I asked Richard Sr., about the headers that he had the dealership install on the car. He said he wanted the dealer to put those on because he wanted the car to be as fast as it could be, since his buddy had that hemi GTX convertible and he wanted to be faster than his buddy's car. He also said that the Superbird his buddy traded that hemi GTX ragtop in for, was an orange, Hemi-powered Superbird.
Richard Sr., said that the Charger arrived at the dealership on New Year's Eve 1969 (as confirmed by the original shipping invoice) and they got a call at home from the dealer to come and pick it up. It was snowing when they got to the dealership and they thought about it but waited til the weather cleared a couple days later to take delivery.
Richard Jr., gave some more info on his racing activities. He used to run the Charger at Englishtown frequently. He had tow tabs welded on the front bumper brackets, not for towing the car to the track, but for towing it home whenever it broke down. The best time it ever ran was 11.70 with the slicks he had mounted on 15x10 rims. He noted that the Cragars I have with the car now are the ones that Steve Martin bought when he had the car. As for his racing success, Richard, Jr., recalled winning at least one trophy and some cash at Englishtown when he was a class winner.
(Does anyone have a vintage early 1970's Class Winner decal for Englishtown I could have?)
Richard Jr. provided some more details on the infamous grenading engine episode. He said he was on I-287 North running some guy with a new black and gold Trans Am, probably a 1976, and they were keeping up with each other. The only problem was that the Charger had 4.10’s in it at the time and the Trans Am probably had 3.08s. I asked him what RPMs he was turning since the car runs about 3500 RPM at 60 mph with the 4.10s. He said about 8000 rpm when it let go. The shock wave from the explosion was so severe that the entire front end of the car came off the ground at speed. They then coasted to the side of the road around exit 10 and called a tow truck.
Here is the whole Wickberg clan after I took Richard III for the test drive:
They were all still smiling and Richard III's hands were still shaking.
