UPDATE 3/9/2012 – This auction has ended, with the bidding reaching $49,999, but the reserve was never met. The seller has yet to relist the car, but it can still be found at their website.
Some of the most sought after muscle cars today are ones that were originally tuned by a third party. Ford had Shelby, Chevrolet had Yenko, and Dodge had Mr. Norm. The Mr. Norm’s specials are some of the most sought after Dodges around and this 1969 Charger R/T makes it easy to understand why. After floating around North America for the past 40 years it has resurfaced and can be found here on eBay or at Masterpiece Classics of Whiteland Indiana. The eBay auction is already up to $46,000 and the reserve is still unmet.
This Charger didn’t need anything to make it a monster, seeing as it was already powered by a 426 Hemi V8. The factory Hemi produced an already impressive 425 horsepower, but Mr. Norm felt it needed a little more oomph. So they installed a high performance ignition system, carburetor, suspension components, and a long list of other bits and pieces. We would love to turn that key just to hear this beast roar to life.
Unlike their competitors, Mr. Norm didn’t do much to the aesthetics of their cars. If you saw this car on the street you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that it’s a Norm Special and that was probably what Mr. Norm was going for. This car has been well maintained its whole life and is very original. It’s believed that this is the only Charger R/T 426 Hemi to come from Mr. Norm’s in ’69, making this car very special indeed.
Mr. Norm didnt see any reason to mess with the inside either so most everything is stock as it would have left the factory. Just like the rest of this car, the interior is in fantastic condition. It’s obvious that this car has been babied its whole life and has only seen 31,000 miles.
This Charger R/T is a piece of American Muscle history and deserves to be in a good home. It’s amazing to come across such an amazing part of MOPAR history that’s still in original condition. However, given that it’s being offered by a dealership we know the seller expects to make a pretty profit here. We just hope they are willing to part with it for a little less then their current asking price of $129,000.
That scoop is hideous.
The way some cars have been selling at auction, 129K seems a bargain for this rig.
Sweeet Car!Nice to see a snapshot of history remain in its original form!…Needs wider tires to make use of all those horses……hard to believe that they could ever hope to do anything more than smoke through a set of those tires in no time at all!!(But I’d still like to see THAT happen!!) :-)
I remember seeing Hemi Dodges like this running at the Sanford, Maine drag strip back when these cars were still relatively new and definitely the hot ticket for a quick run through the traps in about 11 seconds. And these cars were very close to stock, unlike the drag cars you see now where every component is specialized for quarter mile runs and the car arrives in an enclosed trailer. For small-time weekend racers these Hemis were often driven to the track and then home again with no more than a change of rear tires. Surprisingly a lot of these cars had the HD factory Torqueflite automatic like this car, so you just held the car at the line with your left foot on the brake pedal and gave the engine some throttle to build up the revs a bit and get the torque converter ready for blast off. And as Bear suggested, you definitely needed some serious tires or you would just sit there and spin your wheels if you had stock tires like the ones on this car. The choice of most super stock drag racers back then was M&H slicks, which gave you a lot of rubber contact on the strip to work with. The acceleration was pretty strong for a car that anyone could buy from their local Dodge dealer, but for me the most amazing thing about these cars was the way the whole body of the car would do a quick little twist-and-return on takeoff and with each shift as the automatic ran up through the gears. I don’t know how the drivetrains of these cars stayed together. That’s what the 490 Lb-ft of torque from these Hemi engines can do, and with little or no muffling of the exhaust it was a real impressive show.
@Tony it’s functional better than all this FAKE crap nowadays!
I missed the ability to own one of these monsters by only a few years and prices these days are like as much as a house so I’ll take these house.
Ugly is ugly. Period.
now THAT’S what an ol’ time street racing car was. no flash, just go. & yeah, @bear…we DID have slicks back then. glory days.
Chevy had “Yenko”…..
@ Bupinder, I’ve always wondered what was the “badest of the bad” when it came to after-factory customs i.e. Yenko, Baldwin-motion, Nickey. Most were named after private car dealers who added extras.
The 1964 Fairlane Thunderbolt and Holman Moody Fords were about as bad as it would ever get, the rest could only aspire to such brute power. YENCO/COPO Camaros were extraordinary as well, and far better suited to the street!
Awesome ride. Had a red Plymouth Duster 3 speed, and a silver Chevy SS. Hurst linkage four speed. Both had black stripes. Killer rides. Loved them both.
for just information about that terrible hood scoop. Air intake was necessary for better performance. That one is small compared to what was out there at that time. What’s ugly to you was a hint of power back. Damn I’m getting old.
