It's HEMI time !!! Compliments of NJSteve

[ORIGLS6]

That's great Steve. Hope everything falls in place and the Reunion is a happy one. Get pix if you can, if only for yourselves.

[njsteve]

Yesterday I gave a copy of the Hemming Muscle Machines to my mechanic at work. He was having dinner with the Wickbergs on Friday evening and was going to give it to them.

It's 12:30pm Saturday and I just got off the phone with Richard Wickberg, Sr. He called me up and we talked for about 15 minutes. (He had to get to his grandson’s baseball game). Depending on the weather we will all get together in the next week or so. His son Richard Wickberg, Jr. is flying back in from out of town business today. They own a commercial dredging business so they are rather busy.

Richard Sr. gave me some info on the Charger. He said back in '69 he was about 30 years old and a 60 year old buddy of his had a hemi GTX. The buddy was pushing Richard to buy a hemi car, but a Plymouth not a Dodge. Richard liked the Charger body style and the dealership, Suburban Dodge was in the same parking lot in Metuchin, New Jersey, that the local bar was in. All the salesmen from Suburban would come into the bar after work and hang out. That is why Richard made the decision to order his Charger from Suburban. He mentioned that there were two salesmen he remembered, Bernie and Arnold, which he dealt with.

(Richard actually ordered the car 39 years ago, last Monday)

Richard ordered the car and took delivery in January 1970. Shortly thereafter, the buddy with the hemi GTX traded his GTX in on a 70 Superbird.

Richard remembered that he only drove the car about 3,000 miles and all he ever did was wash it and wax it. I asked him about his son “borrowing” the car and he said he found out one day when he came home from work and saw burnout marks heading INTO the garage. He said that there were tire marks all over the driveway and that his son must have almost ran it through the garage wall. His son eventually became the one who drove the car more and more over the next few years, running it into things and breaking parts.

The longest trip he ever took with the Charger was up to Syracuse, New York one warm November. He went up there for some sightseeing and got caught in a lake effect blizzard. He remembered being the last car allowed on the highway before they closed it down. It took him 14 hours to get back to Jersey, going 20 mph the whole way. He said the car had absolutely no traction on anything but dry pavement.

I asked him if he had any old photos but he said he moved several times and had a divorce in the middle, so he didn’t think he had anything left but would look. I asked him to try to write down any stories he could remember for when we meet in person.

We will be getting together with Richard, Richard Jr., the wife, kids and grandkids in the next week or so. I will keep you updated with the details.

[njsteve]

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!

[Xplantdad]

Neat stuff Steve...keep it going!

[njsteve]

This afternoon I had a visit from Richard Wickberg Sr., his wife, his son Richard Wickberg Jr., and his son Richard Wickberg III. It was an amazing time. All three generations got to sit behind the wheel for pictures.

Here they are in order: Richard I, Richard II and Richard III: