By Cliff Gromer
1/7/05

I just visited my friend Eddie in the hospital, and I'm happy to say he's doing much better. Seems he had a slight mishap at the Mopar Nats. I guess when you check out all those fantastic restored and over-restored cars at the Mopar Nationals, you get a little jaded and you can't appreciate the blood and sweat and tears it takes to put one of those cars together. I assume, of course, that you do put the car together and not just toss a basket case and your bank book at the local resto shop and come back five years later for your show car.

Anyhow, Eddie did it all himself. He restored a basket case Curious Yellow '71 Hemi GTX. He really went nuts tracking down all the correct parts, looking at engine compartments for correct details and going ga-ga because Chrysler didn't always do it the same way at the factory. This was a deal where every bolt and clamp had to be correct. And if you think that restoring a Hemi is a fun deal, try it sometime. The folks with NOS parts store them in bank vaults and don't want to part with the parts because they appreciate so rapidly in value.

ADVERTISEMENT

Eddie nearly loses his day job because he uses up so much leave time working on his car. It becomes a consuming passion, an addiction. So much so, that his wife nearly leaves him. He just has to get the car ready for the Nationals. Eddie's kids grow up around him, but he doesn't notice. Every evening and every weekend, there is Eddie with his legs sticking out from under the car, banging on this, wrenching on that, polishing on the other. He spends so much time under his GTX he could die there, and no one would notice until the stink got real bad.

So the Nationals roll around and Eddie finishes the car. Of course, he's been up 72 hours straight to get the thing done in time, and he's got blood oozing out from under his fingernails and he's taking tokes from a big oxygen bottle. The guy's a walking zombie by now, but he loads the car on the trailer, kicking aside a mountain of paper coffee cups and crumpled Camel packs. I mean this car is right.

Eddie makes it to the Nationals without a problem and unloads the car into a parking spot. He stashes the trailer and starts to unwind. He's here. He made it. The bright Ohio sun plays off the flawless Curious Yellow paint and the car sparkles like a jewel. The car pulls long admiring stares from the passing crowd. Eddie's starting to feel less uptight by the minute. His GTX is 100 per cent.

Except for one thing.