Remembering the awesome rumbling exhaust of the 426 Hemi, in any Mopar product. Haven’t ever seen a “Mr Norm” variant, but it was fairly common to modify these engines with an even wilder cam than stock, dual Hollies, etc. Some were run on the street with the necessary wider wheels and M/T’s, but still had major difficulties putting the power down (they were run with the original Rallye Wheels in front, usually. This dog-dish equipped car looks super-bad). The 727 Torqueflite was a super-tough tranny, even with the stall pumped up. The 129K seems reasonable, if you have seen similar cars at either the B-J or Mecum auctions going for 140-150K.
70′ Challenger R/T Conv w/426, only 12 ever made, this tribute/re-creation for 92.5K I personally would get the cabrio & pocket the change if I ever had the chance and had to make a choice. http://www.classicdriver.com/us/magazine/3900.asp?id=15799
@ fellow car buffs to set the record strait and please correct me if I’m wrong or add additional info. Mr Norm along with Yenko, Baldwin, Nickey and the dealer who invented the thunderbolt (east coast) were all car dealers who ordered COPO (Central Office
@ Jeff V. You’re right about COPO in the dealerships.
Holman/Moody link:http://www.holmanmoody.com/history.htmlCOPO link:http://www.holisticpage.com/camaro/camaros/copo.htmThunderbolt link:http://www.angelfire.com/hi/427fairlane/history.htmlMr. Norm link:http://www.mrnorms.com/info/bio.html
sad to see another beaut that will probably never be driven
Unfortunately for some of us, only the very wealthy can afford such a car, and many who can afford them prefer to them keep them in storage as an investment, more than a passion to drive. The way I see it, as much as these cars deserve to be driven, seen and heard, but then they wouldn’t be the beauty that they are for long. Investors can actually prolong the life of a muscle car by keeping it “out of sight, out of mind.” Everyone wins!
outta sight and outta mind until you die and your kids roll them into a powerline pole
A jt68: Sadly, that has happened. I had a friend who owned a 1972 Olds Cutlass Supreme in the most beautiful shade of metallic gold with a dark brown vinyl roof. Truly one of the best examples I have ever seen of this car. It had the 455, and was a Mom & Pop sleeper all the way. Every inch of this car was spotless. Spotless. He even cleaned out the chrome exhaust tips after driving it! He ultimately sold the car, for personal reasons, to a girl whose parents swore that when they bought it for her, she would take good care of it. She didn’t. Not only did she let the car dilapidate, she went on to wreck it, horsing around in it with friends. Naturally, she wasn’t injured, and no lesson was learned. Respect for property, or anything for that matter, is not part of the curriculum for teens today. In retrospect, I was pretty rough on the 1965 Ford Galaxie that I “inherited” at age 16…
A jt68: Sadly, that has happened. I had a friend who owned a 1972 Olds Cutlass Supreme in the most beautiful shade of metallic gold with a dark brown vinyl roof. Truly one of the best examples I have ever seen of this car. It had the 455, and was a Mom & Pop sleeper all the way. Every inch of this car was spotless. Spotless. He even cleaned out the chrome exhaust tips after driving it! He ultimately sold the car, for personal reasons, to a girl whose parents swore that when they bought it for her, she would take good care of it. She didn’t. Not only did she let the car dilapidate, she went on to wreck it, horsing around in it with friends. Naturally, she wasn’t injured, and no lesson was learned. Respect for property, or anything for that matter, is not part of the curriculum for teens today. In retrospect, I was pretty rough on the 1965 Ford Galaxie that I “inherited” at age 16…
On our first trip to the US my new wife and I stopped in a gas station. In pulled a Hemi Cuda, stock. My wife being from Japan had never seen such a thing. She heard the rumble and asked what was wrong with that car? I could only smile and say “nothing”.
@ Scot: There you go!
Hey Jim, thats the story for most kids, myself and my two brothers all drove classics, they were certainly not extremly desireable, but they all left us worse of then they came to us. lesson learned, you bet, now we all have respect for the cars we drive. no more j turns down the rural highways!
Missing the third pedal, but still, an excellent representation of the species.
This looks to me to be a 70. My hubby and I bought one of these and it was a nice car but it was stolen and found stripped in a garage outside of his Navy base in Rhode Island not long after we bought it. I was kinda glad though because he drove crazy in it and I didnt want to be in it when he crashed.
Yet another garage queen.