[njsteve]

Spoke with Steve Martin, the second owner again this week. He had some new info from when he was bought the car back in 1977. I was able to corroborate a lot of what he said with the stack of original receipts from when he rebuilt the engine in early 1978 and had that one piston installed backwards on the rod. I even found the receipt for the original set of pistons bought on 02/16/78 and the replacement piston bought on 04/27/78. Steve said there was only one guy with him when he was rebuilding the engine in his garage, one of the Wickberg brothers, who has since passed away. Steve sold the Charger (to the guy I bought it from) in January of 1979.

When Martin bought the car, the rear suspension work had already been done by the first owner: the rear leaf springs had already been moved inward with the Direct Connection spring perch kit and the rear wheel wells were already radiused at the inner flange and moved inward. The work was done by a guy named Blake Klickner at a shop called Heads Up Performance. Martin did buy the 3800 lb. Direct Connection Superstock Springs (I found that receipt too, by cross referencing the part numbers on the receipt) and he installed them in place of the stock springs.

When Martin bought the car, it had the hemi out of it already and a 318 along with a small block K-member had been bolted in place of the hemi K-member. The first owner had already sold off a lot of the original parts and the speed parts he had with the car, including a set of 13 to 1 pistons, a rat roaster intake and the trans and Dana rear. Martin then spent the next 2 years locating original replacement parts for the car such as the hemi K-member, the correct double banded 18-spline transmission and the Dana rear. I think I have a bunch of these receipts in my pile of documents. There are so many of them and a lot are just part numbers and prices on sales receipts from Central Jersey Speed on Route 22 in Greenbrook, New Jersey dated from late 1977 to late 1978.

As for the race on I-287, Martin says the original engine was blown in a neighborhood incident when the first owner ran it out of oil. So that begs the question whether the original engine was blown up once or twice. If Martin has the original block then that would be proof positive that there was a single engine failure and not the catastrophic failure on the highway as reported by the original owner and several other people I have met over the years. Wow, this is like a paradox and it is making my head spin.

All I know is that I have met a great bunch of interesting people over the years, through owning this car. Each one had filled in another amazing chapter in the never-ending story of this car.