, Grand Falls, which is hours from where the car ended up. Somehow when my sister moved to that same town 20 years ago to work in a hospital as a Social Worker, and bought a house, she got acquainted with her next door neighbor and his family: Ed Cater. I nearly fell out of my chair.
He still has the trade in slip in his possession when he went for a full size C-body in '72 because they were planning a family.