1968 Dodge Charger long-term test: collection day

Buying a car is, without a doubt, usually a bit of a nerve-wracking experience. Doubly so when you’ve not had a chance to inspect it in daylight, or to drive it. Triply so when you’ve sunk everything you’ve got into it.

That said, I was surprised to find myself comparatively unfazed by the purchase of this '68 Dodge Charger, during which I’d ticked all of the above boxes. Sure, I’d made transactions like it before – but at most they were for a third of the value. Positive waves were keeping me afloat; it looked, felt and sounded like an honest, solid car.

Well, that was what I dearly hoped, at any rate. It was somewhat of a bold assertion, given that I’d not even seen the car in the cold hard light of day. Fortunately I’d had the foresight to engineer in a little safety net: although I’d agreed to buy the car, I’d only done so on the basis that I could give it one final inspection once we’d got it out of the garage.

My reasoning for that, besides not really being able to get a clear look at the underside, was that the car was pinned against one wall. Consequently you couldn’t see much of the passenger side at all, let alone anything underneath. I wasn't looking to get into a weldathon, so it needed to be as clean on that side as it appeared on the other. 

I didn't think that getting the Dodge out into the daylight was going to be the work of a moment, though. It just about ran, sure, but the brake pedal had zero effect on the drums at each corner – unassisted drums, at that – and the handbrake had long retired from its duty of holding the Charger on a gradient.

This was a problem because the garage faced onto a small slope that led immediately into a fairly busy road. Visions of some 1800kg of unrestrained Dodge careening through traffic, having escaped from our grasp, and barrelling into the house opposite flicked in and out of my mind.

I decided that I would cross that bridge when I came to it. An erratic and busy work schedule, however, meant I would have few chances to actually go and collect the car. Compounding the issue was the fact that Steve, the owner, worked long hours. Then there was the matter of arranging transportation. The planets, it seemed, would need to be in alignment for the move to come off within a reasonable timeframe.

I didn’t want to leave the car there indefinitely, though, as the sooner I got it home the sooner I could tear into it and start ordering parts. It would be no fun if I couldn’t get at least a few legal miles under its wheels before the summer was out, and the required parts to get it back on the road weren't going to arrive overnight.

Fortunately, with a bit of cajoling, I managed to create a window of opportunity whereby I could go and extricate the car from the garage. Date confirmed, I excitedly rang my regular transporter – the ever-proficient Scott Middleton of ‘Move That Car’ – only to find that he didn’t work weekends. Quite rightly and sensibly so, I thought, and damn, there goes my cunning plan, too.